2004 08, Nevada

2004 08 22 Belmont Courthouse

Today I went back to the "occupied" ghost town of Belmont to I could photograph the interior of the old courthouse.  It's normally locked but I was told who to ask for permission to get in.  Turns out that this couple run one of the 3 small businesses in town and are really nice people.  I got a half hour tour and then was left in the building to photograph.  I was there for between 3 and 4 hours without knowing it.  It was quite a surprise to finish and see that it was 3PM..  This is a very cool old building.  All the bricks and plaster were made on site, the lumber was hauled in from someplace in far western Nevada, and it is a very finely made structure.  Yet it all took only a year.  It really is a beautiful building.  Sometime in the late 70s some Federal money was available to "arrest" the decay of the building, and you can see the results of that work in places.  The holes in the roof were repaired, some of the exterior finish work was replaced, and the windows were sealed.  A lot more was done but those were the most visible things.

The interior is covered with grafitti, but unlike the grafitti you would see scrawled and spray painted today, what you see here is almost quaint.  Much of it is in pencil and written out in cursive.  It's all mostly names and dates.  There's some poetry (!) and there is no profanity.  If people were in there today scrawling on the walls it would all be mindless profanity.  Most of what is on the walls is from the 30s through the early 60s.  The man that gave me the tour said that before the walls are repaired and repainted they would want all the graffiti photographed, since a lot of it is from people that are part of local or even state history.

It's a great building.  The ceilings on the first floor are 12 feet, and I think on the second they are 14 ft.  The courtroom is on the second floor, a very impressive room.  I was right about the modular jail cells I saw a couple of days ago.  I was told that they were dragged out of this jail and taken to Gabbs during WWII.  A "jail" was needed to keep rowdy (my guides word, not mine) magnesium workers from disappearing when in an altered state of awareness on weekends off.  So I was told.

Here are a bunch of interior shots.  The time flew by while I was here and I had no idea I was inside as long as I was.  The largest room upstairs is the courtroom itself and the other rooms are judges offices, the equivalent of the district attorney, etc.  I think the lower floor was law enforcement, the upper floor was judicial.

One of the lower floor rooms.  Typical appearance.  Graffiti is very restrained and even quaint by today's standards for graffiti.

Lower floor again.

Ths courtroom.  Exposure here was tough due to intense sun through the windows.  I did better with the film and I wish I had taken more digital snaps.  I was not paying much attention to the latter.

Looking through the walls into the courtroom.  It has the chairs.

I was told this is for real.

The brick room is actually the entryway to twin adjoining vaults.

More quaint graffiti.  I like the longhand.  There was one "Mr. Joe Smith.  (And Mrs.) 1939." 

The remains of the Highbridge Mill about 1 mile from Belmont.  The bricks from the were taken from the other large mill whose remains are right in Belmont.  This operated for only a couple of years.

The usual scary mine shaft.

The remains of a cyanide "heap leach" operation another mile or so from Belmont.  This is the worst sort of mining.  You use cyanide to leach minute traces of gold from the heaps of waste from previous operations, or from other very low grade ore.

I shot a lot of panoramics all around this area since it looked out over two beautiful wide valleys.