The Ghost Town of Kirwin Wyoming

hello everyone it is steven and andrea from pin in the atlas today we are coming to you at over 9 000 feet in the asaroka mountains because we have something very beautiful and fun to explore today and that's the ghost town of kerwin now low quality gold and silver was discovered here in 1885 but it wasn't until 1897 that the town was established and that was when the first lord of all was taken down the mountain by pac-mule let's take a look [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now the peak population of cohen was only 200 and that was mostly miners and their families but what makes kerwin different amongst other ghost towns or mining camps of the age was there was never any saloons here there's no cemetery and there were no ladies of the night true story really yeah well that would have been just my luck as a minor to land in a town like that very small structure first walk up to take a look inside here see the roof is uh seeing some better days coming down got a nice little shelf in the back that was made out of a box and again the floor is in just about as bad of shape as the roof don't think there's a pack rats in here that's just sediment that's come in over time but it looks a little bit what's special explore would be complete without a trip to the lake oh wow a double one mind the cow poop oh wow so these look like they're fairly new doors the wood's still in really good shape oh so there's two so two in there one and there's two in here oh so let me see if i can get that so a double double aha double double a double double never seen one like this before no and this one i won't be able to get the camera into no the uh wood's blocking it because it's collapsed on the ground so that's kind of like a would you say that might have been like an ensuite because of that cabin this is attached to the cabin yeah that's kind of bizarre i don't know if that would have been because i didn't see what another or would it be where the miners change and hang up their scrubbies is it right is that right oh they're grubbies not they're scrubby sorry richard and then you know four of them can go to the toilet at the same time talk about the work that they did today at the job talk about the lack of saloons and ladies of the night yep this is a very handsome building if i do say so love the age of the wood and you can see they did have roofing material over the top of it and now inside i like that door too not shelving in here so i don't know if this is where they kept maybe their coarse apples and then again somebody let us know what maybe some of these boxes could have been used for this just looks like a shipping crate here some nice shelving units there but this very large building with the cement foundations we don't see a way in but we believe this would have been the hotel it's the largest building left and from some of the photos that we've seen it looks very similar so that's our assumption so although it does look like the hotel and from the map on the other side of the river it does say this is a hotel but according to the map i've got it says that this is the mine company office building so i'm a little bit confused yeah me too because there was a hotel here and it does have that appearance to it but it looks more like a hotel than a company office building it does it's huge okay we found a door we can enter first room off to our right table i don't know where that goes into a little closet some shells this used to be where the stove was there's metal on the floor and the pipe on the ceiling that goes right across the ceiling oh it does so two things we've been said told that this was a hardware store or a general store i don't think it is i think it is the hotel it would make sense the way the rooms are because if you had a store you wouldn't have loads of different rooms all right then people would get unless you know they just have one main open room and then this was all their storage but oh look tons of rat pill right yeah but it's got uh numbers on it dh11 dh14 14 18 13. they don't know how to count but then that would make sense if that was for storage of a general store like clothes or whatever interesting variant there's just doors that go everywhere it's like a little maze okay i won't sneak peek won't go in there yet okay let's just focus on this room yeah okay so here that's power cord [Applause] okay cupboards lots of cupboards hmm so what do you think another stove pipe here yep and that's an outside door yep that goes to the outside got this table with this mechanism attached to it i don't know all this shelving it kind of does appear to be a general store yeah though these could have been well some of these maybe it could have been added later maybe it was a hotel and then it became a general store but then again you see this room has got a door to the outside and i wouldn't have thought a general store would have had that unless there were lots of little stores within a store curious it is modern fire extinguisher okay now this is the sneak peak room because it's got a bunch of shells but then these they almost look like bunk beds kind of yeah but then again this is more storage oh we do have some uh cardboard on the wall here yeah yeah these again dh19 but this is brand new lumber dh21 brand new with all the rat poop as well um well they could have put it up last summer and the rats decided uh thank you very much make this mine now little closet i've got a little chair inside that's just a little bench area around a bench seat [Laughter] to the right okay and again more shelving wow tons more shelving a lot so that's why i wonder if maybe they did build these and they are going to use this as a storage i don't know and again this has got another door to the outside look at that old door handle oh that is really can you see how ornate it is on the top here [Music] and then where to next okay so this one's a double door you can go in from this way or that way i think this is the last room and again bent pipe up top there i couldn't imagine a hotel having a vent pipe like that could you no that's like our flashlight power's going so this pile of wood there in the center see it's getting darker and darker sorry about that but then you didn't see anywhere where the stairs would have been to go upstairs and there isn't upstairs and we've been through every room well halfway you can see along the outside they've done the same building techniques as like the double d ranch so they are keeping it authentic wow and then inside this is just a shed apparently okay according to the map a bunch of bracing in here let's keep it standing and that's that and adjacent to that little shed is this log cabin which at first we thought it's all completely boarded up but there is a back door that is wide open [Applause] floors seem relatively solid nice shelf unit there's some papers and things down the ground some cabinets an upper two and another little cabinet down over on this side and into the main living space got a little shelf up here these are the windows that are boarded up a nice table it's wide for electricity it's got electrical sockets and electric light bulbs yeah because that desk looks fairly modern too and then tall cabinet in the corner over here this would almost looks like a a white board or where they could use it for a i think that's projection i think that's covering up a window oh is it yeah because just those two little windows would make it very dark yeah and this this wood's modern too we were leaving i noticed there's a trap door so there's a cellar can you open it oh oh they've filled it in so what would have that been i would have thought it been like a little cellar or something to keep your uh the meats some storage make sure it's closed properly yep and then on our way out we'll reshut this door and what have you found here oh i'm not sure i'm wondering whether or not it's some sort of like hen house although it has did have wire screen over this [Applause] it's a bit dilapidated but you can see there was wire screen down there that was a larger opening at one point the same on the back and the same on the right side as well so i'm not sure that's a bit bizarre because i've got interior framing and then a completely different outside looking building interesting another small log cabin looking building and this one still has some of the i think the tar paper from the roofing and then roofing nails holding it on oh interesting this one for animals yeah it looks like they've got their own feeding troughs a little feeding station and this one still has a gate on it so i wonder what livestock they kept in here and each one's got like a small trough for water and water and feed a feed trough well this one here's got the better it's got a window view so as you can see this is part of a conveyor system and then behind it they're using it for got some materials some machinery stored in there so a bunch of different size ore bins it's pretty massive and then this one oh that's a different piece of machinery there let's get a closer look at this eight by fifteen san francis san francisco tyser joshua henry ironworks okay no idea what this is part of the conveyor it looks like because ore would go down in here also another piece or could be shot down in there and then on the wall there's your electrical box here we've got some oil shapes i think oh yeah go down from different levels so it must be like the conveyor system this is all just one big piece so you start out with the big stuff then eventually it goes down through the different areas after it's been crushed a bit and crushed a bit crushed a bit [Applause] separated out possibly these are quite large it's an old stove fire thing the back huh and got some more car tracks on the ground there and the workshop okay now this one is the main attraction it's an impressive building it is and when you come down the road your eyes kind of lock onto this one because of the height where it's sitting in the mountain and obviously just the look of it i mean it's got a little bit of a creepy but beautiful vibe going on i need to climb up these steps and see what's inside okay [Applause] there's just a shelf up here oh it looks like the main part is locked up take a look at the view it's just stunning so we'll try to walk around the other side see if there's a way in you can't really see it it's empty there's a new flight of stairs just barely make out the stairs there's too much glare too much dirt on the windows oh it does open [Music] oh that sounds really crazy okay okay so up the stairs first yeah and the stairs are new yeah isn't it great that the forest service have done this oh wow all you miners out there are going to be impressed at this i think oh here we go the hoists and it still works that's pretty cool isn't it yeah it is and it's still moving yep the pistons would you call those pistons they're just uh some levers attached to the and the wheels it's still got fabric on the belt get some light in here see here we go yep the pack rats nest so then down here would have been the shaft i could still see there's a like an ore bucket over there no been they would have uh brought the aura about so i have to go back down there and check that out in a minute and then that is this is it this is the top maybe from down below we'll get a better view of that give another better overall view of the downstairs room we first entered and then we'll come out [Applause] as the ultimate horror movie creek there's a better look at that that bucket still with the uh wire attached so the vertical shaft is right below us and then above us oh that's what's blocking the way there that would have been where the the rest of the hoist went so kerwin was also a stage coach stop and the stage coach used to come up from matitzy every other day and return on alternate days and that's 32 miles one way and it took us quite a long time to get up here because the road was so rough and how many stream and river crossings did we have to do oh i believe we did i think four four or five yeah somewhere around there so and then also you know the first half of the road is paved getting here then it starts to get uh become a mountain road which is a little more difficult definitely need high clearance and four-wheel drive is is a plus i wouldn't say it's mandatory but it's definitely a plus now kerwin actually had a host of bad luck i would say in 1905 there was a mine explosion then in 1907 they had a horrendous winter and several avalanches and one killed three people and i read that it actually had a hundred foot of snow in eight days but i'm sure that must be a misprint yeah that is a lot of snow nate i don't know of any you know snowstorm in history that would have dumped that much snow so anyway what if it's true after that major snowstorm in 1907 the miners and their families couldn't wait to leave so as soon as they could soon as the roads opened they packed up their belongings and left and they actually left a lot of their belongings behind because uh tables were still laid even with food on and beds were still made clothes were still hung up wow so they just didn't care they just wanted out yeah and this was i believe now wasn't this the mine superintendent's house well he had the two-story building right so this one does have stairs and they said about the dormers which was the only like log cabin with dormers from the whole town they've obviously had to come through and put a lot of bracing in to keep it up oh there's still some fabric hanging from the ceiling there oh well that's pretty neat and then also more fabric along that wall so i don't know if these rooms connect maybe we'll just walk back in here very small room two windows you can see the new uh two by fours putting up for bracing in the ceiling [Applause] this room is much the same as the other one single window [Applause] go back out here those stairs in good shape yeah must have been the bedroom i would think i mean they've put boards across up here yeah but ah i'm a little bit hesitant on walking across them a lot of the the beams are missing as well uh a lot a lot of the floorboards are missing i should say so i can see right down into downstairs yeah and that's it except the stairs just stop right there the stairs just stop here and then you've got a dormer you've got the dormer hmm so we've come up the stairs and this is the dormer now as you can see there's no floorboards so i'm not although they have put a board across i don't think it's worth risking a broken bone but i can just pop the camera around and you can see lots of holes in the floor and then that would have been the dormer window and so there's no floorboards at all around there and i would imagine they would have used that for storage and then back down the way we came to a steep flight of stairs they've got a few holes in them so this looks to be the uh the last structure for us to check out i must admit for a ghost town this has got lots of outhouses this is another one another one man we've been hitting the bathrooms a lot today it's a double another double but i don't know what this is that was i don't know what this would be next door could this be where they hold their grubbies hang their grubbies up and then go for poop poops next door well i guess i what's that i don't know if that floor's got holes in it because it's yeah that would be too close together to be a double toilet yeah or but maybe they just put some i don't know yeah the shelves and stuff in here and then there's another another little room oh which doesn't close anymore because of the tree that's grown up and it's just got a tarp and two large nails so even though most of the people left in 1907 after that avalanche some people still remained here and it wasn't until october 1920 that cohen officially became a ghost town with the close of the post office and then just after that carl dunwood dunrand i think that's how you pronounce it he bought the town and all the land surrounding it in the nineteen thirties and he built the double d dude ranch true story so kirwan ghost town it is absolutely beautiful out here if you didn't if we didn't know we were in wyoming you could almost say that we were somewhere in the swiss alps i mean the mountains are are stunning well the tallest mountains around here are over 11 000 feet and but i wouldn't want to be here for the winter no there's a thunderstorm rolling in so we want to start making a move yeah flash floods so on that note get out there go and explore put another pin in the atlas and we will see you on our next adventure [Music] you