I lived in Denver for 10 years and spent a lot of time hiking the mountains and looking for ghost towns.
One morning I looked for South London, a ghost town that had a meteoric birth when miners hit a large vein of gold. The population doubled in a month and each month thereafter for a year. Then the vein played out and the miners faded away.
I finally found South London, or what was left of it. It was a row of flattened roofs, a few twisted bedsprings and some broken glass. There was not much to look at, so I decided to go up to the mine, but after a while, I sat on a rock to rest my overworked lungs.
From the corner of my eye I saw a flash of metal in a clump of pine trees about a hundred yards off to the side. I wandered over to see what was there, and it turned out to be a small building. I had caught a reflection from a brass hinge.
From the ground up to the roof, hundreds of side panels from wooden boxes had been used as the building’s siding, each one with three Xs and the word “DYNAMITE” burned into the wood. Those miners had gone through a lot of dynamite, and had used the leftover boxes as paneling.
There were no windows, and the front door had been firmly closed using a hasp lock with a piece of wood wedged into the metal loop. I was tempted to knock, but merely slid the piece of wood out of the hasp, slowly pushed it open and stepped inside.
There was only one bare room and no fireplace or stove. The walls and ceiling were covered in newspaper. Walking to the nearest wall, I saw the front page of The Denver Post announcing that the Lusitania had been sunk, with 1,200 passengers lost. It was dated May 7, 1915. With the exception of some yellowing and a torn edge, it looked almost fresh.
Below the first one was another front page that stated in block letters that Gov. Roosevelt of New York had been nominated for the vice presidency. I sank to my knees to get a closer look and thought, “Wow! This could be fun!”
These were not single pages but whole sections, some an inch thick, nailed firmly to the wall. I looked around the room, trying to understand what I was seeing, and reasoned that these thick newspapers were for insulation, not entertainment. This building probably housed the dynamite during the summer. To keep the heat off, the miners used what was on hand for siding and insulation.
Reading the newspapers, I saw nothing older than 1895 and nothing newer than 1919. My search made me feel like I was back in school. Names that I hadn’t thought of in years popped out from fading columns: William Jennings Bryan; Ty Cobb; Thomas Edison; Pancho Villa; the Kaiser; San Juan Hill.
The light was failing, so I had to be more selective in my readings. I found it easy to stand and read from the ceiling and there I found out how Admiral Dewey had won the Battle of Manila Bay. The McKinley assassination was next and then an article on Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing. There was no order to the dates, and many of the articles were on back pages. Even local stories were fascinating.
With the light almost gone, I knew I had to leave soon or chance getting lost, but I was reluctant because I had only read a fraction of what was there. I knew any library would have much the same information, but there was something magical about reading history while standing in the middle of it. For a brief instant, I even thought about stripping the place clean and taking the papers with me, but I somehow knew this wondrous time capsule was meant for me as a visitor, not an owner.
I wondered if I was the first to have found the building since the miners left a half-century or so earlier, or if other hikers had gaped in wonder as I had — and then quietly left, leaving everything as they found it. Closing the door, I carefully slipped the twig back in the lock and began planning for my return trip to finish my readings.
But I never returned. All these years later, I hope it’s still there, just as I left it. But somehow, I don’t think I really want to know.
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