New beginnings


Stop Press

History Archive of all previous posts from the beginning of time! 

Reality

I try to include family and friends in the life of Cuspidor and you’ll find references to them below.  I endeavour to fit them tongue-in-cheek into the most suitable positions, such as our dear friends Malcolm and Cathy who once treated us to a disastrous grand weekend tour in Derbyshire.  In the spirit of never letting a good turn go unpunished I conceived of them running the world’s worst bus tour company.  I enjoy creating little vignettes that bring the viewer into my strange little world.  Building Cuspidor is a long term retirement project and I will try to keep adding to the story. 

My World

The little known Rocky Mountain town of Cuspidor lies at an elevation of 8,639 feet somewhere between the Uncomphagre and San Juan ranges. It sits in the Rio Bozo valley amidst hard granite  cliffs.  It’s pretty hard to find nowadays as the valuable metals ran out in the fifties and people mostly just drifted away leaving what was a once prosperous town to just fade into obscurity. Diehard exploring types have been known to stumble across it when following the old abandoned narrow gauge railroad line through the brush or hiking along the Rio Bozo up to the fabled Plughole Falls.

Here we view it in 1932 at the end of the glory days but while the railroad still ran serving the almost played out gold, silver and lead mines.

The upper town of Cuspidor sits on a series of steep, narrow switchback roads reminiscent of Jerome AZ.  A fairly recent addition is the magnificent stone City Hall and Courthouse built in 1918, at great public expense, by over ambitious and short sighted city fathers.

Notable buildings include the Golden Cuspidor saloon and hotel up on the bluff, the aforementioned City Hall, Miss Anna’s Pleasure Palace, the Miner’s and Cattlemen’s Association Hall and a magnificent F W Woolworth store.  Dan Webb’s auto repairs does a good trade thanks to the awful roads and Miss Sarah’s little car is seen there rather frequently causing tongues to wag.  The Lady’s Temperance Group, if not protesting about miner’s and stockhands carousing and frequenting the saloon and Miss Anna’s on a Saturday night, often speculate that it’s about time young Dan did the right thing and popped the question.  There are still some tiny miner’s shacks in and around the town along with a few old shops that struggle to compete with a Woolworth’s that won’t stay long once they check the turnover at head office.  Below the town you can just see a corner of Wiggin Field where Captain JJ Wiggin valiantly tries to keep his old biplane flying with air circus shows and crop dusting duties.

Overlooking the picturesque Plughole Falls is Desport’s tiny diner where the occasional, intrepid tourist takes ham and eggs along with miners from the Rio Bozo Mine.  The poor chaps up at the Devil’s Drop goldmine don’t get down there too often.   Now and then you can see the Pritchard’s Intrepid Scenic Tours (PIST) charabanc approaching the view point, usually with their last passenger hurling herself out of the open window in a desperate attempt to escape.


The Cuspidor and Southern Railroad depot and yard bake in the summer sun and freeze in the winter along with everyone else (work in progress).  many mines and related mining industries keep the old line rattling on. Enjoy.

 My Musical Adventures

 My other hobby - only for the brave: https://barrykingsbeer.bandcamp.com/releases

Translate

Tuesday, 10 December 2024

The Isabella Mine is now almost complete


Bella comes to Cuspidor

I must confess to having received some assistance lately on this project. I've been giving guitar lessons to the daughter of our great neighbours who live just down the road.  Her name is Bella, she is 12 years old and like my granddaughters Jasmine and Darcie she is a live wire who just wants to dabble in everything from music, singing and acting to now, model railroads. So Bella assisted me in set dressing the mine galleries and now, naturally it has become the Isabella Mining Co. Next we will have her making a structure for the layout, I'm such a slavedriver! Stay tuned for progress reports.

Meanwhile back to the mine!

I built some scale sized lanterns for the mine, however scale sized light doesn't really work. Hey Ho! Live and learn. They consist of very small LEDs with a section of 1.5mm square plastic rod, drilled out and glued on. Then they were encapsulated in superglue inside a piece of shrink tubing and wired up to a 3 volt battery.



Work has carried on apace


You can see the holes drilled for the lamps

Bella started positioning her workers

A hoist derrick is being set up to haul out the spoil in the new test shaft














Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. John R.11 December 2024 at 12:20

    Isabella Mine is looking very good!!! The mine's namesake Isabella has done a great job with the theatrical set up. She was a good find and you were kind (and smart) to allow her to work on the project.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barry Kingsbeer11 December 2024 at 13:00

    Cheers John, yes she's an honorary granddaughter, that now makes 3 of them (two who used to live next door) plus our own two, we seem to accumulate them and they all rock, bless them. The more I see the more iIwish the women were running the world.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Graham Stokes11 December 2024 at 16:19

    Leddy and I enjoying the signs of mining life in the Isabella Mine, Sir Barry, your usual eye-catching, engaging details and figures. I told Leddy I'd jokingly ask if they were mining rust. Wee bit of iron oxide evident, often accompanying the treasured minerals. Hard fought-for.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Barry Kingsbeer11 December 2024 at 17:02

    I'm sorry it never occurred to me that the demand for rust was so great that we should be mining it in Cuspidor. There must be tons of it in the spoil heaps. As Bella is about to embark on her very first small structure, I'l suggest we make it the office for Cuspidor Rust Processors in order to handle the rust rush! I might be in a position to offer you and the good Lady Leddy a dealership concession. Hold the front page!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)