The Lonely Lighthouse of Punta Gorda

๐—๐˜‚๐—น๐˜† ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿญ, ๐Ÿญ๐Ÿต๐Ÿฌ๐Ÿณ You’re aboard the steamship, Columbia, en route to Portland. San Francisco, wherefrom you departed the day before, now seems a distant memory. It’s dark, almost pitch black, and thick fog blankets the sea. An otherwise cold night is made bearable under the gleam of a state-of-the-art lighting apparatus, the first of its …

๐—ฆ๐—ผ๐—น๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ! ๐— ๐˜†๐˜€๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜† ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—™๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐—ฆ๐˜๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ฒ

It was 2:30 in the morning on Independence Day, when two of my friends, Kaleb (AKA, Squatch) and Ryan, arrived at my door. We had a planned adventure that day based on a tip I had received. With three hours until sunrise, we hit the road. Our destination: a rock quarry hiding something more than …

Arizona Jones at Inicial Monument

Arizona’s Most Prolific Con Man

The famous American philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, once said, โ€œSow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.โ€ For another man of Emersonโ€™s time, James Addison Reavis, who would become Arizonaโ€™s most …

The Ghost Town Of Helena, California

Since I began my adventure journey a few years ago, Iโ€™ve seen a number of ghost towns. On a recent trip through California, however, I was privileged to visit the most intact ghost town I have seen so far.ย  Welcome to Helena, California.ย  The story of Helena is similar to many towns like it. What …

This Charcoal Kiln Dates To The 1800s!

In a small town outside Prescott, Arizona, a monolith to a bygone era stands proudly amongst the pine and summer homes.  Created around the year 1880, by Jake and Joe Carmichael, this kiln was used to convert oak wood into charcoal to be used in the smelting operations of a nearby silver mine.  Using a …

Historic Clevenger House, Superior, Arizona

This lovingly-crafted stone and mortar home was once that of the Robert Clevenger family, in the early 1900s. Built in Queen Creek Canyon, the northern wall is the canyon, itself. The majestic Picketpost Mountain looms to the South, and the ghost town of Pinal once stood less than one mile to the east (as the …

The Cross Of Santa Ana, Superior, Arizona

This cross proudly stands atop the hills overlooking the small Arizona town of Superior. Around the time of its creation, much of the town’s residents were devout Catholics. So, on May 3rd, 1936, a group of miners set out to construct this monument overlooking their homes and workplaces, to be blessed by a town priest, …

The Ghost Town Of Silverbell, And Historic Silverbell Cemetery

This historic graveyard, in Southern Arizona, is all that remains of the ghost town of Silverbell.  Before Arizona became a state, and the west was still wild, mining activity, according to Arizona State University, began in the area during the 1870s with Charles Brown, a Tuscon resident. His work lasted only a few years before …

Historic Cabin And Springhouses Of Northern Arizona

The Homestead Act, enacted during the time of the Civil War, allowed for any U.S. citizen, or would-be citizen, to claim 160 acres of government land, provided they worked to improve the land through cultivation and other means, among other caveats. In the early 1890s, Charles Ludwig Veit, a german immigrant, claimed his 160 acres …