Tracking Down Ghosts

It was past time for an adventure, but with all the rain and big thunder storms, it was hard to find a break long enough to take this trek.  You're not going to believe it, but I drove right through Tombstone without even stopping.  I was on a mission and I knew the road would be long and slow, kind of like in the old days of wagon transportation.

Just outside of Tombstone you can see the rather flat tan line that runs through the picture.  That's the railroad bed heading East.  I would follow it for some distance.

As you can see, everything is green with grass being knee high.  GREAT camouflage for snakes, so watch your step.  After taking a wrong turn and wandering for about 30 minutes, I finally got on the right track.  Did you know every street around is named after a character from Tombstone?  Curly Bill Street, Behan Street, Holliday Drive ... I found them all before getting back on the right road.

At last I wandered into Gleeson.  They have a great cemetery here, although there is no place to park.  I just pulled over and hoped I wouldn't get stuck.  There are still remnants of the last few big rains.

It is surprisingly huge, although most graves are no longer visible.  There are only 15 live humans staying close by and no one really keeps it up.  

There is however a long list of names that has been accumulated along with the reasons for their passing.  Ptomaine poisoning, accidental shooting of a 7 yr old, many newborn children, some murdered, two suicides and one struck by lightning.  Whopping cough, tuberculosis and the flu caught many by surprise.

John Short was born in 1848 and was buried in 1919, a cattle rancher in the area.  

Most of the men however, were miners who came from Italy.  This area was originally settled by the Indians who mined turquoise.  In fact, that was the first name of the town ... Turquois.  It was made famous by the infamous Tiffany and Company who started a turquoise craze in the late 1880's, causing the Indian mines to be reopened.

That lasted until 1890 when John Gleeson arrived and found copper.  He registered his claim and opened the Copper Belle Mine.  

The little town of Gleeson was built just down the hill from the old townsite of Turquois.  Soon other mines followed, the Silver Belle, Pejon and the Defiance.  The Post Office was established in 1900 and served about 500 people.  The copper mines boomed during World War I, supplying copper to the government.  Evidence of the mines remains today.

Besides miners, businessmen and women arrived in Gleeson, including Yee Wee.  Born in China, she was apparently a good cook, opening a small restaurant to feed the miners.  She died at 86 years of age and was buried here.  "See You Tomorrow" she said.

Also buried here is the last resident of Courtland (just down the road a piece).  One of the local residents remembers his grandfather telling a story about coming out of the Bono Saloon (more on that later) very drunk and not able to ride his horse home.  He tied his horse in a small corral and slept off the fire water on the ground nearby.  To his horror the next morning upon waking, he had tied his horse inside a fenced plot in the cemetery.  Oh the stories!!

Here's the town proper, or what was left of it in the 1930's.  That's the saloon on the right.  In 1912 a fire burned down 28 buildings.  They rebuilt and it lasted until the 1940's.

    

Sometimes when you wander around ghost towns, you meet the nicest people.  We will visit Gleeson tomorrow.

On a side note, this time I took plenty of water, but what I needed was a shovel.