2007 03 Eastern Nevada

2007 03 12 Pan Am Mine, Caselton

Today I did two things: drove out to see the Pan Am mine site, and then re-shot one of the buildings at the Caselton mill.

The drive out to the Pan Am mine is a long beautiful gravel road on around mountains west of Pioche. I was told there is a squatter our in or near the mine and he had "50 or 60" dogs. Sure enough, I did run into him, although I think he only had 25 or 30 dogs. AN interesting guy, to say the least. I was also told he was a nudist, but he wasn't naked at the time. The mine he's living near really is "out there". It is a 16 or 18 mile drive on a (good) gravel road, but the nearest town is quite small. More about him later.

Here are a couple more shots of the vacuum evaporators at the Caselton Mill. This is a really nice space, with beautiful light.

Here are a few on the drive out to the Pan Am mine. There was not a cloud in the sky today. 68 degrees at 2 pm. Beautiful. Perfect. It seemed as if you could see curvature of the earth from west side of mountains.

Here's my friend with the dogs. He's probably in his 60s, maybe older. But who knows, he could be a lot younger! It appeared that he had been in the same coveralls for quite a while. He's quite a conversational guy given how far away from everyone he's living. He told me that he is working on "proton radiation" as an alternative to spay/neuter for dogs. Apparently the field trials have been of only moderate success, since most of his dogs looked to be under a year old.

Everyone I talked to around Pioche knows about him.

He's been squatting on BLM land (the Pan Am mine offices) for years apparently, although the BLM seems to have kicked him out of the mine sometime fairly recently. He's now living by the side of the road out of an ancient Ford van, at the access road into the mine.

I did go into the mine site to look around and photograph a little, and he's left a lot of paperwork behind. A lot of legal history in papers left in office. Always about dogs.. In Texas, various places in Nevada .. His van looked like is has not moved in 20 years. Empty generic dog food bags were everywhere in the mine buildings He seems to live on oatmeal and jars of peaches.

He may be waiting for the mothership to return.

In spite of all this he seemed like a nice guy.

Here's one of the abandoned mine buildings. Not very interesting but this looks like where the dog guy was living.

The "residence hall" for some of the mine workers. This looks like the place where the dogs lived!

Here's the view out into the valley to the west. Some of these mines sure are in beautiful locations. The next is the main tunnel into the mine. Fenced, but you can get around it. I didn't.

I then went back and shot some panoramic on the black magnesium tailing "dunes" near the Caselton mill.