Here we are by the side of the highway, just a few miles west of Milford, Utah. There is a monument here telling about the town of Frisco, Utah, which was here in the 1800s. It was spread out to our right between here and the high mountain, nearby. This is hard to imagine that a large town like that used to be here and now there is practicaly nothing!
If we continued on down this long highway, another 120 miles, through Wah Wah Valley, (where a space station may be built in the future), we would come to Garrison, Utah and Baker, Nevada, where Lehman's Cave National Monument is located. The Horn Silver Mine was right next to the city of Frisco, Utah. If you have a chance to go to your city library or your school library you can probably find books on Frisco & the Horn Silver Mine. If you want to buy the books hit your "Back" button and find the picture of books & click on them.There is a dirt road which goes over to some old mining shacks, just to the left of the road you came in on, from the main highway. We walk along it, and stop and look at the old wooden shacks. Very interesting. They were used in the silver mine operation. We walk on a little farther, to see what that bunch of net wire is doing in the middle of the road. It surrounds a hole in the ground, about 10 feet in diameter. We get as close as we dare, and look over the net wire and down into the hole. BE CAREFUL! Don't get too close because it is extremely deep, and goes straight down. Later, in Minersville I talked with an old miner, who used to work there. He said there used to be a large, heavy timber frame, built over that mine shaft. When he went to work each day, he and other miners would ride in an elevator bucket, down into that mine shaft, straight down to the 900 foot level (under ground), then they would get off,and go down a horizontal mine shaft a few hundred feet, where they were working. He said that main vertical shaft went on straight down a few hundred feet below where he worked.We walked back to our car and got a cold pop, then walked up the old dirt tracks, straight ahead of the car. We found several horizontal mine shafts. There was a huge open pit where some of them had caved in. It is a very intreging place to tour, but you have to really be alert, and cautious, and extra careful all the time. It is dangerous. If you get a chance to go there and see it real, then I suggest you get a local guide to go with you. Besides keeping you safer, they can tell you lots of things about it. There are no guides there, but you can ask in Milford or Minersville.We did a lot of exploring around the big open pit. Then we walked around it and on up higher on the mountain. We came to another neat horizontal mine shaft. We had our flashlights, and walked in, very carefully checking every step we made. It was about 10 feet high so we didn't have to stoop over, but walked right in. We walked clear to the end of it,about 200 feet, to a solid rock wall end, where the miners had stopped mining it, evidently it was mostly rock and no silver or other metals. So they probably started another shaft in another place on the mountain. There were a number of shafts that we saw on this tour. We went up quite high on the side of the mountain. There were some old buildings (mining shacks & storage buildings, etc. There was a large derick-like frame made of huge timbers built over a vertical mine shaft. This is where the miners also would get into the metal square bucket, which was connected to large cables, all very much like an elevator. This would take them down into the mine where they worked, then bring them back up after work. They even lowered donkeys down into the mine shaft to pull the little carloads of ore from the horizontal tunnels over to where it could be put into the elevator to be lifted to the surface. As we stood right by the side of the opening at the top of the long vertical mine shaft, which had wooden railings, etc. to keep us from falling in, we could smell a very strange odor in the slight breeze of air coming up out of the mine shaft, from hundreds of feet below. It was a mine gas smell. It gave us a weird feeling, like, "This smell is coming from a long ways down!" We looked all around at all the things that had been built many years ago to bring thousands of tons of dirt, rocks, & ore up out of the mountain, to be processed and worked to get some silver, etc. out of it. This whole tour is such an educational experience, besides being so very interesting. On our way back to our car we stopped at the cemetery. It had many graves, & still a lot of headstones, although some of the wooden ones had rotted away. We noticed that there were an unusually large number of infant, child, & teen graves. I'm sure living was hard back then, and a large number of people died young. We saw foundations & a few shacks of the remains of the stores, homes, etc. of old Frisco. It was kind of hard to imagine that a city of 6,000 people once lived & worked there. Frisco Peak is at the top of the mountain, and is 9,725 feet above sea level. We hope you have enjoyed this old mine tour with us. If you have any questions, comments, or other information about Frisco, Utah & the Horn Silver Mine please e-mail us at starsand@net utah.com If you have a chance to actually go there & see all these things for yourself, here are some precautions: 1. Always take a guide with you,who knows the area, & can help protect you from getting too near dangerous areas, such as open vertical mine shafts, hundreds & even thousands of feet deep. 2. Always take plenty of drinking water with you. Be sure to have some water with you even when walking up the mountain. 3. Wear good shoes or hiking boots & protective clothing, so you won't get scratched on weeds, brush, & barbed wire. Also a hat to shield your head from the sun. 4. If possible have a cell phone with you. 5. Never be alone there. Always have at least a guide with you.6. It is always a good idea to let friends, relatives, or someone know where you are going, before going there. 7. A flashlight is necessary if you go into any of the horizontal tunnels. 8. When going on any of these out of the way tours in Utah always take, in your car, blankets, food & water, first aid supplies, and any other emergency supplies. THANKS, AND HAVE LOTS OF FUN ON ALL YOUR OTHER TOURS, TOO!!
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