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Among The Ruins


Dinoprophet

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GC28H51Purgatory 2

 

This doorway leads to an underground room that is about 12' x 12' with cement walls and ceiling. The floor is sand. You have to enter the room to get some of the information that is used to get the final coords. As the cache description tells in great detail this place is rumored to have been one of Al Capone's hideouts.

 

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There are other remnants of the buildings that once stood here, but this is the most interesting / creepy.

Edited by Wooden Cyclist
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I dont know any abandoned places near me. There used to be the remains of a house including foundation, stoop, and swingset.....but the land was bought and cleared out to build a neighborhood several years ago.

 

Richmond has a famous abandoned area. Its actually featured in the book Weird Virginia, part of the Weird US series. The area was built during WW2 as a decoy city in case Richmond had an air raid. Its got a water tower, streets, and buildings and hasnt been touched since the 40s except by explorers who write about it. Its near Richmond International Airport which is way on the other side of the city and I dont have a car...I havent been to it but I'd love to go.

 

There are the remains of iron mills but they are part of a museum so no caching there hehe

Edited by newdiscovery
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....What is a stamp mill anyway?

It looks like this:

stampmill.jpg

 

Growing up in Northern California's Mother Lode country, I saw many preserved stamp mills at old mine sites.

 

There are two basic ways gold is found: in free (placer) form, and as threads running through solid rock.

 

To retrieve the free gold, usually found in streams and rivers, a bunch of promising looking gravel is put into a gold pan, then swished around with water from the stream. The gold, being heavier, settles to the bottom, and can eventually be collected.

 

When gold is mined out of the earth in ore form, the gold has to be separated from the worthless material. To do this, a large stamp mill was used to pound (stamp) the ore until it was broken down into small pieces. Where running water was available, the mills were often powered by a Pelton Wheel. Once it was broken down into fine pieces, it could be processed to get the gold.

 

One of the main ways to separate the gold out was with a sluice box. A sluice box was a long wooden box with baffles in it, that had water running down the box. Mercury was put in the baffles, and the crushed ore from the stamp mill was dumped in the top of the box. As the water washed the crushed up ore down the sluice box, the small bits of gold would stick to the mercury.

 

The mercury/gold globs were picked up out of the sluice box, and the mercury boiled to get rid of it. The fact that mercury is a deadly poison, and has tainted a lot of the country it was used in, wasn't of much interest to the miners hunting for the golden treasure.

 

An interesting bit of mining lore I heard in a geology class was the way some miners got gold near Placerville, CA. Prospectors working many miles away on the American River canyon found an old riverbed going into a mountain, which had been covered over and had large hills above it. The prospectors found gold in placer form in this dry river, and used pans to dry pan the gold. They ended up tunneling along this old riverbed for quite some distance, taking the free gold out of the riverbed as they went. Eventually the tunnels went clear under the present town of Placerville (first known as Dry Diggins, then Hangtown, in gold rush days), causing concern for the stability of the courthouse and other buildings.

 

I'm not too sure how reliable this story is, but the professor was a geologist and had worked in the area for some time. It was a good story, anyway.

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Here is a ruin that was never completed! It's on the bluffs of Dana Point, CA - The Drogher

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This is the base of an old railroad trestle in northern Utah - Galloping Goose

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I'm not sure if your Dana Point ruins are the same ones, but I took a picture of what was supposed to have been a prohibition era dance hall ruins on the bluffs at Dana Point in 1971. Be interested to know if these are the same ones.

 

ProhibitionEraDanceHallRuinsDanaPoi.jpg

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Okay, since the OP said hikes in the woods, ;) I'll post back to back to share another personal favorite. Windsor Ruin was one of the most magnificent antebellum homes in the south, and even survived the Civil War mostly undamaged. Then, in 1890, it burned down in a fire sparked by a cigarette. All that remains today are the columns which supported the porch.

 

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edit: dang. That link worked when I previewed it.

 

I'm pretty sure that is in the scene from the movie Ghosts in Mississippi with Alec Baldwin and James Woods as Byron de la Beckwith that killed Medgar Evers.

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Lets see if I can make this work...

 

The first three are of an old blasting powder factory which had an explosion in 1912 or so. They never rebuilt and there's a ton of ancillary ruins in this area associated with it. The last one is an old school which was burnt at some point.

 

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This thread is awesome. I love this kind of stuff.

 

Here's one I found caching (a DNF for me unfortunately) that was really interesting not far from where I live. I had been by it literally hundreds of times and never even knew it was there, despite being fascinated by local history no less!

 

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(not my picture)

 

There's tons of mining stuff in and around the mill, including several mine shafts.

 

I really need to get back up there and try to find it.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...f5-daf62870059f

Edited by Lost Cosmonaut
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Glad you bumped this thread.

Most threads that fall unused, should stay gone. This one is great, and looks like a lot of other people have enjoyed it by the comments.

 

This is Monte Cristo WA, an old Ghost town.

It was a mining town that never produced enough ore to even pay for itself. The area was so rough in the winter, way up in the mountains, that every year the railroad had to be rebuilt going into it, and a great deal of the homes were destroyed every year by avalanches. They tried to get it to make money, but it never did. They finally gave up and it's gone back to nature.

 

The only way into it now is to hike in. It's 11 miles round trip to get there. The hike is along the river. Where the river has washed out the banks you can see the old railroad tracks hanging over the abyss here and there. It becomes more run down every year, but they just let it.

The bridge washed out a few years ago, and this is the way to get there now.

 

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there are many buildings left. Some standing, some in heaps on the ground.

 

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This is one of the old ore concentrator buildings that didn't make it. It's roped off now because it's so toxic.

montgifc.jpg

 

There's the old railroad turntable left.

The tracks went into the town which was high in the mountains, and then the train had to be turned around. It was a dead-end track.

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I could go on for pages and pages of photos. It's an incredibly beautiful and interesting place. It's surrounded by incredible mountains, streams and waterfalls, and near many, many miles of trails. These trails lead to lakes, waterfalls and even year-round ice caves.

That whole area (Mountain Loop Highway) is truly a geocaching paradise with a cache at each trailhead explaining the trail, caches at abandoned mines, one multi-cache in a mine-shaft, caches at nature trails, fire lookouts, waterfalls, etc. etc. One could spend months there and never get half the caches in the area.

 

montecristoWA.jpg

Edited by Sol seaker
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Cougar Mtn, WA

This was a coal mining area, along Coal Creek.

In the early 1800's the city that supported the mines here were larger than Seattle. It was a long tedious process getting the ore from these mines to the ocean for shipping. It crossed many bodies of water and switched railroads many times.

The area has artifacts all over. You never know when you're going to run across some. But is it best to not search for too many. There are also sink holes all over the mountain from the mines caving in. I read a book on the history of this mountain. The book was written some 20 years ago, and at that point there were over 100 places they knew of that had mine cave in's. They really advise people to stay on trails here and they mean it!!!

 

There are well over 50 geocaches on this mountain, many on or near artifacts. Some are near places like the sign talking about the old ball field, or the small dam that is still there that provided water to the town. There are also caches at the three waterfalls in the park.

 

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There are a number of mineshafts all over the area. Most of them blocked off like this one. Everywhere you go, you can hike for miles in beautiful forest and then come across an air shaft that used to go into the mines, or some piece of equipment or a very old car, or whatever. (the mines were in use still in the 1920's)

 

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There's also an old Nike Missile base on the property.

Edited by Sol seaker
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Sweet. Hadn't seen this thread before. Will post some more later, but for now, here are a couple:

 

New Manchester Manufacturing Company, old mill in Sweetwater Creek State Park near Atlanta, GA

 

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Ziggurat of UR, a 5,000 temple in southern Iraq (unfortunately, I didn't know the cache was there, wasn't caching yet)

 

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Ta' Znuber Knight's Tower, a watch tower built by the Knights of Malta on the north end of Malta

 

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Edited by hzoi
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I love the topic of this thread. These are my favorite kind of geocache. Here's a few caches and a few pictures of some of the cache locations that my brother and I have hidden:

 

Der Bierkeller (The beer cellar)

1800’s beer cellar from Dubuque’s long beer brewing history.

 

Ghost Town of Motor Mill

1867 six-story limestone grist mill and other historic buildings.

 

Elkader's Lovers Leap

Site of local folk lore involving Indians and the early days of lead mining. Also a root cellar and old insane asylum on grounds.

 

Well, Well, Well: 3 Artesians

Muli-cache that takes you to 3 historic sites each featuring an 1870’s artesian well which played a key role in the early development of the city.

 

Abandoned Satellite Complex 2

Remnants of a 1970’s Telstar communication complex.

Signage:

5a188c80-bcb1-43a9-806d-e01705e0e165.jpg

Today:

d7c1c7c8-11ae-46ee-8c7f-050117dda9ec.jpg

In the 1980’s:

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Inside a base:

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Forgotten 11th Street Elevator

Remnants of an 1887 funicular street cable car system.

Today:

eca9d6e2-9a96-49dc-873f-f74edf3aacca.jpg

In 1887:

b496c395-e2e4-4b88-bea1-d4ca14b6ef89.jpg

In 1915:

8c4b0700-162d-453e-a703-ac9f7308cbc1.jpg

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Thanks for bumping this thread...These places are really cool! I love historic sites like this and now that I've started geocaching I have an excuse to go find them! Unfortunately in Louisiana few old structures were made of stone or brick so most have rotted away by now. But there are a few around...

 

One of my favorites so far, GC236X9, "Old Sugar Mill Cache" near White Castle, La.....

 

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This one, GC17HQP, "Brother Jube's Not Here, He's Out Back" in Chackbay, La. Funny story about this one, I haven't actually found this cache yet. My son (Capt. Sparreaux) and I passed through this area the other day and spotted this old church. It's a town we've never been to before, but we had other things on our minds that day besides caching. As we passed it he commented, "That would be a great place to put a cache". I replied that I was just thinking the same thing, and we left it at that. After we got home, out of curiousity I did a search for caches in that area and sure enough, there is a cache there! Oh, well, it's not too far from home, we'll go back after it soon (and from the looks of the place, it had better be soon!). Anyway, here's a pic from the cache page...

 

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Edited by Chief301
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Not going to post every castle ruin I ever cached at, because it would hijack the thread. But here are a couple more ruins.

 

BOMBENSICHER, an above ground WWII bomb shelter in Darmstadt, Germany.

 

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Harbour of Faro [Faro], located next to a derelict ship in the harbor at Faro, Portugal.

 

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Beelitz Heilstätten -Chirurgie- LP, part of an old German military hospital complex that was taken over by the Soviets after 1945 and then partially abandoned in the late 90's. Hitler was taken here after he was shot in WWI. Didn't find the cache, but it was fun looking for it anyway.

 

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Edited by hzoi
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G is indeed for ghost town. In this case, an abandoned quicksilver mining town, New Indria, 30 miles from nowhere and in another world. The population sign says "me." Many buildings remain standing, although a fire last year burned some of it. And the road leads to a mine shaft and a virtual cache, one of my favorites.

 

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Edited by mulvaney
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I don't remember what cache I was looking for when I stumbled upon the Ward Charcoal Kilns in Northern Nevada.

 

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From the web: The Ward Charcoal Kilns were built by Swiss/Italian masons in about 1876 to produce charcoal for use in refining silver from the nearby mines. They were in production for about three years. There are six kilns in a row. Each of them is 30 feet high and 27 feet in diameter at the base. Each kiln would hold about 35 cords of wood and would produce about 1,000 bushels of charcoal. The charcoal, which burns hotter than wood, was then used to fire the silver roasting smelters in the nearby town of Ward. When railroads arrived, coke (made from coal) replaced charcoal in the processing of silver ore and the kilns were abandoned.

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I recently hid 11 caches for the IGO (Iowa Geocaching Organization) "Hike 'n' Seek" event near my hometown. One of my caches was located near the entrance of an old bomb shelter remaining from the 1960's. The shelter is about 4000 sq.ft. with rated capacity of 200+ people. For the event, I also volunteered to give a couple tours of the shelter to fellow cachers. Here's the cache listing and a photo:

 

1960s Era Bomb Shelter

 

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There's also a few more photos in the cache gallery page.

 

medoug.

Edited by medoug
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GCG9BR

overlooks the Pont du Gard ( actually, the cache is a little higher than the upper viewpoint but worth the hike as you pass a smaller ruined bridge.) Built in the first century, the aqueduct delivered water from Uzez to Nimes in southern France. It is one of the most visited Roman artifacts outside of Italy.

 

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the ruined pont closer to the cache

 

first two photos by Susancycle

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GCG9BR

overlooks the Pont du Gard ( actually, the cache is a little higher than the upper viewpoint but worth the hike as you pass a smaller ruined bridge.) Built in the first century, the aqueduct delivered water from Uzez to Nimes in southern France. It is one of the most visited Roman artifacts outside of Italy...

 

That is amazing! Thanks for sharing those great pictures.

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Some of my geocaching buddies and I found this spot today. We are still trying to determine the owner, in hopes that we can hide some caches here, and we are also still trying to learn the history of the place. There were LONG stone walls everywhere. Most did not seem to be foundations. Many were parallel and far enough apart for a car or wagon to pass through. It was a very cool spot, and still very much of a mystery!

 

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There were a number of these pillar-like blocks:

EaganStoneWall8.jpg?t=1329093506

 

We thought this was a mausoleum as we approached, but it turned out to be a pumphouse of sorts:

EaganStoneWall3.jpg?t=1329093839

 

The door to the pumphouse doesn't look that old, until you notice the hand-wrought hinges and latch:

EaganStoneWall4.jpg?t=1329093434

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Some of my geocaching buddies and I found this spot today. We are still trying to determine the owner, in hopes that we can hide some caches here, and we are also still trying to learn the history of the place. There were LONG stone walls everywhere. Most did not seem to be foundations. Many were parallel and far enough apart for a car or wagon to pass through. It was a very cool spot, and still very much of a mystery!

 

That is a neat looking place! From the photos I suspect the long parallel walls were used to terrace the property so something or the other could be grown easily.

 

I saw this place on vacation three years ago. It was before I started geocaching so I had no idea that it was an Earth Cache

 

4145142211_938b75e27e_z.jpg?zz=1

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Some of my geocaching buddies and I found this spot today. We are still trying to determine the owner, in hopes that we can hide some caches here, and we are also still trying to learn the history of the place. There were LONG stone walls everywhere. Most did not seem to be foundations. Many were parallel and far enough apart for a car or wagon to pass through. It was a very cool spot, and still very much of a mystery!

 

That is a neat looking place! From the photos I suspect the long parallel walls were used to terrace the property so something or the other could be grown easily.

 

I saw this place on vacation three years ago. It was before I started geocaching so I had no idea that it was an Earth Cache

 

4145142211_938b75e27e_z.jpg?zz=1

 

You might be right about that. There was another area (without the terraces, however) that had 6 foot pipes sticking up, each with a valve and a sprinkler head on it. Something was indeed grown there.

 

As for your lime kilns... I've seen lime kilns before, but nothing of that magnitude!!

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I think these are some of the coolest caches I have ever not found! :D However, I was wondering, wouldn't these caches be super hard to maintain? Speaking from experience, how well maintained are caches that are located in distant/deserted areas like this?

 

They might not be as distant as you think....some are, but some might be just a hundred yards off the road, hidden by the trees.

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I think these are some of the coolest caches I have ever not found! :D However, I was wondering, wouldn't these caches be super hard to maintain? Speaking from experience, how well maintained are caches that are located in distant/deserted areas like this?

 

They might not be as distant as you think....some are, but some might be just a hundred yards off the road, hidden by the trees.

 

And some are right by the road. For the most part I wouldn't really care if the cache was poorly maintained, the destination would be well worth the journey....

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I think these are some of the coolest caches I have ever not found! :D However, I was wondering, wouldn't these caches be super hard to maintain? Speaking from experience, how well maintained are caches that are located in distant/deserted areas like this?

 

They might not be as distant as you think....some are, but some might be just a hundred yards off the road, hidden by the trees.

 

And some are right by the road. For the most part I wouldn't really care if the cache was poorly maintained, the destination would be well worth the journey....

 

I certainly agree that it would be well worth the journey (even if the caches weren't maintained). I can't wait to start traveling around more to find places that I never knew existed! I am in Vermont, and I am sure there are plenty of places like this to find!

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From NicknPapa "I wouldn't really care if the cache was poorly maintained, the destination would be well worth the journey...."

+1

 

Great topic and lots of cool pictures. I'll add a few more;

 

GC2QVT8 Slocan tunnel – part of an old highway.

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GC2E0Y3 Saddle mtn lookout. Abandoned forestry lookout

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GC1AVTM Labarthe Tunnel – an old train tunnel. A dam was built downstream and now this tunnel fills with water seasonally.

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Edited by zanadian
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I am glad this thread was bumped. I love to explore ruins and on the past I actually was able visit one of the sites that was posted here.

 

One of my favorite urban ruin is in Alburquerque. Although I often ignore urban nanos, LocoNano brought us to the railroad yards and a hole in the fence invited me in:

 

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On a recent trip we found a cache nearby megalithic ruins:

 

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Or old castles:

 

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Edited by geodarts
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At the risk of being presumptuous I was just thinking about how another cache took us to a different kind of ruin. At the time we found the cache, the main attraction was a rusty Whirley Crane that is next the the container. There were no fences and the crane was not posted, so we naturally climbed up to the old control room. That set of circumstances has now changed with new fencing. Caching sometimes takes you tantalizing close to ruins. At other times, it gets you there.

 

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I love all the great places I never would have discovered if not for geocaching - including places that tell the story of the history of the area.

 

GC3WG0B An old train tunnel just north of San Francisco - closed off though, so you can't go inside.

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GC29ERV Wemple Cabin, in the Plumas National Forest

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GCBFAD An old mercury processing plant

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GC17J9M Abandoned house on the Mendocino coast

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