Techatticup Mine Ghost Town NV #1
by Marti Green
Title
Techatticup Mine Ghost Town NV #1
Artist
Marti Green
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Taking a photo trip to Nevada for two weeks getting lots of art photography, Nelson, Nevada (Techatticup, NV) or Eldorado Canyon), A Ghost town. Was the most amazing photoshoot trip I have taken with lots of history in Nevada. Nelson Techatticup Ghost Town, of 1861.
The area surrounding Nelson and Eldorado Canyon was first home to the ancient Ancient Puebloan Indians, and later the Paiutes and Mojave tribes. Living peacefully for hundreds of years, the Indians were intruded upon in 1775, when the Spaniards arrived in the canyon in their constant quest for gold. Founding a small settlement at the mouth of the Colorado River, they called it Eldorado. However, these early Spaniards somehow missed the rich gold veins just beneath the canyon�s flanks, finding silver instead. They soon found that the silver was not in high enough quantities to justify their operations, and moved on.
Seventy-five years later, in the 1850s, a new breed of prospectors began sluicing the many streams feeding into the Colorado River.
For a few years, the miners were able to keep their gold find a relative secret due to the remoteness of the area. However, this all changed in 1858 when the first steamboats began to make their way up the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona. Before long, word spread and miners began to flood the area.
By 1861 miners had discovered the Salvage Vein about five miles up from the Colorado River. The rich, vertically stacked ribbon of gold ran through a steep ridge along one side of the canyon. The miners began at the top of a high hill, cutting down into the vein. Before long, several of the miners formed the Techatticup Mine, supposedly through a series of shady dealings. The name derives from the Paiute Indian word for hungry, a term often heard by early settlers from the starving Indians inhabiting the dry hills. The Techatticup Mine was once owned by Senator George Hearst of California, father of William Randolph Hearst of publishing fame.
Before long the Nelson District was dotted with several mines, including the Gettysburg, Duncan, Solar, Rand, Wall Street, Swabe and Golden Empire Mines in what was to become one of the earliest and richest mining districts in Nevada. The Techatticup Mine, along with the Gettysburg, were the first mines in Nevada to be worked by white men.
Many of prospectors who find their way to the gold field were reportedly Civil War deserters and disagreements and gunfights over gold and women became commonplace. Greed, claim jumping and vigilante justice fueled the fire. Meanwhile, the Techatticup Mine itself was in the midst of feuds over ownership, management and labor disputes, which soon earned it a notorious reputation. At one point the killings in the rowdy canyon, called home to as many as 500 miners, became an almost daily event where even lawmen refused to enter.
Despite the sinister reputation of the mine, the Techatticup was to become the most successful in the area, mining millions of dollars in gold, silver, copper and lead throughout the years. For the next 70 years, miners at the Techatticup Mine dug deeper and deeper into the hard rock, working with picks and shovels in chambers lit by candles.
Uploaded
January 3rd, 2016
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