COOLIDGE - A True Montana Ghost Town

a town doomed to [Music] fail in 1914 the town of kage hummed with activity named for US President Calvin kage a personal friend of founder William R Allen life in the town moved to the Rhythm of the mine the streets were full of sound and movement the clang of heavy machinery a constant in the background as men came and went from the [Music] mine the little town that once boasted a population of 350 was as modern as any of the time with telephone service and electricity with lines that ran all over the hills from The Divide but the town was shortlived with the failure of the elorn mining Enterprise the onset of the Great Depression by 1932 coolage could no longer support its citizens this used to be just a mining camp for the miners and the Millers and it wasn't until 1922 that the town became a proper town with a post office and a school okay but I do have a fun fact about this town normally what is the predominant thing with mining camps and towns ladies of the evening bars and anyway gold no this is a silver a silver mine that's what I meant this town never had any saloons and it didn't have a church true story it's really buggy big [Music] time this is Nate it is we have seen one of these before you can see kind of where there was a a belt belt on this side it's got a cog wheel on that side o lots of mosquitoes there it's pretty cool this is really neat and still the wood looks in very good shape being out in the elements H oops they the pretty wild flowers oh oh wow there's the mill what an imposing structure sure that is huge isn't it and it's only in Ruins so the Mill's here and the mine would be further down this then would go right the way through or would have gone right the way through to the mine they would Mine The Ore come along here to the mill then that or after it's been after it's been processed is this like the dumping station for the trucks do you think possibly so either or but still that's really cool and it's solidly built those Timbers mhm there's a squirrel running along the top I wonder what this was then I mean I've got a pretty impressive chimney wonder if this was the um assay office possibly close to the mill uh don't think we'll be able to get up there it's too uh yeah precarious I don't want to do any more damage even though there's concrete there also a lot of nails yeah tons of nails all around though well it would be because uh 1914 it was uh started [Music] mhm meal next meal next oh and there's a deer looking at us we're looking at you too this thing is hug huge we can see it has been uh fire lots of burnt wood everywhere yeah there's a bunch of charring all over the floor in here as well could be people having campfires in here still pieces of wood that remain up on the ceiling could you imagine the sound it would be quite deafening as well cuz I would also Imagine The with the mountains it would almost Echo MH which means during the winter months I wonder whether or not the sound caused Avalanches right this is cool too still stairs intact up there going to the next level but I don't see any way oh yeah to get up there no yeah even the size of these Timbers in here still and again always amazes me the feat of having to bring all this equipment out here M back in those days how did they find silver ore here to begin with and then the cost and the roads and the equipment well the amount of concrete in the foundations of this alone plus all the the rebar reinforcing steel that has to be in it well one thing they wouldn't have had to have worried about is the wood yep that's true want to go down over there and see uh the rest of that and that house that building you're right definitely a fun but I didn't read anywhere that there was a fire so maybe this was after the mill and mine closed it could be I mean it could be arson a lot of Destruction these some of these pylons are just tossed about as well but again just thinking about the mass massive size of this all the way down and look you've even got the wheels yep so much piping as well chipmunk friendly little guys this was a like a shoot kind of like the or bin or or shoots you see in the mines so they could have closed that off bunch more of those weird metal pieces I have no idea what those metal pieces are you see them everywhere yeah and then this cuz there's a couple pieces in oh okay are they kind of like the teeth I wonder yeah if they eventually help sort out to the finer bits cuz you can see here this does look like it's a conveyor type system then it gets to this point right here and you've got these different teeth to kind of sort it out into different sections and maybe as you go along those teeth it gets finer and finer I don't know there's some more in there as well huh what a massive piece of Machinery what does that say 508 b b BC BB BCBG very neat so I guess it's time to go find the mine sure is well it's completely locked shut and I can see why this is majorly flooded ooh not just majorly flooded you can see the collapse at the end majorly collapsed well somebody has jumped I think this fence and gone in there you got Footprints yep there's some Footprints right here on the it just goes right up to that it looks like cuz you can't get much further and also you don't hear any Echo I wonder how they got in I think they must have just climbed over up and in I guess where there's a will there's a way yep well this water looks really clear but I wonder how fresh it really is whether or not there's loads of chemicals in it like our Snick and other chemicals that have leeched in not sure but this has giv me major flashback say Sutro tunnel tunnel that was a damn good video now is this what I think it is no it's not oh it isn't it's got a stove pipe top it's just a little shed hm not a l at all huh now I wonder if this was just a uh changing room outside the mine cuz the Portal's right there I don't know but it had a fire a um a stove stove in it okay or bin not an awful lot left and it's choked it's St to uh well you've got that trees holding it up that is true that could save it for a while yeah and you got the uh insulator still up around the top oh smell sulfury M Big Time sulfur but it's cool it still has the uh the stop on here the gate which is all bent but totally choked yep and this one choked who but no gate nope oh solid Timbers this looks like it's been burned as well got a lot of tring along the side again have to go back in time the old bed frame but I wonder single bed single bed I wonder do you think looks like it there's no hole underneath it's the right size for one it is but no seat no hole could have been filled in a not going to say it okay let's go down this [Music] way [Music] [Music] ah okay so not the best but hey it's one no trip would be complete without a trip to the L and you can see the re remains of uh the seat there the two seats now I wonder if people have dug under this to see if anybody has uh well funny there's a can sitting right there on top that's what makes me wonder and I also wonder this might sound strange but when I see things like this I wonder how many people have sat on it over the years and what did they used to talk about if there was two of them it's a shame that not more structures are complete it is then that gives you uh cuz now it's just the guessing game of what these could have been were these businesses were these homes I'm sure it's a mix of both but which one was which yeah cuz there was meant to be an ice house the school which one's the school and then this one you see the add-on I started Log Cabin wise and then did the 1x6 there exciting not the 2x4 there's some 2x4s in there too well the 2x4s remember weren't around until 1947 M very true it's just a uh a heap now everywhere now I wonder what that is up there I'm just going to have a little run up and and see what those two buildings are but this building here was big because it's got a staircase so it would have two stories and there's a lot of piping I wonder whether or not this was the school school or could that have been a bunk house or the hotel did they they have a hotel here yeah they had tons of bunk houses here oh can dump I found three cans oh a couple more oh no oops chipmunk can dump [Music] here [Music] a small one but still a Cana this is the Tyro house and Fran Tyro was the postmaster from 1922 to 1932 so the whole duration of the town or the post office okay oh bit r i' stand there you go on the side where it's okay I don't think we should go in yeah I don't really want to go in there just in case we uh damage the floorboards Yeah juding by what's happened to all the rest of them at least this one still does have a roof on it and the ceiling is show about all of the Hooligans M but the stove was a 55 gallon barrel right by the stove pipe now if this is the Tyro house and they and Fran was the postmaster then I wonder whether or not this was also the post office and he ran it out of the house could be maybe we walk around the sides to see if we can peek in through the windows kitchen yep you got cupboard here cupboard there stove there and onward is that a little staircase in the middle possibly imagining that would be bedroom and it does look like there are stairs I wonder if she can see him from the other angle oh let's take a look well the thing is silver prices dropped in 1923 and then the pill Dam burst and destroyed a vital Bridge which coincided with the 1930 Great Depression so by 1932 the town was totally abandoned and the post office was shot do you enjoy what we do would you like more Adventures maybe some behind the-scenes footage then why not join our Patron it helps support this Channel and these explorers the link is in the description [Music] below [Music]