Earache

Gold. When gold was discovered here, the companies that owned the mines needed experienced miners as none were in the US at the time. So, they enticed the English, Irish and Welsh experienced miners to come here. Later, other nationalities came, but it was all UK initially. Funny, if the old western movies were accurately done, most of the characters would have had English, Irish and Welsh accents. It's amazing how many of them were here. Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_County_Regulators#:~:text=The Lincoln County Regulators%2C or,County War in New Mexico. The Regulators were famous and led by John Tunstall from England. The movie "Young Guns" was about this group.

Found a better pic of the Welsh Wall in it's heyday. The two big buildings are still there today. One is still a church and the other is the Police Station (big blue building in pics above)

And this is the Welsh Wall. Portions of it are modern but you can see the old portion still in there. Couple of old pics showing the Wall in the 1880's...

And of course there;s an old Mason's Lodge - still in use - amongst the mines...

More gold mines..

Hill above town. Old gold mines all over the place...

But there are lots of examples where the walls / foundations are still in use. The Welsh made walls have no mortar whereas more modern walls here do have mortar...

Had to run to get the mail, so I snapped a few pics of the Welsh made walls in town. More walls than York, I tell ya! A lot of the foundations no longer have buildings on them and are in a state of ruin..

Yes. But you'll find them all over the place as a lot of Welsh must have left Wales for the USA back in the day. Lots of German in Pennsylvania and Ohio as well. My grandfather immigrated to Ohio from Germany as did my wife's family. Even our town here has a wall known as the Welsh Wall. It's was built by the Welsh stone masons that immigrated here. It's a retaining wall that was made from local rocks and uses no mortar - just stacked stone. Built in the 1880's and is still there - so they were skilled workers who knew whar they were doing. I'll get out later today and take some pics of these walls and foundations and post here. Many of the gold miners here were from England, Ireland and Wales as they worked in mines there and were skilled at mining. So lots of Welsh influence here.

Yes, moved here 6 years ago. Prior to that we lived in Indianapolis, Ohio, Montana, Iowa and Pennsylvania. But this is my last move - not going anywhere else as I'm getting too old to move.

Printed?!?!? It was probably chiseled.

It looked like it's been there for a good while - very dust covered and had a lot of junk stored inside of it. I rode just over 300 miles today and went through one modern town (Breckenridge) - nothing but open space out here and that's what I like most about living here. There are untold miles of dirt roads and trails to ride, most don't really go anywhere, lots of dead ends. But it's still fun to ride around and check them out - might see something cool.

It is pretty cool living out in the boonies..until you need something like groceries, fuel, etc. Then it sucks as the nearest shop of any kind is 30 miles away. But still, it's worth the extra effort.

Three on the clutch and one on the brake - weird, but it's a hold over habit from my motocross days. Always ride with one finger on the brake lever as well.

This whole State is a ghost town.

That's it - just a quick blast near home and I'm back.

Almost back home and passed above the lake at Dillon....

Rode around the lake to find teh stream that feeds into the lake. Passes by yet another abandoned gold mine...

Tried to find an off road way around Hoosier Pass with no luck. Found a cool lake though and the waterfall that feeds it...

Back down the hill to Como again I go. This is the train depot, eating house and hotel that are obviously not in use anymore. Shame. Not a lot else happening in Como these days...

My goal today was to go over Boreas Pass and into Breckenridge from the south - but the Pass was closed due to Covid-19 safety measures. WTF?

Next stop was the Train Roundhouse in Como. Wish I could have gotten closer but it was fenced off.....

..got the bike out and went for a scoot. Passed the Cline Mansion, looks like it could use a bit of paint. Built in 1928 by Foster Cline (rancher) Bet it was soemthing to see in it's day...

Nope, entire town is fenced off due to lead poisons being all over the place. Very toxic area.

Time to steer the Big Blue Turd for home anyway. More on the next ride....