Sin City's Mormon Fort

The Mormon faith has always held some Fortean interest for me, especially the story behind how the religion was created by the enigmatic Joseph Smith (1805 – 1844). In his early life Smith supplemented his income by searching for lost items and buried treasure, using seer stones as his method of detection. In his twenties Smith claimed to have been visited by an angel who revealed to him the location of a buried book made from golden plates (amongst other artifacts). Smith was charged by the angel not to show the plates to anyone and to translate them. Smith used a seer stone to translate the golden plates and he subsequently published the Book of Mormon, which formed the basis of the Mormon faith. Unfortunately for the world, after completing his work Smith was said to have given the plates back to the angel and as such the golden plates were lost to history.

Today Las Vegas is known as a city where gambling, drinking and debauchery are the order of the day and I was surprised to find that this concrete metropolis was home to a 19th Century Mormon fort. It seems that the oasis that is the Las Vegas Valley was first discovered by modern day Americans in the early 19th Century, when traders trying to develop trade routes west across the country to Los Angeles happened upon it. As the Las Vegas Valley had a plentiful supply of water, the traders decided that it was good place to stop off and resupply on the journey west.

The discovery of this oasis brought the valley to the attention of others and in 1855 a group of 30 Mormon missionaries from Salt Lake City travelled to Las Vegas with a view to developing a permanent settlement there. This Mormon settlement primarily comprised of an adobe fort which was built next to a nearby creek. The fort was fairly substantial and was built as a square with walls of 46m in length and 4.3m in height.

This fort can still be found today, but the fort is now mostly a reconstruction. The original fort was built from bricks made of earth, most of which have long since weathered away.

The fort.

A 19th Century wagon.

The creek that made life at the fort sustainable.

Sorting soil to make bricks for the fort's walls.

Creating the bricks.

Pictures, Las Vegas (October 2013).

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Notable Nuggets

Whilst on a recent trip to Las Vegas I happened to visit the Golden Nugget Casino in the Freemont Street area of the city and was surprised to find a rather large gold nugget on display inside. The nugget in question is called The Hand of Faith and claims to be the largest gold nugget on public display in the world, which I assumed to be true as it weighs 27 kg. The Hand of Faith was found in 1980 by a man from Wedderburn in Victoria (Australia) using a metal detector. The caption in the display explains:

"This magnificent gold nugget, the largest on public display in the world was discovered using a metal detector, lying six inches below the surface in a vertical position. It weighs a massive 875 troy ounces, (61 pounds, 11 ounces av.)

A man, who has chosen to remain anonymous, his wife, and four young children were prospecting behind their modest trailer home when they made this spectacular find."

The size of this nugget got me wondering if it was truly a giant of the nugget world or if larger nuggets have been found. It seems that The Hand of Faith is actually fairly small when compared to some of the giant nuggets that have been found:

- The Welcome Stranger Nugget was found at Moliagul in Victoria (Australia) in 1869 and weighed in at 2,520 troy ounces (78 kg).

- The Welcome Nugget was found at Bakery Hill in Ballarat (Australia) in 1858 and weighed in at 2,218 troy ounces (69 kg).

- The Canaã Nugget was found at the Serra Pelada Mine in the State of Para (Brazil) in 1983 and weighed in at 2,145 troy ounces (67 kg). However, there does seem to be some suggestion that this nugget was actually part of a larger nugget weighing 5,291 troy ounces (165 kg) that broke during excavations.

It seems that the Canaã nugget is currently on display in the Gold Room of the Banco Central Museum in Brazil, which seemingly makes the Golden Nugget's claim that The Hand of Faith is the largest nugget on public display false!

The Hand of Faith

The Hand of Faith

Pictures, Las Vegas (October 2013).

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Shopping for the Zombie Apocalypse

Over the last decade the idea of mankind being exterminated by an uprising of hungry Zombies has become a regular focus of TV shows and feature films with some notable productions being: The Walking Dead (2010 – present); World War Z (2013); the REC series (2007 – 2012); the Resident Evil series (2002 – 2012); Zombieland (2009); 28 Weeks Later (2007); Land of the Dead (2005); Shaun of the Dead (2004); Dawn of the Dead (2004); and 28 Days Later (2002).

Given this on-going reminder of the possible perils of a Zombie uprising it is no wonder that some people may be concerned enough to want to prepare for a potential zombie apocalypse. Luckily for those that do want to be ready there is now a dedicated shop for all your Zombie apocalypse needs. The Las Vegas Zombie Apocalypse Store (3420 Spring Mountain Rd, Las Vegas ) carries a selection of goods to help you survive the rise of the Zombie horde, from weapons to survival equipment and even a Zombie survival guide.

So if the impending rise of the Zombie horde keeps you awake at night it is time to get shopping!

Pictures, Las Vegas (October 2013).

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The Hoover Synchronicity

In 2008 I visited the engineering marvel that is the Hoover Dam, which holds back the Colorado River and forms the border between the states of Arizona and Nevada. It was during this visit that I became aware of an interesting synchronicity related to the construction of the dam.

The Hoover Dam was physically constructed between 1931 and 1936, but the project to build the dam actually began back in the 1920s when the site for the dam was initially identified. It seems that during the project to build the dam there were 112 officially recorded work related deaths. The first of these is recorded as the death of J. G. Tierney, who was a surveyor who drowned on December 20th 1922, whilst trying to identify the ideal location to place the dam. Strangely, the last recorded death on the Hoover Dam project occurred exactly 13 years later (to the day) on December 20th 1935. The last fatality being Patrick W. Tierney, the son of J. G. Tierney, who fell to his death from an intake tower on the dam.

It is noted that a number of deaths associated with the project were not officially recorded as work related deaths. As some deaths caused by carbon monoxide poisoning may have been diagnosed as pneumonia to prevent the need for the construction companies to pay out compensation claims to the families of the deceased. Notwithstanding this, it is still an interesting synchronicity.

The Hoover Dam

Looking down river.

The dam wall (look at the tourists for scale).

Where the water goes.

 Where the water goes. 

The other side of the dam.

 Looking down the other side of the dam. 

One of the statues guarding the dam.

Pictures Arizona / Nevada (2008).

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Ghost Towns

On our travels Mrs J and I have visited a number of ghost towns, some supposedly haunted, some not. They all however share a mysterious air, as they are essentially towns that have been frozen in time. Below is a short history of the ghost towns that we have visited.

Bodie

Bodie is an abandoned town that lies east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California at a wind-swept elevation of 2,554m. Bodie began life in 1859 as a small mining camp following the discovery of gold by a group of prospectors, which included W. S. Bodey (whom the town was ultimately named after). In 1876 further deposits of gold ore were found, which facilitated Bodie’s transformation from a small mining camp into a Wild West boomtown. Continuing discoveries of gold enticed more people to the town and by 1879 Bodie had a population of approximately 5,000 to 7,000 people, and consisted of around 2,000 buildings.

Bodie’s demise as a town began in 1880, when miners began to drift off towards other more prosperous boomtowns. By 1910 the population was recorded at 698 people, and by 1920 it had fallen to around 120. The final nail in Bodie’s coffin seemed to occur in 1942, when due to the war, all non-essential gold mines in the USA were closed.

Pictures of Bodie have previously featured in Andrew May’s Forteana Blog.

Rhyolite

Rhyolite is an abandoned town which lies at an elevation of 1,200m in the Bullfrog Hills in Nevada, about 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas, near the edge of Death Valley.

In August 1904, prospectors found gold on the side of Bullfrog Mountain and word of this discovery soon spread, and shortly afterwards thousands of hopeful prospectors rushed in to the area. This sudden influx of people lead to settlements being established near the mines and Rhyolite became the largest of them. Starting as a two-man camp in January 1905, Rhyolite became a town of 1,200 people in two weeks and reached a population of 2,500 by June 1905. By which point it was a significant town with 50 saloons, 19 lodging houses, 16 restaurants, half a dozen barbers, and even a weekly newspaper. By 1907 the population had increase further to about 4,000 to 5,000 people and the town now boasted concrete sidewalks, electric lights, water mains, telephone and telegraph lines, daily and weekly newspapers, a monthly magazine, police and fire departments, a hospital, school, train station and railway depot, at least three banks, a stock exchange, an opera house, a public swimming pool and two formal church buildings.

The town’s decline was nearly as fast as its boom, and by 1909 the mines had stop producing new gold ore and by March 1911 the gold rush was over. The town’s population decline mirrored this drop in gold production and by 1910 the population had dropped to only 675 residents. All three of the town’s banks had closed by March 1910 and the post office followed suit in November 1913. The last train left Rhyolite Station in July 1914, and the Power Company turned off the electricity and removed its power lines in 1916. By 1920 the town’s population was only 14 people, and the last remaining resident was reported to have died in 1924.

Imber

Imber is an uninhabited village which today forms part of the Army training ground on Salisbury Plan in Wiltshire. Imber had existed as a settlement for many centuries, with the first documented mention of the village coming from 967. Imber is also mentioned in the Domesday book (1086), at which time the population was around 50 persons. By the 1300’s the population of the village had risen to around 250, where it is believed to have remained until the 1800’s. The population peaked at 440 as recorded in the census of 1851, declining to around 150 by the time of Imber's abandonment.

Imber’s abandonment was a result of the war effort during the Second World War In November 1943, while the Allied forces made preparations for the invasion of Europe, the people of Imber were called to a meeting in the village schoolroom and given 47 days' notice to leave their homes. Imber was to be abandoned to allow the US forces to practice Urban Warfare prior to the planned invasion of Europe. The villagers after being assured that they could return to their homes within six months, left the village with no resistance, however they were never allowed to return, and the town continues to be used for military training today.

Pictures of Imber have previously featured in Andrew May’s Forteana Blog.

Pictures California & Nevada (2008) and Wiltshire (2011).