“It’s alive and waiting for you. Ready to kill you if you go too far. The sun will get you, or the cold at night. A thousand ways the desert can kill”
The Mojave is a desert of wind, temperature extremes, Joshua Trees and solitude. When most people hear the word ‘desert,’ images of tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes and bleak desolation typically come to mind. In reality, the Mojave is anything but a wasteland. Amongst the sand and sagebrush lie many places of beauty and wonder, and of historic importance. Some are the result of time and the elements, some are the result of man and his efforts to live in the Mojave, both in recent and prehistoric times. Let’s go see what we can find.
Search as I did, there was little to no information that I could find regarding what the building was used for, who owned it, a name, nothing. But it's pretty cool, and my guess is that at one time it held milling machinery inside, as there are plenty of mines in the nearby hills.
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Palmetto dates back to the 1860s, coming into existence after the discovery of a rich vein of silver ore by H.W. Bunyard, Thomas Israel and T.W. McNutt in 1866. Unfortunately, the vein played out within two months and the miners moved on to the next boom town.
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I like Beatty. Whenever I plan a trip to Death Valley, if I'm not camping, I'll stay overnight in Beatty. The town was named after "Old Man" Montillus Murray Beatty, a Civil War veteran who bought a ranch along the Amargosa River just north of the future townsite. Over the years, it's had its share of ups and downs, seen several railroads, had its own newspaper (the Beatty Bullfrog Miner), several fancy hotels and casinos.
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As I pulled into "town," I spotted the mill ruins off to the west of 267, up on the side of a long hill. A few other ruins were located on the east side of Scotty's Castle Road. I headed over to the mill ruins first, to see what I could find.
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Take U.S. Route 95, Veterans Memorial Highway, south for a few miles from Beatty, Nevada, and look towards the east. You'll spot some colorful hills and a group of very interesting cement building ruins. I had seen a few pictures of the place a while back and decided to check it out the next time I was in the area. Well, I was in the area on Thursday, October 8 of 2015, so check it out I did.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
