We went adventurin'. We went to check out some Ghost towns here in Box Elder County. The first one we stopped at was Kelton. All that was left was a cemetery. It's hard to believe that in its hayday there was a two-story hotel, several saloons, a post office, some stores and houses. While we were walking around the cemetary, I had a funny thought. When I was 10 years old, we have a home video of us visiting a ghost town near St. George called Harrisburg. We were walking around the old cemetery that was there. When my parents decided to move to St.George, they ended moving into a lot that was directly across the street from that cemetery that we visited when I was 10. When we visited it, there was hardly anything around. Now there is a whole community there. It made me laugh while we were visiting this ghost town, because the thought popped into my head, that what if one day, they build a community here and Roger and I move into a lot across the street from this cemetery. I just thought it was funny. When I was putting the old videos from my childhood together onto DVDs, I made a thought bubble by my mom in the video as she was looking at the cemetery and in the thought bubble, I wrote, "Someday, I 'd like to live by this." It would just be a really funny and strange coincident if at sometime in our future, Roger and I live near this cemetery.
Alissa's friend Erin came with us on this trip.
Kelton was the center for stage coach and freight lines running into Idaho and Oregon. It used to have a two-story hotel, a post office, several saloons, stores, and homes. Pretty much all that remains of Kelton now is the cemetery and a foundation of a building. You can see where the train tracks used to be. At it's peak, Kelton had a population of 700 people. The town was inhabited from 1869 - 1942. When researching this town, I found a story of a stage coach robbery, where the robbers took all their money and then left with their horses. the people were about 10 miles away from Kelton when it happened. The robbers left them each with $1.00 so they could buy food when they got to Kelton. Apparently, stage coach robberies were a very common thing out there. The strongest earthquake in Utah history caused severe damage in 1934, but not very many people still lived there at that time. Everybody left Kelton when the rails were completely removed in 1942, during World War II. Here are some pictures of what used to be and how it looks now.
After our visit to Kelton, we went to visit Park Valley. There are still people living in Park Valley. The town of Park Valley was originally settled by a few ranchers that came up from Brigham City. It was first settled in 1869. For a while it was a small boom town of about 500 when a vein of gold was discovered. This was short lived and the population diminished. Population increased again, but only by a little, when travelers found it to be a good resting spot between Lucin and Snowville. A good hotel was erected, the water works were improved, and a post office was established. Two well-stocked stores were put up, and a local telephone system was installed. As travel became easier, Park Valley was bypasses by speeding autos and it's importance shrank once more. Now there are only 30 families living there. We didn't take very many pictures, because we didn't get out and walk around. Here is a restored cabin. Then a quick picture on our way out of town. We really should have taken better pictures. We were getting tired from all the driving. Park Valley and Kelton are really out there. We did a lot of driving to reach them.
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