Sego Canyon

A few miles up Sego Canyon, the remains of two buildings mark the spot of what was probably a junction-point for miners carting their ore down to Thompson Springs.

The clean outer walls of a large structure surrounded a gutted out, roofless interior.

Enough remained that Mara and I could picture the building that once stood – an expansive inner space above a half-height basement.

(We learned later that this was originally a company store owned by The American Fuel Company, a big-time outfit that ran the mining operations in the area.  The settlement became a ghost town when the coal market temporarily bottomed out during a diesel boom in the mid-50s.)

The scrub and cactus in the area was windswept and lovely-desolate.

A short ways away, a collapsed wooden shack lay in a ruin of slats and fabric.

We heard animals roosting underneath the pile, probably oblivious to the risk of being crushed during a spell of rough weather that might shift the timbers.

From certain angles, the little settlement looked quite attractive.   From other angles, though, it was all just more fallen down stuff that no one cared about.