Desert(ed) Buildings

When you cache out in the desert, you sometimes come across remnants of things that used to be.  In our case last week, we came across lots of different remnants.  We came upon buildings that were barely there, somewhat there and almost all the way there.  Chaosmanor hid a cache last week called, For the Birds?  There was some interesting foundations at the cache site that had us speculating what had been there.

There were foundations of several buildings on the site, which was just off the road.  I could make out a fence, with at least two gates.  The main foundation of some type of homestead was still visible, and what looked like a garage of some kind, perhaps a barn just on the other side of the fence from where the main house was.  It was fun to think about living out here in the desert and trying to survive.  We found what looked like a well, and also a bird bath perhaps, which is what inspired Chaosmanor to name his cache.

In another spot, we came across an old socialist camp started in the early part of the 20th century.  The camp lasted but 3 years or so before being abandoned because of water shortages.  Apparently, the founders had miscalculated the amount of water they would be able to get from a nearby stream and thus ran out of water.  Amazingly, in the short time the colony was flourishing they managed to build several large buildings.  Many of the buildings were dismantled and the materials were used elsewhere in this part of the desert, but enough of some of the buildings remain so that you can get a sense of what it might have been like out in the desert nearly 100 years ago.

At another cache site we found a large abandoned building.  We found the cache very quickly, but we stayed a lot longer taking in the building.  The owner of the cache speculated that it appeared to be a Grange Hall, but he couldn't find information to confirm that.  I speculated that it might have been an old church of some kind.  It gave me the impression that that's what it could be, but another finder a couple of days after us found an old Topo map which indeed showed it to be a Grange Hall for the area.

Spots like this are what bring me back to the desert.  Looking at the satellite photos gives you some kind of impression of an area, but when you actually get to at site, you really get a feel for what went on there.  The history of an area can sometimes be told by the stuff that gets left behind.

Pictures were taken at or near the following geocaches:
The Llano Del Rio Geocache - by Kit Fox
Mystery Building - by Obtuse