The High Mountain Ghost Town of Tuckerville Colorado and 'ole Weaselskin's Gold Mine

I lensed this image of the Weminuche Wilderness in the Colorado Rocky Mountains while  flying directly above Runlett Peak. Click on the image to view it full screen, the detail is amazing! 

The sloping hill in the foreground  is Middle Mountain and directly  across the valley starting on the left  and working to the right is Endlich Mesa, Sheridan Mountain (13,748 ft /  4,190 m),  (11,933 ft /  3,637 m),  (13,018 ft / 3,968 m), Amherst  Mountain (13,170 ft / 4,015 m)  and Organ Mountain (13,808 ft / 4,209  m). 

 In  the distance are Twilight Peak (13,159 ft / 4,010 m), Pigeon Peak   (13,973 ft / 4,258 m), Mount Valois (13,185 ft / 4,018 m), Aztec   Mountain (13,310 ft / 4,056 m), Mount Eolus (14,085 ft / 4,293 m) and  the Needle Mountains. Continuing to the right of those we have Grizzly   Peak (13,428 ft / 4,092 m), Greylock Mountain (13,575 ft / 4,137 m), Jagged Mountain (13,830 ft / 4,215 m), Vallecito Mountain (13,428 ft /   4,092 m) and to the very right edge of the image is Storm King Peak   (13,752 ft / 4,191 m).  

---

Here is a link to google maps for the location of this beautiful place.   

---

Tuckerville was the small mining camp  near Vallecito at Cave Basin  in 1913. Cave Basin is located on Middle Mountain, in the foreground of  this image. In the main mining area at  Cave Basin a five-foot vein of  good copper and galena (lead ore) was  found. 

As hard as the miners tried to keep this exciting news  under cover,  the secret was soon out and hordes of eager men soon  followed. And this horde of miners created a makeshift mining town, compete with post office, along the hillside ridge in the foreground of this image. It  finally played out in 1928 and the camp town was abandoned.  

I took this image flying east bound towards Alamosa, Colorado. I am  shooting north westerly and yes it was very cold with the window open.  

---

On the ridge in the foreground buried  under the snow is the ghost  town of Tuckerville, Colorado. The story of  how this tiny camp town was founded is rather interesting. Doing research on this location I came upon the following story from this (Research Source):

The Story of Weaselskin

Somewhere located where Weaselskin Creek empties into Vallecito  River, just North of the present Vallecito campground, to the North of  the  lake, there is a legendary Weaselskin Gold mine that belonged to  Old  (Jim) Weaselskin (a Ute Indian born 1850) & his extended  family.  

Endlich Mesa was dotted with tiny lakes, rock formations, random patches of trees and located above the tree line.  

Settlers in the Vallecito River Valley named one of Endlich Mesa's swift running streams Weaselskin Creek in honor of the Old Indian who used this location as a summer pasture for his horses for many years. Besides a creek and  bridge named after him, Weaselskin's claim to  fame was the legendary  Weaselskin Gold Mine.  

The Gold mine was said to  have nuggets by the  handfuls. Exactly where it was located is unknown. On their  trip to and from the mountains, the Weaselskins & his  extended Ute family became well acquainted with the few settlers who lived along the  way.  

 They got to know the Charlie Waldner family who owned a ranch far  up the Florida (Flo-re-dah) River above the present Lemon Reservoir just  over the mountain to the west of Vallecito. Weaselskin often stopped  there on his journeys to Durango, and the Waldners fed him a meal in order to cultivate his friendship. At this time the Natives still caused a certain amount of fear in the settlers, and they figured it was safer  to be on good terms with them. The visits became a routine.  

As Weaselskin made his way from his mountain camp to Durango, he would stop by the Waldner ranch and have a  meal. As he prepared to leave, he  would give them a gold nugget to repay them for their kindness. After a time, Mr. Waldner started thinking that he wasn't being  fair, taking all these nuggets for just a few meals. He might cause Weaselskin to run out of his best trading commodity.  

On the next visit,  when  Weaselskin tried to pay, Waldner offered to give some of the gold back, but Weaselskin refused. He was happy with the arrangement. To him the  food was worth every nugget. Weaselskin and some of his companions ventured into a store in  Durango one day and found that the  owner of the store had just boiled up a pan of wieners. The proprietor  generously handed out a number of  them to the eager group, and then was  quite surprised when they gave him gold nuggets to repay him for the kindness he had shown them. 

For many years the Utes continued  to come up to their favorite  hunting and herb-gathering spot, but after  the white settlers started  to settle on the Los Pinos and Vallecito Rivers, things started changing. It became increasingly difficult to get  onto their choicest grounds and the Utes gradually lost their freedom to roam at will.  

Old  Weaselskin died during the influenza epidemic in  1918 while living on  his land allotment near the Sunnyside Bridge on the Animas River. This was the bridge that was later re-named "Weaselskin  Bridge" in his  honor.  

---

This image and story are from my ongoing project in which I am trying to raise awareness of the 47% of the USA and 90% of Canada that remain unpopulated wilderness.  

Where Eagles Fly - The American Wilderness Expedition is my personal mission to introduce people to these amazing locations that surround us.  

If you like what you see here upvote then resteemit so that others may experience these wondrous places as well. And if you'd like these images to be part of your feed then follow me. 

Yehaw!!