Millard County Fair 2012

 I really wanted to go to the Millard County Fair, as I really enjoy county fairs. (Yep, when the kids get slightly older, we'll be making a pilgrimage back to the county fair where I grew up.) The Millard County Fair runs Tuesday through Saturday. We managed to make it Friday evening in time for the Danny Newell All-Star Band. I loved the big band music, with lots of jazz tunes.

 In fact, I am going to have to get my trumpet out and see if I can still make some music.

 The band inspired Desert Girl to dance.

 Desert Boy joined her. Before long, there were a few couples dancing. It was hard to sit still and listen to the music.

 The kids talked me into snow cones. I finally acquiesced, figuring if they were busy eating, they would sit still and be quiet for a little while.

 Desert Girl added to her stickiness.

 As the concert went on, we were treated to a gorgeous sunset.

 I had to get up and check out the clouds.

 It was magical.

 Following the band, we stayed for the outdoor showing of Cars2. Desert Girl found a new friend and wanted to stay with her during the movie. She even managed to stay awake through the whole thing.

At one point, Desert Boy looked up and said, "Mom, look at all the stars!"

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, and went to see the exhibits.

 The kids wanted to color a picture at the entrance, which gave me a great opportunity to go look at things with a little more attention.

 This awesome dragon was made by a teenage boy out of pinecones.

 What a wonderful chest!

 The doll is topping a cake.

 The kids wandered around some of the exhibits with me, had fun trying out some physics experiments at the University of Utah Cosmic Ray booth, picked up deputy sheriff badges, no smoking kits from the public health nurse, and more.

 Then it was time to go to the free inflatable slide and bounce house. The kids were delighted.

Later in the day the kids had their faces painted. They were worn out, so it was time to pack them up and head home. What expressions, eh? They managed to stay awake for some grocery shopping, but they were snoozing for most of the drive.

The White Pine County Fair is in less than two weeks, so we can go enjoy another fair soon!

Cove Fort

The kids had a dentist visit in Cedar City and then we wanted to go to the Millard County Fair in Delta, Utah, so instead of making two separate trips, we decided to combine the two. That meant we got to travel some different roads. We had two main route choices. I had seen that Cove Fort Days was August 3 and 4, and so that decided the route, as I had never been to Cove Fort. It's near the junction of I-70 and I-15.

Cove Fort was finished in 1867 as a waystation for travelers. It was built by the Mormons around a well in the fort. They didn't have enough water to build a town, but up to 75 travelers at a time stayed at the fort. Cove Fort was strategically placed half way between Fillmore and Beaver and was an important telegraph station and stop for two stagecoach lines.

By the 1890s, the LDS church decided they didn't need the fort any longer and leased it. They sold it in the early twentieth century. In 1989, descendants of Ira Hinckley, who had established the fort, bought the property and donated it back to the church. The church restored it, built a visitor center, and turned it into a historic site with free tours. During the annual celebration, they also have some extra activities.

Many people in period costume set up tents and showed glimpses of what life was like back in the late 1800s.

Some medical tools. I sure appreciate modern medicine!

A lot of people were having fun with stilts. We gave it a try but weren't too coordinated. Desert Boy found some kids in period costume and had fun playing with their toy wooden guns.

Then it was on to food. They had free hot dogs and chips.

While we were eating, we listened to some lovely entertainment.

Over on the side we couldn't help but notice some movement.

The Wells Fargo wagon was coming to the fort.

We decided to join the US mail for a little jaunt.

It was a bouncy five minute ride that had Desert Boy grinning the entire time. Desert Girl said she was even ready to go to Oregon. I can't imagine riding for days--or even hours--in that bouncy wagon. It would have been so hot and dusty. Those pioneers were tough.

The horses were so good natured. They had been giving rides all day long.

Next we decided to go see the fort. It's 100 feet long on each side, with walls made of volcanic and limestone rock. Those long-lasting materials are why the fort is still in existence. Two big doors allow access to the interior of the fort.

The walls are thick, about five thick at the base and tapering to two feet at the top.

The stars and stripes fly high over the fort.

From a little balcony, we could see the interior courtyard.

Twelve rooms are in the fort. Usually a tour guide takes people through the fort, but during this weekend, guides were stationed outside each room to increase capacity.

The kids weren't very patient about looking at the rooms, so we didn't get to see all of them, but we did see some. They looked surprisingly comfortable. In the winter it would have taken a lot of wood to heat all those rooms!

I asked one of the guides if the town of Hinckley was named after Ira Hinckley. She looked at me and said, "I didn't even know there was a town named Hinckley." I don't suppose too many people know that there's a town named Hinckley. It's a few miles west of Delta and on Highway 50, so we know about it as we travel that Highway quite a bit. I looked it up, and the town is named after Ira Hinckley. I had never given much thought about the origin of the name, so we both learned something.

We went out the back and saw an amazing garden. It looks so much better than my barely-surviving garden. Of course, it has a much better irrigation system!

Also out back was the blacksmith shop, which was really interesting.

A world-champ blacksmith was giving a live demonstration.

Desert Boy had never seen hobbles before.

Then it was on to play a ring rolling game. Desert Boy really wanted to succeed.

He did pretty well, but not as well as the older kids, and that frustrated him.

Desert Girl also gave it a try.

On the way back through the fort we stopped in the telegraph room, which had a morse code message tapping out. If only I remembered my morse code from those high school days when my friend and I would try and tap out messages to each other during class!

I enjoyed this old map of "Johnson's California, with territories of Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona". Notice what territory Las Vegas is in?

We easily spent an hour and a half at Cove Fort. It was an enjoyable stop, and I'd go back. I'm sure we only touched on a little bit of the pioneer history that the Fort preserves. If you ever find yourself in the neighborhood of I-70 and I-15, it's worth a visit.

In Search of Newhouse

 On Saturday on the way to town (town meaning any place with more than 200 people), I decided I wanted to go find Newhouse, a ghost town. I knew that some of the first settlers in the area where I live had gotten off the train at Newhouse and continued by wagon over the mountain ranges and basins. I was recently reminded of Newhouse when I discovered the book Utah Ghost Rails by Stephen Carr and Robert Edwards. I found it at the Utah DNR Bookstore, one of my favorite places to browse for local publications. In the book, I found information about the railroad tracks extending from Frisco, a rowdy ghost town near Milford, Utah, to Newhouse. I had seen remnants of those tracks from Highway 21, but hadn't thought much about them. With Desert Boy's love of trains, I figured it was time to make the journey.

 I thought I knew which road led to Newhouse. When we saw the above mining remains, I figured we were on the right track. The hole in the ground intrigued me, so I got out and found that it went deeper than I could see. Scary!

The good road continued, but we didn't see more old mining structures. Instead, we saw this:

 Modern equipment and fresh piles of rock. Had someone started reworking the old mines near Newhouse? Or were these new ones?

The road was gated and no one was around, so we didn't have our questions answered. We turned around and headed up a little two-track road.

We didn't get far. We found another gate and a sign saying that the area was owned by Horn Silver Mines, Inc. I recognized the name from the Frisco side.

I saw a couple of adits on the hillside.

We still didn't know where Newhouse was, and the roads were a little too rocky for the van, so we parked and started hiking.

Desert Girl wanted me to take a picture of her.

We hiked for a bit, but the kids quickly decide that wasn't what they really wanted to do. They wanted to go back to the van. On the way, though, they found a distraction.

It was time to rock climb!

Desert Boy made it to the top and was happy. We headed back to the highway, with a detour down another two track road. We encountered some other people who were also looking for Newhouse but couldn't find it.

So we headed to Milford and got directions at the tourist information in the caboose. We needed to go back down in the valley more. So after running a bunch of errands and enjoying the Minersville swimming pool, we headed back towards Newhouse. This time we found it, with a turnoff from Highway 21 near mile marker 57. (One book says the road used to be marked, but it certainly isn't now. However, if you look off into the distance, you can see some of the buildings from the highway--something I had never noticed before.)

Out among the cactus and cheatgrass, we found some old buildings.

We found quite a few old foundations.

The kids had a great time looking for lizards.

The Cactus Mine was started in 1870, before the mine in Frisco. But it didn't have many investors and little was mined until 1900, when Samuel Newhouse came from Salt Lake City. He had previously invested in the copper mines up Bingham Canyon, which proved quite successful. With his capital, plus investments from England and France, the Cactus Mine was worked more and proved to be profitable. A town developed on Newhouse's land around the mine, called Tent-town due to the temporary nature of the "buildings".

A few years later, the mine was still going strong, and some permanent buildings were erected. The town became known as Newhouse and included a cafe, library, livery stable, hospital, several stores, and a hotel. It even had an opera house and dance hall. Water was not available right there, so it was piped in from Wah Wah Springs five miles west, and an electrical system was installed. Water not used for mining and culinary purposes irrigated the city park. The saloon and red light district were relegated to a mile outside of town, off of Newhouse's property. The town was orderly in contrast to Frisco around the hill, which at its heydey had 23 saloons and was known as the wildest town in the Great Basin (from Stephen Carr's Utah Ghost Towns).

Hmm...opera house vs. 23 saloons...

The Utah Southern Extension Railroad built a depot at the end of the Frisco Branch.  In addition to the Frisco Branch, a separate standard gauge railroad named the Newhouse, Copper Gulch & Sevier Lake was built between the Cactus Mine and the Cactus Mill.

The ore didn't last forever, though. It didn't even last for long. About five years after the town was settled, the Cactus Mine gave out, after producing $3.5 million worth of ore.  Other mines in the area weren't big producers, so the town, like most mining towns, quickly quieted. Many buildings were moved into Milford. The cafe continued, serving sheep and cattlemen and a few miner, until 1921 when it burned down. The tracks were pulled up to Frisco in 1927, and then the track from Frisco to Milford was taken up by August 1943.

Although most of the town had disappeared, I was surprised by how many remnants we could still see.

We were short on time, so only got a quick glimpse of some of the structures and foundations.

We found that the road followed part of the old railroad bed. It started getting a little too rocky for our van so we had to turn around. But we'll be back to explore more of this neat old ghost town.