City Of The Dead - Silverbell

My adventure to find the little 1870's ghost town of Silverbell continued down an even worse rocky road, if that's possible, crossing over deep gullies one after another.  I thought I might even get a chance to use my 4-wheel drive!!

I'm not sure what the altitude was, but I've never seen so many saguaro cactus in one spot before.  If indeed they grow one inch a year, this one is over 350 years old.  Can you imagine the sights it has seen?  They do look a little worse for wear since the monsoon rains have decided to pass us by.

There must have been a little water in the area because many of these fishhook cactus were starting to bloom.  It's pretty neat to look across the desert and see a bright splash of orange.  It was also nice what I DIDN'T see ... and that was people.  There wasn't a single car or truck out there, probably meaning I wasn't the brightest crayon in the box due to the heat.

I must have said a hundred times ... just LOOK at that cactus!!!  Who in the world decided to come out here with his donkey and pick ax to wander around the mountain looking for rocks?  They must have come in the wintertime.  

That would be Charles O. Brown from Tucson.  There were lots of small mines around, but none produced anything of great worth.  Their solution was to consolidate several mines together, and so the 1900's version of Silver Bell was born, so to speak.

I've spent many an hour trying to dig in the dirt around my house, and I'm here to tell you it's hard as a rock, mostly because it IS all rock.  There's no sand in THIS desert!  So when I came across what looked like a headframe to a mine (although hard to see, there are HUGE timbers over a big hole), I'm just wondering how in the world they did that!!

At last, by my not so accurate calculations, I found a turnoff that I thought might be the direction to go.  Gosh, how could these wagon trails get any worse!!  I bounced down a little hill for maybe a quarter mile when I saw a cross.  X marks the spot!

I had finally located the Silverbell cemetery.  There are a lot of crosses here and many MANY more graves marked with rocks.  

More than half of the crosses had fallen over.  How sad for those who died here from the Spanish Flu.  It completely decimated the town, pretty much putting an end to mining in the area at that time.  I walked around for about thirty minutes trying to find the original town site, but there is no indication of it's location. 

This grave had no cross, but possibly had a casket which collapsed.  The hole is pretty deep.  Then again, someone might have dug it up.  

I spent the next thirty minutes going around and putting every cross back up, piling up rocks to hold them in place.   Just a little bit of respect for those hardy pioneers who came here first.

This is the only grave site that had any indication of who was buried there.  Mary Ann O'Toole had to be tough to come here.  She lived 63 years.  Although I tried to find more information, I struck out.  Here's your challenge for the day.  Can you find any info on her?

By this time I had gone through three bottles of water and my Jeep AC couldn't keep up with that 106 degrees.  I was just HOT!!  Time to head on back, if I can figure out which way to go!!  Sometimes when I'm looking for stuff, I forget to remember from where I came!  My dad always told me to look backwards often to know how to get back where you came from.  Lucky for me, this cactus showed me the way.

I'm not sure what THIS one was saying!!!

More cactus blooming beauties on the way out.  

Finally back home, I unloaded my treasures.  Don't laugh, but I've always wanted a saguaro spine.  That's what's left when they are dead and gone.  You cannot take any LIVING cactus, but according to the internet (they never lie) you can pick up DEAD things if not in a National or State Park.

Sadly, no spines were found.  THIS however, made up for it.  This was the adobe brick that fell off the back of that guy's truck.  It says Tucson Adobe, so obviously it's not old, but a treasure nonetheless.

THIS on the other hand is a magnificent specimen of desert dweller treasures.  It's the best kind too ... a DEAD cholla cactus that can no longer shoot arrows at you when you walk by!  It's just so amazing to see how they grow under all those needles!  It will have a place of honor in my back yard as a reminder of the City of the Dead, Silverbell..  It may even make it into my house!

 

Oh .. I almost forgot.  On the way back with Patty and Dan, we pulled in to Cracker Barrel for an early dinner.  One of my all time favorite restaurants.  This huge meal of fried fish, cole slaw, the BEST mac n cheese, along with biscuits was all of $10.00  I ate every single bite!!

So after 85 miles, lots of heat and great satisfaction, I returned from the City of the Dead.  I can't sit still for long ... there will be another ghost town trip in the near future.