Looking for a Ghost Town

 

Looking for a Ghost Town

One day while at Patagonia Lake State Park, we decided to drive an off-road we’d been down the last time we visited, but planned to turn off on a fork we saw the first time, but elected not to take.  This time, we would take the road less traveled in search of a ghost town.

As we started off on our explorations, we headed down a very well maintained dirt road. This was before the fork to the road less traveled, and we appreciated the good road while we had it!

After the fork in the road, we came upon the ghost town of Harshaw Township.  All that was left of the town were a couple of buildings, or to be more accurate, portions of a couple of buildings, as you can see above.  I did a bit of research on Harshaw, AZ, and found that the town was settled in the 1870s, and it became a mining town.  By the end of the 1800s, Harshaw mines were among the largest producers of ore in Arizona.  It had both boon times and bad times, depending on the price of the silver ore being mined.  By the 1960s, the last of the mines had closed for the last time, and the town became a ghost town.

As we drove further down the road, we came upon what was left of another ghost town, Duquense  (Du-KEN-see), Arizona.  Just about the only thing left of the town was a house we couldn’t get close to (due to the barbed wire around it) and the house in the next couple of images.  I found the window area in the above image visually very interesting.  There is a window, with part of a wall around it, but you can see through the bottom portion of the wall all the way to the forest on the other side of the house.  And, looking up through the window, gave you a view of the roof rafters, some of which look to be missing.

As we continued around the other side of the house, Jeff and I looked into a couple of windows.  One shows an empty room, again with some ceiling or roof rafters missing, and the other had a lovely stone or concrete fireplace along the one wall.  I would have loved to have gone inside, but it looked too rickety to me.  I loved the patina on the walls.  I can imagine them being brightly colored when people lived in this home.

As we looped back toward our campsite at Patagonia Lake, we passed an old abandoned mine.  Perhaps some of the homes we saw housed people who worked at this mine.  I also couldn’t resist walking up to the mine and looking up at the shoot where the silver ore came down back in the day, as they say!

Enjoy!

A Walk Around Patagonia Lake

 

A Walk Around Patagonia Lake

Last year, we discovered Patagonia Lake on a camping trip and decided to return this year.  Patagonia lake is very close to Nogales, AZ, but feels like it’s a million miles away.  Nogales, which is right on the border with Mexico is very desert like.  Patagonia Lake is a only a relatively few hundred feet higher in elevation, but it incredibly green to Nogales’ dusty tan.

Do you think this little duck knows railroad tracks run below the area where he’s paddling along?  Before there was a Patagonia Lake, the water that flowed through this area was Sonorita Creek.  The Native Americans had homesteads along the river, and fish from the creek provided meals for them.  As time went on, the United States purchased this land from Mexico, as part of the Gadsden Purchase (1854).  As mining and ranching expanded in the area, the New Mexico and Arizona Railroad added a track in their established railway lines between Benson, AZ and Nogales, AZ.  Over the years, floods took a toll on the railway, and by 1962, most of the line was abandoned.  In 1968,  the Patagonia Lake Recreation Association, made up of local ranchers, businessmen and government agencies created Patagonia Lake, leaving a small portion of the railway line beneath the lake.  In 1975, Patagonia Lake became an Arizona State Park, and today hosts camping, fishing, picnicing and water sports on its shores or in the water.

Max doesn’t know or care about any of the above history – he just knows that he does like to go in the water after all, and was fond of taking drinks and chasing after the sticks Jeff tossed in the lake for him to fetch.  We learned that, to Max, lakes are A-OK, but the ocean is not at all to his liking!!

Isn’t this a lovely dragonfly perched on a slim, little twig in the water?  I must give credit to Jeff for this image.  I couldn’t see the little guy to save my soul, so he took my camera and got this shot!

And, here’s the bridge we walked across to start our stroll around Patagonia Lake.  If you look closely, you can see a little duck in the reflection of the bridge’s support in the lower right side of the image.  So peaceful…..

Enjoy!