A Post Office, A Hotel And A Jail

What more could you ask for in a town you were moving to?  I have a hard time imagining my lifetime goal as that of becoming a miner in the hot HOT desert.  On this day the temps stayed around 105. 

I headed off in my Jeep, taking the same route as before.  There are so many dirt roads going everywhere, I didn't want to get lost.  There is no cell service and GPS maps seem to be wrong.  This time I packed lots of water and food, along with a twelve pack of paper towels in case I needed to spell out SOS.

Right off the bat, wasn't I surprised to find the Santa Cruz river MUCH higher than previously.  Maybe runoff from watering the fields of cotton they are growing here?  I didn't get the carpet wet when I blasted through with my pedal to the medal, but I came VERY close.

Mead Goodloe who oversaw the smelter construction built a huge brick house right in the middle of town.  It became known as The Big House.  Sadly, nothing is left of the town today, only remnants of the smelter.  In this image you can see the train tracks heading around and up the hill.

I did have GPS maps with me in order to find the Sasco Cemetery.  There are no signs. You just have to fly by the seat of your pants.  It's like "I wonder what's down THIS road"!  At last I found the cemetery.  Someone has replaced all the wooden crosses with concrete ones for those that died of the Spanish flu.  The gates were locked up tight with NO Trespassing signs everywhere.

Oh look ... the pictures are actually centering themselves now!!  Sorry, I'm easily amused.

After checking my maps, and knowing I probably wouldn't get close to the smelter, I took a few unmarked dirt trails to see if I could get in through the back gate.  I got close, but no cigar. 

I did find however, a back road to the Rockland Hotel.  It's still standing, but there are large cracks everywhere.  Imagine, someone hauled all those rocks to make this building.  The hotel was on the right with the restaurant being on the left.  It's hard to imagine staying here as the rooms are barely 8 x 8 feet.

 It's a testament to their building skills that this still stands over 100 years later.

 This appears to be the back side of four rooms, each with it's own window!!  Woohoo!

Now to figure out how to get to the smelter.  Again I followed dirt roads here and there until surprisingly I landed right at the smoke stack base.  I'm not really sure how I did that.  Here's the map again so you can see what's left from the pictures I took.

 This is that tiny little black dot that says smoke stack.

This is the store depot out close to the road.  The foundation is spectacular!  Whoever built these rock structures knew what they were doing.

This appears to be the power house and it's HUGE.  All this work and the smelter only stayed open a short three years before shutting down due to money problems.  It was opened up again in 1915 which revitalized the town. Sadly in the winter of 1918, the Spanish flu devastated the entire town.  Everything was destroyed in 1933, along with the railroad.   

I did get nervous in a couple of spots.  I kept a close eye on any cars I spotted, which for a Sunday was rather surprising.  I passed maybe six, with one being a truck and trailer with stuff falling off the back.  I stopped to inspect and gather up everything in case they came back.  He continued on in a huge cloud of dust.  The brick of adobe with Tucson Adobe stamped on it will have a place of honor on my patio.

On our previous trip, Patty had mentioned she should have let me sit up front to take pictures.  If she had, I might not have gone back.  There are several sections of this road past Sasco that are very rough and steep.  On one grade, I was a little quick with the brake, sliding halfway down the gully.  This is a great place to visit but I expect a high clearance vehicle (not that my Jeep is all that high) would be preferable.  

Suddenly there was NO one around.  No cars, no noise, just me and all that dirt!  By the way, this picture shows just how deep the Santa Cruz river was ... the water got up to and a tad over the bottom of the door. 

The journey continues tomorrow as I try to locate the Silverbell Cemetery.  I'll show you the pictures from the day before and explain our big dilemma.