More remnants of the past - kinda makes one think.

Not that long ago, in  the 1870 -1880's, they found silver in Tombstone, yes that Tombstone. But they did not have water which was required to get the silver out of the ore, so they carried the ore by mule train 9 miles to a spot on the Verde river where there was water, Smelters and whatever processor plants were built on a large scale all with the purpose of making everyone rich.

This was a far rougher place than Tombstone - Charleston (the town) and Millville where the facilities were.  They used mercury, and all sorts of other bad things in the processing, and killed their workers in many ways, not the least of which was gunshot.  In Tombstone one was required to check their guns, but Charleston, poster child city of the NRA, had no such requirement.  So long as a body had a gun in hand and no entry wounds in the back - it was not a murder.

 


It was a big place and is virtually all gone now, because when the mines in Tombstone went down far enough, they hit water, flooded, were pumped and now the mules were given pink slips, the smelting operation was moved to Tombstone and Charleston was dismantled and abandoned.

 

Today there are some massive stone foundations that once were the base for the smelters, a bunch of slag and some petroglyphs which were there before we came and fucked it up. 

It was, as the pictures show, a beautiful sunny day. We enjoyed it fully.