More From Calico
It's time for a few more photos from the old mining town of Calico, way out in the Mojave Desert. See my first post here. Oh, and thanks to JG's comment, it might be helpful if I mentioned that these photos are from the early-to-mid 1950's!
If you like heat and rocks, then Calico is the place for you. The ore carts might be rusty, but somebody has added new timbers to the little trestle bridge. Ghosts! The most distant building looks like it was built in the 1950's rather than the 1880's.
The main drag in Calico is not exactly the Las Vegas Strip. I like the turquoise car parked in front of the little church (or whatever that building is) in the distance! 
These two are definitely up to something.
A few pink plastic flamingos would really liven things up. I guess that is a schoolhouse, not a church. See the swing set?
Those eroded adobe structures are probably all that was left of most of the buildings at Calico before Walter Knott began restoring some and adding others.
10 comments:
Looks an awful lot like "Calico" Fred Noller in that third pic!
If you say so, Chris! He must have been a Calico regular?
The building in question is the schoolhouse.
At least part of it is original, you can see it via the tour. We went on the "Haunted Calico" tour at night, we did not go inside, the guide brought us up to the front and told stories about the former occupants.
I forgot the stories, but the guide was a pretty girl, I remembered that.
When I visited as a child, there was a "mine train" trolley thingy that you rode up from the parking lot.
Wheelchair access and liability lawsuits killed that thing, so now everyone walks up a long, looong, well graded path from the parking to the town. The trolley lift is still there in mothballs. (in 2004).
The wood buildings are mostly reconstructions, fairly sympathetic to the old style. Lots of trees that are obvious fakes (real dead trees stuck into drilled holes). Nothing could survive naturally to the age of those stumps in that climate in those locations, and I doubt that the settlers were up to watering trees. Just climbing up and down that hill in the heat would take a lot out of you in a day.
Calico is a great place, whether you agree with the reconstructions or "Knott", the town still shows enough "real life" conditions in an extremely tough place, creates real respect for the people who lived there so long ago, without A/C or bottled water. Greed is a powerful motivator.
You can argue that Las Vegas does the same thing, but I still prefer Calico.
Thank you for these pictures, Major, not sure how old they are, but Calico looked much the same in 2004 at my last visit.
JG
Thanks for the great comment, JG! You're right, I neglected to say when these photos were taken. Fixed!
Calico looks like a brutal place to live. I just drove through a part of the Mojave, and kept thinking about the miners and pioneers who passed through with wagons and mules or oxen. How the hell did they do it? I hope to go back to Calico someday, it's been many years.
The last time I went to Calico, my son was 10...he's now 34! I should go back - it's a cool place.
Wow, that ceratinly does look like Calico Fred!
Marshall of Calico - and Calico's right hand man to Walter Knott and designer Paul Von Klieben.
You've got a rare shot there, Major.
Ken, thanks for that great info!!
Just the setting is humbling... and astonishes me people would try to mine there back then. Another bunch I'm pouring over with amazement. Thanks Maj!
its hard to imagine what they went thru back then living in a place so "wild"
we once visited an Indian reservation in Tennessee and i remember thinking the same thing, how it must have been without any modern conveniences
this looks like a great place to visit :-)
its hard to imagine what they went thru back then living in a place so "wild"
we once visited an Indian reservation in North Carolina and i remember thinking the same thing, how it must have been without any modern conveniences
this looks like a great place to visit :-)
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