I wonder what the story is?

[Dave]

This old root cellar is less than a 100 feet from our house. I would be relatively certain it was built there back before the irrigation ditch in front of it was dug. That ditch was dug around 1900-1910 =/-? The original portions of our house were built somewhere in that same time frame. I wish I knew who and what were here back before that. The irrigation rights on this place date back to 1873. There was a gold rush in this area that started in 1863. Between then and 1920 when most of the mines shut down there was a lot of gold taken out of the area. The mining stops at the upstream property line of this place. Is that because they were making more money raising food to feed the miners? Of course all the old timers who knew what was happening back then are gone now.

 

[76 Bar]

Neat pic. Sad there's no one to provide some history on the structure.

 

[kenny thomas]

Any chance it was a miners shack before it was a cellar?

 

[TCRanch]

Have you done a search for subterranean structures in your area? What does it look like inside?

This Flint Hills subterranean structure is about 50 yards from the house. Quality time on Google revealed a wealth of information. Who knew?
Take Shelter (flinthillshelters.com)

 

[Dave]

This one had a concrete roof which caved in. The door which swings in is blocked. I would have to get in there with a jack hammer to break the concrete into small enough pieces to pack them out by hand. With the irrigation ditch in the way I would have to carry all the pieces about 40 feet to the left in the picture where I could get a loader tractor to haul them off. A person would want to do that this time of the year. Summer time that might be a snake heaven.
The miner shacks were just that. Wooden shacks. I know a few people whose G G grandparents mined. They say they can still locate where the shack once stood. There will be about a 16 foot square flat spot.
There are the remains of some hard rock mines around. Mostly a big hole in the ground where they were chasing a quartz vein. Those are mainly up in the hills. Along the river it was pretty much all placer mines.

 

[wbvs58]

Very interesting Dave.

Ken

 

[4hfarms]

Have any strong back teens? Tell them it is a closed mine and will split anything they find. Never know....

 

[Dave]

Have any strong back teens? Tell them it is a closed mine and will split anything they find. Never know....

There are no teens within 30 miles. Correction there is one girl who is a high school senior. And anyone from around here would know it is not a mine. Old mines have tailing piles in front of them. There are occasional people show up around here with gold fever but teens are smarter than that. I know we have a lot of gold under our place. There is probably a million dollars worth of gold. The problem is it would take two million to get it out of the ground.

It would be nice to clean it out and put a new roof on that root cellar. However, on the list of project needing to be done here that idea is down at the bottom of the list.

 

[4hfarms]

This is the hardest I've worked, with the lowest pay I have ever been paid.
And yet I can't remember being happier.
Seems to be a running joke on more farms than mine.
When some one asks me to do something , I tell them to put it on the list.