Rock ghosts and jailbreaks: back in Pioche

After the rock ghosts of the morning, the Ghost Town Art and Coffee Company was a lovely place to spend an hour or two. Housed in a late 19th century workshop with lovely exposed rough wood, it's now a gallery for Kelly Garni's beautiful found-object desert art. And it's a coffeehouse with a simple menu - hot meals cooked on the barbecue out back, and a range of coffees and frappe drinks. There was a lot to love here - we had a coffee in the morning then came back for lunch!

Ghost Town Art & Coffee has treasure within

First, the room itself has clear eastern light, and the walls are full of interesting objects. The artist's workshop takes up a big part of one walland his work is displayed throughout. It's a simple, open plan - I imagine it's very snug, too, on a cold winter day with the woodstove roaring hot. There are a few tables, and some reading material which we pounced on - two books on the town's mad wild west history, by local author Leo Schafer. They're both out of print and hard to find and we haven't finished reading them yet, so I guess we might be back there yet again some time. Also, the food itself was very tasty! I think my idea of a latte is not quite the same as the local one, but I really enjoyed the burger at lunch and the iced tea.

Then, the art itself appeals very much to me, with its re-use of found objects from ghost towns. I guess there's some question as to at what point such objects become of archaeological interest - it must be a sliding scale - but I certainly have a deep sympathy with anyone who picks up bits of rusty crap off the ground. He makes them into flat wall pieces, and uses cut pieces of old sheet metal as backs for vintage photos. The effect is striking, the colours vivid yet organic. The artist was kind enough to talk with us for quite a while about his finds and his work - I was glad to have been there at a quiet enough time for that. This is only one aspect of what he does, as he has an interesting history as a rock musician as well. I loved this profile article, a copy of which is on the wall.

But we weren't just there to loll about in coffee shops reading local history. No, indeed. We had museums to visit. (Also stopped by the old Opera House - as you do. A future post though, opera houses.)

Beautiful museum-grade thingummy

The Lincoln County museum is on Main Street, in two large rooms of what was formerly a store, or perhaps two adjacent stores. It is a museum of the old school, with typewritten labels and a great many curiosities, including more than the average number of harmoniums (harmonia? never thought I'd need ...) - and a very handsome Wurlitzer. Some of the display cases look like they were originally part of the store fittings - waist height, wooden framed. The collection is rather eclectic, and case after case is full of a dizzying array of artefacts. The lady behind the desk told us she has worked there twenty years and still manages to find things she didn't know were there. I'm not in the least surprised. After we had looked right around it I needed a cup of tea and a lie down, my brain was that full. It could and should have featured in some episode of Warehouse 13.

I very much enjoyed - though like a fool forgot to photograph for y'all - the cabinets full of local minerals. Lincoln County really has an A to Z of them - the variety of shape and colour is astounding. (There are local trilobites, too - we may have to go back to try and find them. Apparently you can pick up pretty rocks near many of the old mines. Harry, your days are numbered - we're going to need a high clearance 4WD.) I especially liked that they were arranged in collections by donor. There was even a big chunk of rock with petroglyphs - quite interesting ones, people on horseback, which puts them post-Conquest.


We took the aforementioned lunch break before proceeding to the Million Dollar Courthouse, now opened as a museum after (the obligatory, or perhaps just customary) decades of neglect which followed the opening of the rather ugly 'new' courthouse down the hill.

And here's an object lesson in the importance of fiscal control, not to say project management. Most of the huge cost was interest as estimates were grossly exceeded, bonds issued, scrip traded at a discount, money ran out, rinse and repeat ... The importance of quality control, too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the contractors took some pretty strange shortcuts in construction. The jail out the back was notoriously insecure and it was immediately obvious why: like the side and rear walls of the courthouse itself, it's made of shale.

Iron downpipe supports	East wall of the jail	Keeping cats out since 1872?

Maybe after a grotesque quantity of spiritous liquor someone thought it sounded like the right material? (Historical reconstruction: "Dammit, I said buildin' a shale for keepin' crimnals in." "I know listen listen, no wait listen, less make it outta shale.")

As you probably know, you can split shale with your fingernails on a good day. Not only that, but apparently the mortar was about an hour's work with a spoon to remove enough rocks to let a determined man out. Later, they lined the cells with steel, though the more spacious (?!) main room was still just wood, shale and mortar. (The steel still looks pretty solid, the masonry much less so, the wooden planks underfoot frankly alarming.)

Whatever its shortcomings as a building material, the shale certainly makes for a beautiful looking edifice, as it has appealing colours and grains, and up close a slight metallic glitter to it. The contents, too, had appealing colours and grains and the odd metallic shimmer.

The judge's room

We looked both downstairs and up in an assortment of rooms, arranged by occupation. The courtroom itself, at the top and back of the building, was conveniently located right beside the jail (or vice versa). It has a judge, jury and defendant, all complete. There was also an assayer's room, a room for the sheriff, the clerk, the attorney, the judge. The clerk's room had dozens of antique typewriters arrayed on shelves.

In between, we had an interesting chat with the man in charge - about mining practices, claims, local history and land ownership (actually the talk got quite far afield to what we were reading and so forth - he was a very engaging fellow.)

We left as it was closing time and headed back to camp to walk by the reservoir, rest and read, watch the sun and moon set behind the hill, and see swallows and bats come out to swoop and flutter through the dusk.

And, bien entendu, set all the things on fire

Itinerary

Saturday: 322 to Pioche. Back to Spring Valley State Park