Sunday, September 8, 2024

2021-08-11: Visiting Montana, Little Bighorn Battlefield, and Custer's Last Stand

Welcome back friends, RV'ers, Geocachers, Jeepers, and fellow travelers. When we last left you, we had just arrived to our next RV park in Bridger, Montana. The last time I was this far up in the northwest was way back in 2008 as a truck driver. While driving a big rig you don't get to see too much except out the windshield. This time we have the GeoJeep to get around and do some sightseeing. Today we start out at the historical Little Big Horn and Custer's Last Stand. So click and follow along as we tour these sacred grounds...


The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument Park (GC6F9E) covers an area of about 765 acres. It consists of the Battle of Little Bighorn that took place on June 25th & 26th, 1876 where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Calvary fell against the combined Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho force. It also includes the Custer National Cemetery and the battlefield site of the Reno-Benteen skirmish, about 3 miles southeast, with the Cheyenne-Arapaho warriors.



Following the fall of Custer and the 7th Calvary, the 11th Infantry led by Captain George K Sanderson buried Custer and his men on the battlefield where they fell. He also constructed the first monument on the site. From his official report dated April 7th, 1879 he wrote:

    "I accordingly built a mound out of cord wood filled in the center with all the horse bones I could find on the field. In the center of the mound I dug a grave and interred all the human bones that could be found, in all, parts of four or five different bodies. This grave was then built up with wood for four feet above ground. The mound is ten feet square and about eleven feet high; is built on the highest point immediately in rear of where Gen'l Custer's body was found."

In July of 1881, Lieutenant Charles F Roe and the 2nd Calvary built the granite memorial which still stands today on top of Last Stand Hill. About 220 soldiers remains were reinterred around the base of the new memorial, but left the markers in place where they had fallen.



In 1890, the stakes which marked where the soldiers had fallen were replaced with the marble markers you see today. Starting in 1999, the first of many red granite markers for the Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho Warriors were set in place where they fell.


To make it easier to spot for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit each year, Custer's marker was given a black background. Custer's remains had been reinterred to West Point long ago back in 1877, as well as many of the other officers remains were moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas or cemeteries across the country as requested by their families.



Custer National Cemetery was first designated as a U.S. National Cemetery on January 29, 1979 to protect the soldiers graves buried there. In December of 1886 it was re-designated as the National Cemetery of Custer's Battlefield Reservation to include soldiers graves of other wars. Eventually the name was shortened to Custer National Cemetery. Buried soldiers of the 7th Calvary, whos remains were discovered on the battlefield after the 1881 memorial was built, were reinterred here and listed as unknown.



The remains from 25 other cemeteries were transferred to here when frontier forts closed at the end of the Indian Wars. The fallen from many famous battles, Fetterman, Wagon Box, Hayfield, Big Hole and Bear Paw, now rest here.

Until reaching capacity in 1978, this cemetery accepted reservations for veterans and their spouses. There are soldiers here who fought in the Indian Wars, Spanish American War, World Wars I & II, Korea, and Vietnam.

There's a great book written by James Donovan that I highly recommend. "A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn: The Last Great Battle of the American West" is a great book put together from survivor accounts, official reports, and battlefield evidence. We listen to a lot of audio books while traveling down the road and this was one of our favorites. After listening to the Park Ranger give a summarized play-by-play of the battle, the welcome center recommended this book. We listened to it over the next couple of days as we drove around Montana.

After our visit to the battlefield site, we decided to go out geocaching and pickup some new Montana counties. The first one was also in Big Horn County in the town of Hardin. It was a travel bug hotel cache (GC4F5XD) located near the office to an RV park.

On the way to our next geocache, we crossed over into Yellowstone County. Along the side of Highway 47 was this old farmhouse that I just had to pull over and get a photo.


The geocache (GCKNZ4) was near a boat access ramp along the Big Horn River at I-94 and Highway 47. The geocache is called Manual Lisa. A little history lesson from the cache description:

    "Manual Lisa was a Cuban native. He lived 1772-1820. He was called Nebr, first white settler. He came up the Missouri in 1807 to start a fur trading venture. He built the 1st Fort Lisa on the Big Horn River. This fort was also called Manual Fort or Fort Manual. Unfortunately, he had to abandon the fort due to pressure from the British and the Indians. He was married to Mary Hampstead Keeney of St. Louis and they traveled between St. Louis and the Bighorn. She assisted the Yellowstone Expedition which had established its headquarters near the Lisa Trading Post. Manual Lisa saw himself as an Indian benefactor not an exploiter. He wrote to William Clark in 1817 (three years before he died) that he had distributed various seeds to help the Indians grow things. Some of these seeds were pumpkins, beans, turnips, and potatoes. He also loaned them traps and arranged for black smithing as needed.

    "There is a stone in this area (unfortunately they are on private land) where he carved his name M. Lisa-1807 and another stone with Colter 1810. They are somewhere around the mouth of the Bighorn. The Bighorn and the Yellowstone rivers flow together in this area. There are pictures of these stones at the cafe/casino in Custer, Mt. The pictures were taken in 1920 and you can clearly see the names. The Chamber of Commerce in Hardin, Mt. is trying to put more information together on historical sites in this area."

Well I didn't get to see the 200 year old names carved in the stone. But I did get a good view of the Big Horn River and an old bridge around the corner.





Going east on I-94, we cross over into Treasure County. Just off the Hysham exit is the Memorial Vale Cemetery and our next geocache (GC51TNW). There was a caretaker out there installing a new headstone. After watching for a few minutes, he didn't seem to care much about our activity. So I jumped out of the GeoJeep real quick, found the cache, signed to log, and went on our way.
 


And finally, the last geocache was further down I-94 into Rosebud County. Just a quick earthcache at a highway rest area (GC1GCXE). Now on back to the motorhome to end the day. Thanks for riding along. 

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: FacebookMeWeGabRedditTwitterGETTRInstagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

Sunday, August 18, 2024

2021-08-10: Geocaching Through Wyoming and Into Montana Reaching Our Destination

Well we woke up this morning at the Wyoming Welcome Center just south of Cheyenne. The goal for today is to reach our destination in Bridger, Montana. Hopefully along the way we'll have opportunities for some sightseeing and picking up new counties for our geocaching map. So click along and join us. What did we discover today?


So we set out from the Welcome Center and headed north up I-25. Just over an hour later, I exit into the Dyer Junction Rest Area located in Platte County. After finding the geocache (GC7FP6B) for the county, we read the many information boards and took some photos. To the east we got a distant view of Laramie Peak.


The next four paragraphs are from one of the Historical Information Boards:

    As you journey through Wyoming, you are one of the countless travelers who has looked out to the west and seen the granite rising of Laramie Peak. Near Scottsbluff, Nebraska, approximately 80 miles east of Dyer Junction, emigrants witnessed their first view of the western mountains with the hazy silhouette of Laramie Peak. Although the sight may have been awe-inspiring for the emigrants traveling on the Oregon and Mormon Trails, it also indicated the start of their journey into the mountains ~ a much more treacherous expedition than that across the plains.

    In their diaries, emigrants and other travelers usually noted seeing Laramie Peak. In Chapter IX of his 1891 Roughing It, Mark Twain wrote, "We passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on the seventh morning out we found ourselves in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow (apparently) looming vast and solitary ~ a deep, dark, rich indigo blue in hue, so portentously did the old colossus frown under his beetling brows of storm-cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality, but he only seemed removed a little beyond the low ridge to our right."

    Laramie Peak, which stands at 10,272 feet above sea level, is the highest Wyoming point in the Laramie Range. Part of the central Rocky Mountains, the Laramie Range, originally called the Black Hills, reaches for 125 miles from the Colorado-Wyoming border to the North Platte River near Casper.

    Visible from over 100 miles away, Laramie Peak is named for the early French trapper, Jacques La Ramie. While on a beaver trapping expedition, La Ramie vanished from what is now the Laramie River. Upon learning of his disappearance, other trappers in the region named the river after him. Soon the nearby mountains, plains, and many other areas also took the name.

Driving further up into Converse County, we stopped at the Orin Junction Rest Area for another geocache (GC33N3D).

Just east of Casper, Wyoming was a T/A Truck Stop. There we fueled up and found another geocache for Natrona County (GC5CHCQ).

Still headed north on I-25, we stop at the Kaycee Rest Area for a geocache in Johnson County (GC8BC7Z).

Now driving on I-90, we make one last stop at the Wyoming Information Rest Stop in Sheridan County for our final geocache of the day (GC97JGC).

We finally crossed over into Montana via I-90 up through Billings. We don't have much further to go, therefore I skip geocaching counties because it would be much easier in the GeoJeep vs the big motorhome. So it's I-90 to Laurel, then turn south on US-212. At Rockvale, turning south on US-310 a few more miles and arrive in the town of Bridger.

But just as we pull into town I noticed the RV's temperature gauge starting to climb. Luckily we're just 3 blocks from the City Park RV Park. I quickly pick a spot and park. Then I head to the bedroom and lift up the bed to get a good look at the top of the engine. Sure enough, another freeze plug on the side of the head has sprung a leak! That makes the third one!


OK, so there's only two auto repair shops in town. One is practically right across the street. I go there first. Nope, they only work on cars plus they're booked solid. So then I drive around the corner to Carbon Equipment Repair. Yes, they do work on diesel, big rigs, and farm equipment. But they too are booked out for a month. And we're only here for two weeks. I say we can't go anywhere and we're pretty much at their mercy. Nothing to do now but to wait and see.

In the meantime, I'm still waiting for the other surveyor to show up. So that means a free week. Sounds to me like a geocaching road trip around Montana might be in the making. I hope to see you back again soon.

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: FacebookMeWeGabRedditTwitterGETTRInstagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

Saturday, August 3, 2024

2021-08-09: Road Trip from Colorado to Wyoming in the Motorhome While Geocaching

A few days into this road trip from Texas to Montana and it has already been an eventful road trip to say the least. Within a few hours of starting out in Texas, I had an air suspension issue that I luckily was able to fix myself in a parking lot. Then the next day made it up into Colorado and was able to do some sightseeing and geocaching before another breakdown. This time a blown freeze plug leaking engine coolant everywhere. That brings us to waking up this morning in a little town called Kit Carson, Colorado. Is the one mechanic in town able to get us back on the road today or are we stranded until who knows when? Let's hop into the Jeep and see if he's even open...



Following the directions from the RV park owner, the shop is behind his house on the edge of town. I get there at 8:00 in the morning and he's already underneath a pickup truck. He says he's got a full work load and working alone doesn't really do mobile repairs. But he understands my predicament and says to give him an hour or so to get the truck's fuel tank re-installed so that it doesn't fall off the jack. Then he'll drive over to the RV park and check out the leak. GREAT!

Having a little bit of free time before he gets to the motorhome, I decided to grab the two geocaches in town. The first was over at the Kit Carson Cemetery (GC1EF8H). Then back to the center of town at the Kit Carson Railroad Depot (GCV3R5). From the historical marker: "Built in 1904, this depot has survived intact and is not significantly changed. It is one of a handful of surviving railroad depots of the period in Colorado and may well be in the best condition of those remaining. In addition to housing the station agent and his family, this rectangular depot accommodated the daily activities of train passengers, freight, and the telegraph, and is a distinguishing feature of this depot."
 


Shortly after arriving back at the RV, the mechanic shows up too. The coolant leak from the bad expansion plug is up top on the exhaust side of the head on the Cummins diesel engine. To work on the top of the engine you have to go inside the coach. Opening the "hood" of this motorhome is lifting up the bed.

So I show him where the leak was coming from and he checks it out. He pulls out the bad plug, cleans up the hole, and installs a temporary rubber adjustable expansion plug. Getting the correct size steel or brass would have to be ordered and may take a couple of days. This rubber one will work for a while and until. Hopefully I will eventually be able to find a shop that has the time to replace them all. Anyway, he got us fixed up and able to get back on the road. AND when I tried to pay him, he refused to accept my money and wished us well on our travels.

Now back on the road heading north on US-287, we eventually merge onto I-70 westbound. Once in Elbert County, I had found a geocache (GCQTWZ) by an off/on ramp that had a big enough shoulder to park the RV for a few minutes. See the first photo at the top of this blog. I made the quick find and then also noticed the old farm house and barn at the top of the hill. That made for a nice photo too.



A few miles up I-70 in Arapahoe County, I found another exit ramp with a geocache (GC8CD7) that had good parking. Turning onto I-25 northbound, another exit ramp geocache for Larimer County (GCY322) and then a rest area earthcache for Weld County (GC1ME6T). 

Finally crossing over into Wyoming, we pulled into the Welcome Center just south of Cheyenne where we decided to park for the night. The Wyoming Welcome Center is practically a museum / historical center. We must have taken about 50 photos. These are just a sample. From a petrified tree,



the "Hole in the Wall Gang" with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,



giant prehistoric skeletal bones that were once large beasts,



and Wyoming cowboys, rodeos and ranch life.



Also located at the Wyoming Welcome Center were two geocaches. One was a multi-cache (GC979A5) and the other an earthcache (GC93HTZ). These gave us credit for Laramie County.

After the tour of the Welcome Center, we drove about a mile to the next exit to grab a bite to eat. Also at the same exit was a virtual geocache (GC946E) that I couldn't pass up. My job is a surveyor and the cache was about a surveyor. 32-year old John Phippin was a dedicated employee of the National Geodetic Survey, Coast and Geodetic Survey.

A resident of Cheyenne, Wyoming, he was working in Blythe, California on an oceanic geodetic survey project in 1992. In April of that year, two men (I'm not gonna mention their names) quit their jobs as carnival workers and began on a crime and killing spree. They broke into Phippin's motel room where they beat him and then stabbed him in the heart. The two then proceeded to load up his possessions and stole his vehicle, which they drove to Las Vegas and murdered another man.


That's it for today. Tomorrow we arrive in Montana, hopefully trouble free! Stay tuned...

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: FacebookMeWeGabRedditTwitterGETTRInstagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

Monday, July 22, 2024

2021-08-08: Road Trip from Texas to Colorado, Geocaching and Breaking Down Twice in Motorhome

Hello again everyone and welcome back to our AwayWeGo's Work Traveling and Geocaching Adventures Blog. Well it's road trip time! Our time in Texas was only a couple of weeks. Now I'm needed in Montana. WOHOO! It's been a long time since I was in Montana. So let's hook up the Jeep to the motorhome, hit the road, and see what we can discover.


So a couple days ago I was at work in Bonham, Texas. About noon on Thursday I received a phone call asking if I wanted to go on an adventure to Montana for a short task that should take only a week. WHY OF COURSE! Cool. So he'll let me know on Friday. About 10 AM on Friday he calls me back to say it's a go and can I be in Montana by Monday? I'll do my best. I tell my co-workers there in Bonham that I gotta go. By noon I'm hooked up to the motorhome and on the road.



About an hour or so into the drive westbound on US-82, I'm getting some noise on the back end of the motorhome. I turned on my emergency flashers, pulled over onto the shoulder and took a look. The rear airbags were deflated and the suspension was completely down causing some tire rub. Ughh!! Googled an RV shop who could take a look and the nearest was in Wichita Falls, TX. Not too far, but only able to go 20-30 mph, it was going to take a while.

The clock was ticking past and I was running out time to get there. I finally arrived but a mere 10 minutes too late. They were already closed. It was after 5 pm on a Friday. I guess I'll be sitting in their parking lot for the weekend until their mechanics return on Monday morning.

Saturday morning I started thinking about it and extended the rear jacks down to raise the rear of the motorhome. I slid underneath not really knowing what to look for. I took some photos of the air bags and suspension. There was a Freightliner shop about a block away that was open. I hopped into the Jeep to see if I can figure out a solution. Their shop was too busy to take in anything new but he looked at the pics and immediately saw the problem. The level adjustment rod was broken.

After a short discussion, I figured I could fix it myself. He sent me over to the parts department. The parts guy said there were two different ones. So I went back to the motorhome, removed the old one and brought it back. I bought the correct replacement and installed it. You can see from the combined photo below the broken part on the left and the new part on the right.



Living the RV life and traveling the country isn't always a dream vacation! However, we're back on the road headed north on US-287/385 into the Oklahoma panhandle and then Colorado.

I did get a call from the other surveyor I was to be meeting up with in Montana on Monday. He was leaving from a jobsite in Mohave, CA but got called back to the jobsite for another task before leaving. Then got sick and tested positive for Covid for the third time. Now he's in quarantine for two weeks. So we now have plenty of time to get there.

Since I have already completed my geocaching counties for Texas and Oklahoma, I didn't spend any time stopping for geocaches. We finished the day yesterday crossing into Colorado and parking for the night at an old truck stop in Springfield. Now that we're in Colorado with plenty of time to reach Montana, I can start picking up new counties for my geocaching map.

Today is Sunday and before hooking the GeoJeep back up to the motorhome, I drove over to the Springfield Cemetery to find a geocache for Baca County (GC1FBM8).



Driving north up the road into Prowers County, we made a roadside picnic area stop at Gobbler's Knob for an Earthcache (GC3HVX5) at these giant beehive looking rock formations. Unlike a traditional geocache, an earthcache doesn't have a container with a log sheet to sign. It's more of an educational geocache. You observe the geological area and have to answer some questions about it. Most are fairly easy but some are like taking a college course. I was never good in science and just answer as best I can.




Also in Powers County, we just had to make a slight detour for our next two geocaches (GC76E0, GC1Y6H5) at a historical site and a dark time in our nations history. After the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt ordered over 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent to be rounded up and detained in what was basically a military style P.O.W. camp. Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of which were United States citizens, removed from their homes and incarcerated in these remote camps scattered throughout the country. Not a single one was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage.



From August 1942 to October 1945, more than 10,000 people passed through the gates, living behind barbed wire and under armed guard at the Granada Relocation Center, also known as Amache. At its peak, over 7,300 detainees from a variety of professional, vocational, and educational backgrounds now worked as farmers, staffing the camp hospital, and a limited amount of other tasks. All received a fraction of their former income. Some 2,000 children and teens attended camp schools. During its occupation, the Amache detention camp was the 10th largest community in Colorado.



The total land area of Camp Amache was 10,000 acres. Only 640 acres was used for residential, mess halls, and other buildings which you see in the map below. The rest was used for agricultural purposes, growing crops and food for the detainees and the military bases around the world. Camp Amache was the smallest of the ten total detention camps scattered around the United States.



During the three years in use, the War Relocation Authority recorded 107 deaths in the camp. Many of those who died were cremated and their ashes kept in urns by the family. Others were buried here. After the war and their release, all but nine of those buried were removed and reburied closer to home. Nearly one thousand young men and women who were initially detained here, went on to serve in the military during the war. Most were analysts and interpreters for Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific. The stone monument you see in the cemetery, erected in 1983, is to honor the 31 men who died in combat as well as those 107 who died at Camp Amache.



Camp Amache's residents, often referred to as internees and inmates, were under 24-hour guard by military police stationed in eight towers along the barbed wire fence. When authorities deemed that the detainees posed no threat, the guards were removed from the towers. Though they continued their post at the main entrance and patrolled the perimeter, watching over daily activities and religious ceremonies.



Averaging about 7,000 Japanese-Americans at any given time, living quarters were at bare minimum. The one-square mile residential area was comprised of 29 blocks, each containing up to 13 barracks buildings divided into 6 rooms each. A bare lightbulb, a closet with no door, coal-fired heater, unassembled canvas cots and rough wool blankets were the only furnishings that greeted internees. Imagine being taken from your own home without provocation, held prisoner without being charged with any crime, for three years, for no reason other than being of Japanese descent.



Families of seven or fewer were assigned to a single room measuring 20' x 24'. The end units, measuring 16' x 20', usually housed either 4 single men or two couples without children. For a semblance of privacy, they often hung a sheet if they had one. They found ways to personalize and improve their cramped and sparse living conditions. Homemade curtains provided minimal relief from the constant wind and pervasive dust, but none against the brutal winter cold or unbearable summer heat. Rarely discarded pieces of scrape wood would be made into a table, chair, or shelf.



Like I said in the beginning, it was a dark few years in our nations history when we could willing deny approximately 75,000 American citizens their Constitutional rights and imprison them without charge or due process. Today only the few marked graves, erected memorials, some original foundations, and reconstructed couple of buildings remain.

After an hour of driving around in this historic, yet somber 640 acres, it was time to get back on the road. There was no barbed wire fencing and no armed guards in the towers anymore. We had the freedom to drive away. But remember those who were unjustly held prisoner in this remote location in southeast Colorado.



Back in the motorhome and driving north on US-287, we make a geocaching stop for Kiowa County. In the small town of Eads was a community park with a big enough parking spot for the motorhome. After finding the nicely hidden and creative geocache (GC9C5DN), we check out the dozen historical information boards about life on the plains of eastern Colorado. Including this Kindred Spirits monument.



Continuing on into Cheyenne County, we pull into the little town of Kit Carson, Colorado. Just as we arrived, I noticed the temperature gauge climbing! I quickly pull over into this empty lot to check it out. Another freeze plug sprung a leak. Oh great. Small town with a population of 250 people. This isn't good.

Half a block away is a small rv park. I drove over and parked in the only spot available. While checking in a talking with the owner, he says there is a good mechanic in town that he will call in the morning. And if he's too busy, he'll call the mayor who used to be a diesel mechanic too. There's hope after all. Guess I'll find out tomorrow morning.

Well it's still early in the day. Since we're stuck here we might as well go exploring and geocaching.

We hop in the GeoJeep and continue down the road. First stop a few miles away was this very small Colorado ghost town called Wild Horse. Town history from one of the two geocaches here (GC6RWXV): "A small detachment of U.S. Cavalry was assigned to protect the surveyors as they laid out the grade stakes for a new railway line. Early one morning in 1869, as the cavalry rounded a bend in the Big Sandy about twelve miles west of Kit Carson, they saw a band of several hundred wild horses around a water hole. The water supply was good so the troops decided to establish an outpost camp and call it the Wild Horse Station. From 1869 until 1906 Wild Horse was just a station."

The school building which still stands in Wild Horse was built in 1912. Between 1921 and 1923 the Wild Horse School was a branch of Cheyenne County High School and conducted classes for freshmen and sophomores.



"The boom was on and from 1906 to 1909 other buildings included a two block lumberyard and office, drug store, two restaurants, two livery barns, three saloons (one only lasted a few weeks) a hardware store, pool hall, two cream stations, a barber shop, newspaper building (The Wild Horse Times), a shoe shop, another grocery store and dry goods store, a depot of sorts (two box cars joined together), a warehouse, a butcher shop and the Alfalfa Valley Bank. Local promoters proclaimed Wild Horse to be the "best little town in the world." Soon after 1909, after automobiles began to displace the horse, one livery barn became a garage. Wild Horse reached a peak about 1910-1911 at which time Charles Collins bought the controlling interest in the bank and moved it to Kit Carson."



Then a series of fires hit the town. The warehouse burned; it was not replaced. A restaurant burned and then the butcher shop. Then came the big fire in 1917 which destroyed almost entirely the east portion of town which was the business section. Someone started a fire in a wood stove in the cream station and some time after midnight, the stove toppled over and flames engulfed the town. Water was in short supply in those days and the bucket brigade was no match for the fire. The destruction was complete; the value of the loss was nearly total."

"It was the beginning of the end for Wild Horse. Part of the town was rebuilt but the Depression and the "dirty thirties" followed soon after and like so many other small towns, Wild Horse lost its young folks to greener pastures."



The McIntire Cemetery (GC1Y3ZB), also known as the Wild Horse Cemetery, is a very small cemetery. There are only 66 internments here, the oldest from 1884 and another in 1887 while just a Calvary camp station. The rest are after 1908 when the town started growing. John McIntire was a large ranch owner who immigrated from Ireland. John died in November of 1931 at the age of 83 and is buried here.



Out on the western edge of Cheyenne County is another ghost town and another geocache (GC20AJE). Joseph O. Dostal, a Bohemian immigrant and veteran of the Civil War, came to Colorado in 1866 and established the J.O.D. Ranch to the west of Kit Carson, CO. The J.O.D. headquarters was located and the town of Aroya established in 1869 as a camp for the railroad workers near the new Kansas-Pacific Railroad which built a watering hole there.

Most of the original townsite was lost due to a fire. The current location was three miles east and selected due to being closer to a better water source. The businesses which survived the fire moved their buildings to the new location. As the town continued to grow, the smaller school house at the old site was left behind and a larger school house was built at the new townsite. That school building is still standing to and pictured below.



Over the years since the state highway bypassed the town, its businesses closed, the buildings were torn down, and the people moved away. Only the schoolhouse, the old gas station, and the store building remain standing.

Crossing over into Lincoln County for two more geocaches, the first was a quick rest area stop (GC1FBCZ).

Then about a half-mile south of US-287/US-40 down a county dirt road, is what remains of the ghost town of Clifford, Colorado. The geocache (GC1Y3RG) brought me to this small area containing the graves of three children. It is believed that they were children of railroad workers. Two sisters (4 yr old and infant) from 1893 and another infant girl from 1907.


Doing my research for the blog, I couldn't much on Clifford's history. Perhaps it was settled because of a nearby stage station called Mirage, which there is no trace of left. And then because of the three graves, maybe it was a railroad camp. There is the old schoolhouse pictured below still standing. And a supposedly haunted Montgomery Ward catalog house remaining. A couple of foundations, but nothing else remains. However...


... there could be some buried treasure hidden in the area! I found another site that tells a story of notorious gang of robbers on a crime spree in 1847 back in Sacramento, California. They then decided to lay low and made their way to eastern Colorado. By 1862, the gang were living a quiet life as farmers and ranchers.

But they still had the itch and joined together for one more big score: $100,000 in gold in the form of an Army payroll headed for Denver. (That's about $3.1 Million in today's dollars!) Well I'm gonna sum it up and say "Big Shootout, only 2 of the gang survived and got away with the gold." But it was buried out on the plains near Clifford. One clue was found years later in 1931 and another was found in 1934. I implore you to take 2 minutes to read "The Missing Treasure of Clifford, Colorado" by James M Deem. It's worth it to read, as Paul Harvey puts it, the rest of the story!

My final stop was just up the road in Hugo, Colorado. There was this restored Union-Pacific Railroad passenger depot, now used for community functions.



Also in Hugo is this Union-Pacific Railroad Roundhouse (GC1YA9Q). This is one of only three roundhouse buildings still in existence. A roundhouse is basically a semi-circular maintenance building. A circular turntable was located at the center of the radius on the side of the building. As the locomotive moved onto the turntable, it could then be rotated and aligned to the track which allowed the train to move into and out of the stall to be worked on.



Typically after a railroad closes and sells off its facilities, the new owner will often remodel the structure for its own use. In this instance though the only thing that changed was the removal of the roundhouse turntable. Now in the hands of Lincoln County, the Hugo Roundhouse was restored by the county and Roundhouse Preservation Inc about ten years ago.

Well that ends a crazy day. A DIY suspension repair to start the day. Driving from Texas to Colorado while geocaching and sightseeing. Then having another freeze plug coolant leak on the motorhome in a very rural small town. Hopefully we'll be able to get it repaired in the morning. Stay tuned...

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: FacebookMeWeGabRedditTwitterGETTRInstagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Exploring History and Discovering a Hidden Pioneer Family Cemetery in Bonham, Texas

After our long 5300 mile road trip to purchase our new-to-us 2000 American Eagle motorhome, we arrived in Bonham, Texas for my next work project. The solar farm was already completed and we were just there for a few weeks for the reclaim work. That consists of removing the gravel from the laydown yard and using it to touch up the roads. Then spreading the topsoil back out so the grass regrows.

But while here, we got a chance to explore the history of Bonham and grab some geocaches around town. I also discovered several Pioneer children's graves from the 1800's hidden among some trees that was not listed in the Find-A-Grave database. So come with us as we explore Bonham, Texas...



One of Texas's oldest cities, Bonham dates to 1837, when Bailey Inglish built a two-story blockhouse named Fort Inglish about 2 miles from the current downtown. Inglish and other acquaintances settled there in the summer of 1837, and the settlement was named "Bois D'Arc". The Congress of the Republic of Texas named the city Bloomington in 1843, but renamed it Bonham in honor of James Butler Bonham, a defender of the Alamo. On February 2, 1848, Bonham was incorporated as a city. A 1936 statue of Bonham by Texas sculptor Allie Tennant is on the courthouse grounds.



Some of the early pioneers of Bonham are buried in the Bailey Inglish Cemetery (GC83VFM). Obviously, Bailey Inglish (1798-1867) and his wife Nancy (1806-1878) are interned there. The family marker is seen at the top photo of this blog.



Another is Dr. Daniel Rowlett (1786-1848). He came to Texas from Virginia in 1836. He served as a Congressman in the Republic of Texas from 1837-40 and again in 1843-44. His initiative pushed for the creation of Fannin County in 1837.

After his wife died, Col. James Tarleton (1789-1861) organized a force of 36 riflemen in his home state of Kentucky and headed to Texas in 1835 to join in the fight for Texas Independence. Tarleton fought in the victory at San Jacinto in 1836. He settled in Fannin County with his son Robert Price Tarleton (1833-1897).


The Texas and Pacific Railroad was built Eastward to Bonham in 1873. A small wooden depot erected that year was replaced by this larger brick structure in 1900. It continued operations until 1950.





As I mentioned in the opening of this blog, I discovered some pioneer family graves hidden among some trees. About ten miles south of Bonham is the solar farm that I was working on. Tucked inside this group of trees separating two sections of solar panels were five headstones belonging to children of James & Wincy Miller, early settlers to the area.



One of the headstones is pictured below. No name. Just infant son of and the dates. He lived for eleven days in June 1871. Another headstone can be read also. It had Ota Aurora Miller but no dates. It just said Aged 2 weeks. Only a few letters can be made on the third stone but not enough to understand. The last two are so worn smooth they have no distinguishing markings.



This is the area within the group of trees where the graves are located. Hopefully one day information can be discovered on the remaining few headstones that can't be read.



Back to the parents James (1830-1895) and Wincy (1838-1899), they are both buried in the Moores Chapel Cemetery located within the town of Bonham. Their other four children that survived childhood and went on to live a normal life were Tennessee (1863-1934) of Houston, Lenora (1872-1963) of Texarkana, George (1874-1966) of Texarkana, and David (1879-1931) of Corpus Christi.

So that's just a glimpse of Bonham, Texas. There is plenty more here to see and a few things like this hidden pioneer family cemetery which you won't have access to.

In our upcoming blogs is another road trip. We will be three weeks exploring Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.  I hope to see you back again soon.

To follow along on our travels and keep up with my latest blogs, you may do so here of course by clicking the "Follow" button to the right. And there's also my main website at AwayWeGo.US for the complete index of my traveling adventures going back to 2005. But also by using one or more of your favorite of these social media platforms: FacebookMeWeGabRedditTwitterGETTRInstagram, and TruthSocial. These all link directly to my profiles. Again, please feel free to comment and / or share.