Tuesday, February 12, 2013

More From Calico, April 1966

Here are the last five images from a small lot of slides featuring Calico!

Those reddish mountains are so barren and bleak, and yet they are sort of beautiful too. And at one time they were full of silver! In spite of the brilliant sunshiny day, Calico is not exactly teeming with visitors.


I hope you like rocks. And crooked little wooden buildings! Because that's what you'll find here. If you don't mind the drive, it's actually a fun place to check out.


Bottle houses are awesome. This one looks cute on the outside, but once you are inside, the sunlight is filtered through various bottles of green, amber, brown, and clear, for a surprisingly beautiful effect... almost as if you are under water. 


There's the most important building in Calico. No, not the schoolhouse, the privy. I guess when you go to a little schoolhouse you can only get a little schoolin'. 


And finally, one last overview of the little ghost town, with the Calico and Odessa Railroad just leaving the depot. I wanted to add this strange bit of news from Wikipedia: In 2012 Calico became the first ghost town in America to be re-opened for residential purposes. 100m from the ghost town site, six luxury villas were built with a trading value of $4.5 million. WEIRD!


I hope you have enjoyed your visit to Calico!

6 comments:

K. Martinez said...

These shots are incredibly beautiful! I love the colors.

MRaymond said...

I've visited Calico many times. Love the place but I wouldn't want to live there. Even in a luxury villa. But the view would be awesome

Major Pepperidge said...

K. Martiinez, it is a very strikingly beautiful area, in spite of the harsh conditions.

MRaymond, I agree; why would I want to live in one of the hottest places in California, with nothing to do?! You need to be rich AND antisocial.

Anonymous said...

By building six luxury villas in this harsh environment, somebody believes there's now GOLD in them thar hills.

Bill in Denver

Dean Finder said...

Those luxury villas must be made from Dom Perignon bottles

Anonymous said...

The colors in these pics are true to life. Its hard to believe rocks can be so varied in such a small area. Take a look at Google Satellite.

The reason the place is empty, judging from the clothing of the young lady, the photos are made in winter, which can be wretchedly cold there, also windy. Other than that, it's a lot like summer.

Back then there wasn't much to recommend the location except for the silver.

I could see some attraction to living there now, with all the modern conveniences, like hot and cold running firewood and the intertubes to read GDB. Every fast food known to man is available in Barstow, just a short drive away.

JG