Cemeteries always have fascinated me. My wise old grandmother’s house in Kingsville, Texas, was just 15 blocks from the cemetery where my dad and two brothers were buried.
When I visited the California Ghost Town on July 30, 2018, one had to drive by the cemetery in order to get to the Ghost Towh. Of course, I had to stop to take pictures.
Calico, California, was founded as a mining town in 1881, but by 1907 it had been completely abandoned. During those 26 years, it produced $86 million in silver from over 500 mines in the area. Population peaked at 3,000.
Walter Knott, of California’s Knott’s Berry Farm fame, bought the town in 1950 or 1951—sources vary on the date—and restored it based on historical photographs.
A walk through the cemetery revealed that it still is in use:
I wonder who the cemetery caretaker is. I also wonder why Helen had the privilege of being buried there even though was born 25 years after Calico had been abandoned.
These stark images of the cemetery – and then the one of the woman buried recently there. For the genealogist in me, I start to imagine stories of those who poured their lives into that mining town.
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And Helen is not an isolated incident. I have pictures of other headstones from burials in 1933, 1979, 1986, 1991, 1994, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2014. I can kind of understand the 1933 one but the others make no sense to me, especially those who were born well after Calico was abandoned.
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Such a sad deserted looking area.
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Well, it IS a desert, so there’s that.
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It’s really fascinating!
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Interesting to see the stones covering the graves.
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That’s what brought it up into one of the most interesting cemeteries I have ever visited, and I’ve been to several hundred, including all the famous ones in America.
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