Posted by Lewis Shorb on October 20, 1998 at 11:56:31:
In Reply to: Saving the past posted by Chuck Alexander on October 12, 1998 at 02:08:15:
I just saw an artical in the newspaper yesterday about a guy getting 10 months in prison for taking indian artifacts in Utah I think our Ghost Towns deserve the same level of protection.
G T's suffer not only from vandals but are also destroyed by the government, a forest ranger told me they routinly level old buildings to prevent squaters from moving in. I have found sites burned to ground in the desert by the BLM.
Private property owners are sometimes the worst, for example Aurora NV. was 1 of the best ghost towns around in the 1950's, this and the
Bodie property were owned by the Cain family, when they had problems meeting the taxes on both properties, they let construction companys come in and take bricks from the buildings in order to devalue the property leaving us nothing to see today.
Another example is the Cosmopolitan Saloon in Belmont NV. this was a fine 2 story building still standing in the 1970's, but because of neglect buy the owners, its now a pile of wood.
The one thing that bugs me the most is people who take or vandalize headstones, this I cant understand.
Happy Exploring!
Lewis Shorb
Lewis