Frisco Silver Mine

[sawtooth4x4]

I had been itching to get out of town. With two of the kids off to scout camps for the weekend, the wife and I took the two youngest in the F350 to Beaver, UT to spend the night in a hotel.

Saturday morning we got up, grabbed breakfast and some food for the trail. The drive from Beaver to Frisco is pretty easy. It took less than an hour.

When we finally got to Frisco, we couldn't find a way to drive up to the mine itself. It's all been blocked off. Word is someone bought the mine and is starting to demolish the buildings and structures on the site. I couldn't see any real signs of new mining going on.

My wife didn't want to take the kids up there, she thought it was going to be too dangerous. So I was granted 30 minutes to go up and back to get as many pictures as I could. Being that I'm out of shape, I didn't know if I could make it to the top where the ore elevator was. But I dug deep, got the old cross country runner thing going and ran up to the top taking pictures whenever I felt like I was going into cardiac arrest.

So some pictures. It was pretty cool. The amount of garbage is amazing. Old broken china everywhere. Lots of discarded cans as well.

This is the view from the top.

This must be an old cable hoist

The ore elevator

 

[sawtooth4x4]

Just a bunch of pictures of structures and things I found interesting in my run up the mountain

 

[sawtooth4x4]

Some interesting facts about Frisco. They had to haul water in because there wasn't any water. It was an active mine from 1879 to 1925. But after the mine collapsed, it was abandoned. Frisco was well known for being wild. Lots of murders, and salons. The grave yard we pretty depressing. Lots of young children died. I can only imagine how harsh the conditions were there.

These next photos are of the charcoal kilns, just a little ways away.

 

[Kevin B.]

Great pics.

 

[sawtooth4x4]

We also took a quick trip over to Newhouse. We had read there were lots of buildings still standing over there. But all that was left were foundations. I was disappointed. I only took one picture of this rock house.

 

[sawtooth4x4]

After we checked out the Kilns, we hopped back on the highway for for Milford, then up to Delta on the back roads. After we hit Delta we headed for Nephi. The two lane highway was clear of any po-po's so i cranked the cruise up to 80 and got home much faster than on the interstate. There weren't any cars out on the road Saturday afternoon.

It was a cool overnighter. I will be going out to check a lot more of these things out as soon as my Range Rover is running.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Great pics, that area is full of neat history. There are dozens of charcoal kilns (sites) in the nearby area, I think one could spend a week tramping around that area and not see it all.

We also took a quick trip over to Newhouse. We had read there were lots of buildings still standing over there. But all that was left were foundations. I was disappointed. I only took one picture of this rock house.

Check out the Utah Ghost Town Project site reports before you head out, they usually have pretty recent information:
http://www.expeditionutah.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4727

 

[Kevin B.]

We didn't see anything standing at Newhouse except a couple stone cabins. It looked like the big mill burned down recently, in the last five or six years anyway. Wasn't anything left but footings and scorched stubs of lumber.

 

[sawtooth4x4]

5-6 years ago I was living in Montana, and wouldn't have made it down here.

its disappointing people trash these sites. So much cool history. I really wish there was a way to preserve this stuff. But I guess blowing other countries up is more important to our country.