I could not find a recent thread on this subject. There are hundreds of abandoned mines, ghost towns etc. across the country and especially here in the west. Some you can drive right up to and some you need serious off road capability. I have many pictures of such places, taken with my bridge camera or phone, before I returned to the Pentax fold in December.
I will start this off with a picture I took with my new (to me) K-3 a couple of weeks ago.
It is an abandoned settlement and gas station in the Union Pass between Kingman & Bullhead city Arizona. It was homesteaded in 1897 by Jonathan Draper Richardson and his wife Victoria, on the site of an old army post. They ran this until their death in 1935 and 1940. The business was operated by their descendants until it was bypassed by the new highway 68 in the late nineteen eighties.
Post your pictures and stories here.

[mkgd1]

Delamar NV was a bustling town of 3000 inhabitants with a large gold mine nicknamed "widow maker" because of the high occurrence of silicosis caused by dry washing the quartz rock. It was finally abandoned in the nineteen thirties.
Taken with my Fuji bridge camera in 2018

[BigDave]

Interesting theme... there are some old iron mines in my area, some very interesting to photograph. As they are best sht in the winter, I need to get to them this year!

[mkgd1]

Interesting theme... there are some old iron mines in my area, some very interesting to photograph. As they are best sht in the winter, I need to get to them this year!

I look forward to seeing them. I have always had a fascination with such places.

[BigDave]

I look forward to seeing them. I have always had a fascination with such places

Most have slowly filled with water, some date to the Civil War, maybe earlier. There is a hiking trail that runs into NJ, the Canon Ball Trail, guess what was moved on it...? First used about 200+ years ago!

[baldeagle21b]

Most have slowly filled with water, some date to the Civil War, maybe earlier. There is a hiking trail that runs into NJ, the Canon Ball Trail, guess what was moved on it...? First used about 200+ years ago!

The iron industry in your region predates the Revolutionary war. The entire region is peppered with old iron ore mines and remains of smelting furnaces used to extract the iron from the rock..

[gump]

This is a shot near Creede, Colorado. Many mines are accessible when driving the Batchelor Loop. (Vehicle must have good ground clearance.) The road in the photo shows a good portion.

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[torashi]

I find these fascinating, too. Lovely landscapes and lonely places. Looks like some youngsters were having fun shooting that wreck of a car.

[photocles]

Here's an image from Rhyolite, Nevada, from a trip to Death Valley back in the spring of 2016. (Via my K-30 and the DA 35 with a polarizer.)


When I was a little kid, my dad painted a picture of a building from an abandoned town on a river rock. It wasn't until I visited this old town site nearly 40 years later, and nearly by chance, that I discovered where the building was actually located. It's a gorgeous place and well worth a visit!

[timb64]

Might this thread be better moved to the Mini Challenges,etc page?

[monochrome]

This is a shot near Creede, Colorado. Many mines are accessible when driving the Batchelor Loop. Another good Scenic Byway(Vehicle must have good ground clearance.) The road in the photo shows a good portion.

Another good Scenic Byway in Colorado is the Alpine Loop running from Lake City over Engineer Pass (13,800’) to Ouray, then over Red Mountain Pass (13,680’) back to Lake City via Slumgullion Pass, which is a 7.6% grade. There are numerous abandoned mine works and even brick buildings above 12,000’ in beautiful alpine meadows. I drove it in a Suburban, but it is better done in a shorter wheelbase vehicle. Slumgulion Pass and Lake City are a couple hours northeast of Creede, just south of Blue Mesa Reservoir and the (inundated) Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

This was unfortunately 20 years ago when I only used a Canon PnS automatic camera. I had left myMESuper home for that trip.

[mkgd1]

Here's an image from Rhyolite, Nevada, from a trip to Death Valley back in the spring of 2016. (Via my K-30 and the DA 35 with a polarizer.)


When I was a little kid, my dad painted a picture of a building from an abandoned town on a river rock. It wasn't until I visited this old town site nearly 40 years later, and nearly by chance, that I discovered where the building was actually located. It's a gorgeous place and well worth a visit!

Nice picture and great story. Rhyolite is well worth the visit

[Bruce Clark]

Abandoned open cut copper mine at Burra in South Australia. The township is going strong and has an excellent museum on the old mine site. Well worth a visit if you are n the area.

[gump]

Another good Scenic Byway in Colorado is the Alpine Loop running from Lake City over Engineer Pass (13,800’) to Ouray, then over Red Mountain Pass (13,680’) back to Lake City via Slumgullion Pass, which is a 7.6% grade. There are numerous abandoned mine works and even brick buildings above 12,000’ in beautiful alpine meadows. I drove it in a Suburban, but it is better done in a shorter wheelbase vehicle. Slumgulion Pass and Lake City are a couple hours northeast of Creede, just south of Blue Mesa Reservoir and the (inundated) Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

This was unfortunately 20 years ago when I only used a Canon PnS automatic camera. I had left myMESuper home for that trip.

We tried one out of Lake City and turned the pick-up around to find a a big horn sheep starring at us as much to say "are you nuts?" As I get older heights are bothering me more. There is another loop just outside South Fork that takes the better part of a day and includes a well known toxic mine site (I cannot remember the name), snow fields in august, altitudes over 11,000.

[Chapel]

This is in Northern Nevada close to the Oregon border. I can't believe the amount of work it must have been to move all those rocks around.