5/6/2023 0 Comments Calico ghost town![]() ![]() However, the couple returned in 1916, making their old store their home. They prospered briefly, but when the silver market began to decline, the couple left Calico in 1899. When she was 18 years old, she married John Robert Lane, and the two opened a general store that provided not only provisions to the mining population but also cloth, nails, and hardware. ![]() To get to school, Lucy would have to slide down the steep slope in the morning and make the long tiring hike up the hill afterward. When Lucy was just ten years old, she moved with her parents, two brothers, and a sister to nearby Bismarck, which overlooked the town of Calico. One of the most often sighted spirits is that of Lucy Bell King Lane, a woman who spent nearly seventy years of her life in Calico. John and Lucy Lane, courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California If Calico’s rich history, meticulous restoration, and gunfights aren’t enough entertainment for you, there’s more!! Allegedly, this old town is haunted by several lingering spirits. ![]() Its reasonable admission price and prices “inside” the town at its restaurants, shops, and additional attractions, make it one of California’s best tourist values. In the canyons below the town, a full-service campground, camping cabins, and bunkhouse provide the opportunity for extended stays. to dusk, featuring numerous shops, restaurants, and other attractions. The Calico Townsite is open daily from 8:00 a.m. The narrow-gauge railroad operates within the town limits, the hard rock silver mine provides underground exploration, buildings such as the schoolhouse, blacksmith shop, and saloons can be explored, as well as a live gold panning operation. Today, walking tours are available with Calico historians who examine the life of miners during its heyday. The false front stores and saloons, towered by the craggy mountains above and overlooking the desert valley below, provide an otherwise unobtainable glimpse into Calico’s rich history. Though Calico is no longer a crumbling ghost town thanks to Walter Knott, it most definitely gives the visitor a feel of what life might have been like during those old mining days. In November 1966, Knott donated Calico to San Bernardino County, and Calico now operates as one of the many San Bernardino County Regional Parks. ![]() Though the original townsite has been mostly rebuilt by new and restored buildings, one-third of the town is original, and the remaining newer buildings were carefully reconstructed to recreate the spirit of Calico’s Old West past. One of the rebuilt attractions is the one-mile short line “Calico & Odessa” railroad which loops through steep canyons and hills past old mines and buildings north of Calico. Knott’s time spent there, no doubt, influenced his decision to buy the town and restore it. He even helped to build a silver mill in Calico at the time of World War I. Its owner, Walter Knott, spent much time in Calico as a boy, as his uncle lived there. In 1950 Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park bought the townsite and began restorations. However, by 1935, the town was entirely abandoned and left to Mother Nature’s elements in the Mojave Desert. The narrow-gauge Calico railroad was dismantled just after the turn of the century, and the town officially died in 1907 with the end of borax mining in the district.Īround 1917 a cyanide plant was built in Calico, recovering values from the Silver King Mine dumps, and the town was revived. However, when the price of silver dropped from $1.31 an ounce to 63 cents during the mid-1890s, Calico became a ghost of its former self. Soon it connected the stamp mill, near Daggett, to the Silver King mine by the ten-mile narrow-gauge Calico Railroad.īy the late 1800s, Calico was bustling with prospectors searching for their fortunes, and the Calico Mining District became one of the richest in the state.ĭuring its heyday, the district would produce $86 million in silver and $45 million in borax. Gaining a population of some 2,500, the town supported two dozen saloons and gambling dives that never closed, as well as more legitimate establishments such as a church, a public school, a dance school, and a literary society, along with dozens of retail businesses.Īfter 1884 many of the mines consolidated, and late in 1888, the Oro Grande Mining Company erected an even larger stamp mill for $250,000 on the north bank of the Mojave River. Later the same year, a fire destroyed much of the camp, but Calico again boomed in 1884 as additional silver discoveries were made. The weekly Calico Print appeared in October 1882, and a local stamp mill was built to begin working ores.īut in the spring of 1883, many of the local miners left Calico when borax was discovered three miles east at Borate. ![]()
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