After surviving an encounter with a rattlesnake, I continued to explore North, Central Nevada. I found myself in a historical place called Candelaria. What a cool name for a city, that no longer exists. Candelaria was a booming mining town in the late 1860'- 1880s when a large silver deposit was discovered.
Candelaria consists of the old ghost town as well as the mountain which stretches over a mile. Mines dot the mountain which then turn into three, large, open pit mines. This mine was actually gigantic. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it was intimidating.
As I drove around Candelaria mountain I thought about how remote this location is and was back in the 1860's. Tonopah, NV is 60 miles away.
Not much is left of Candelaria. This old structure and two others are all that remain.
You can see the gigantic, second open pit mine in the background. There are two actually and the tailings piles they produced are mountains unto themselves. Massive operations.
This was an important building, possibly a bank.
The metal doors are still attached on the left side.
Think of the long past souls who passed through those doors daily.
I don't think anything other than a bank would require metal doors.
Next to the bank building is the cemetery. I always like to visit the cemeteries because they are the only places that keep a record of the former inhabitants.
They tell stories both good and bad.
However, when I run into the graves of the children, that's when I have a hard time.
Being a father it's hard to imagine the grief of losing a child. Anna Chiatovitch was only 7 years old when she lost her life in this godforsaken place.
As I ended my tour I was met with one last tragedy, an 8 month old born in Candelaria and died there.
As I left I said a prayer for the souls lost here, especially the ones in unmarked graves. They now look on as the mine that brought them here continues to be opened up bit by bit.
Upon closer viewing of the mine you can see the "stope" running up the center of the open pit. A stope is a hollowed out area of the mountain that the miners make as they mine & follow the vein, in this case the silver vein.
Unfortunately I couldn't get any closer. The mine is active and owned by Kinross Gold, a large mining corporation out of Canada. However, it was still morning and just down the road I would reach the mine I had driven all the way up here to visit. But, I'll save that and the rest of my Tonopah trip for the next post.
Thanks for reading!
