Ghosting Around
New Idria and the Quicksilver Mines
Abandoned towns offer more than a window to the past. They are the laboratory that allows us to measure our place in the world. They strip away the illusion of permanence. They show us exactly how much energy it takes to carve a life in the back country—and how fast it is taken back the moment we look away.
G is For Ghost Town, (New Idria) was one of the first places to get my attention after I started geocaching. By the time I was able to go there, it had been though fire. After I got there, the road was washed away for a time by an impassable chasm. For those of us are fortunate to make it there, it was quiet, but in a way that was described as “possessing an almost atmospheric disquietude; dread heightened by isolation and made real by something else entirely, something intangible.”
All I knew was that so needed a break from the freeway. It seemed like a harmless adventure, but the more I read about it now, the more naive I was.
New Indira mined cinnabar deposits, a reddish ore that contains mercury (quicksilver) that was used in the processing of silver. The ore dictated the town’s rise, its century of survival, and its ultimate, toxic demise. At its peak, the town was an isolated industrial powerhouse—a place of incredible wealth, diversity, and a lively community that had to entertain itself. But it also one of brutal, hazardous labor and extreme physical isolation.
The town of began around 1857 and by 1861 the mine employed 300 people. A school was built on 1867 and the post office opened in 1869. The town eventually supported 20 saloons. Given the area I saw, that might not have been enough.
The most terrifying aspect of life in New Idria wasn’t a cave-in, but the silent poison of the ore itself. To extract the mercury, the cinnabar rock had to be crushed and baked in massive, roaring furnaces (retorts) to vaporize the metal, which was then cooled and condensed into liquid quicksilver.
The “furnacemen” operating this equipment breathed in highly toxic mercury fumes daily. Mercury poisoning, known as getting “salivated,” was rampant. But it was a company town and the choice was either to work or to leave.
Miners found themselves in a cycle of debt, tying them to the mine, selling their soul to the company store. Water was scarce in the arid hills, and the summer heat was punishing. In the winter the roads turned into mud.
There was one who had a reason to be there apart from the mines. The California legend, Tiburcio Vasquez, used it as hideout. Vasquez was either a freedom fighter, an outlaw, or both. Because his escapades were illegal, he needed a hideout. New Idria was a perfect location, 75 miles from the nearest town.
Vasquez struck a quiet, unspoken “gentleman’s agreement” with the mine’s superintendent. The terms were simple: he and his men were allowed to use the town as a safe haven, provided they did not cause trouble. He scrupulously honored that and was popular with the town’s working class miners. It also helped that he had family there. The town often warned him if the law was coming.
However, life in the mines was hard. The workers roasted the cinnabar ore in giant furnaces and collected the condensed mercury vapors. They long suffered severe health degradation, often destroying their nervous systems after just years of labor. Faced with dwindling economic returns and tightening regulatory pressure, the New Idria Quicksilver Mining Company officially ceased all operations and closed the mine in 1972.
The area was declared a superfund site in 2011 and much of it is fenced off.
My Log
I was not sure what to expect with the reports of the fire and I wondered how my small rental car would do. But this has been on my “to do” list ever since I spotted it on a previous trip down to Bakersfield. And given the green hills, the dry conditions (soon to be changing), and the time that I had, I thought that if I ever was going to come here, the time was right.
I had heard about the fire, but it did not cross the road and there was still much to look at. I continued driving through the town, past the ghostly buildings, up the hill. About 350 feet before the cache, the road looked too rough for the little car I was driving. It was quiet and I parked there and walked the remaining way,
The door was open. It seemed like the part of the story when becomes quiet. Perhaps too quiet. There might have been something creeping in the shadows, I looked around and wondered if this ghost town really had ghosts.
I did not sense their presence but cache description hints about orcs. Indeed, there might be dwarfish symbol on the door, warning of dangers. I kept vigilant in case there were for the drums from deep within the earth but did not even see a single mutant from the mercury mining .
Perhaps it was just the psychic imprints from all the mercury here. There was a certain uneasiness, beyond the care that the sire requires. I did not want to venture too far, at least by myself.
All was still. Just memories. Echoes. Yet the echoes and the collective memories ran deep.
02/15/2011
A Note
I have been been working behind the scenes to improve some things, but there is more to do. Between health and travel I have had less time than originally anticipated. I am now aiming to publish updates twice a month. Check back here or go to my caching site on BlueSky to be notified.
