Upper Works Ghost town
After the hike on Sunday I decided to take some time to explore the ghost town at the trailhead. These are predominantly the old buildings from the Tawhaus club that operated in the late 1800s and into the 1900s as a fish and game club. Along the road – and a little deeper in the bush - are a number of slowly collapsing buildings. Just recently a brand new asphalt road surface has been put down on top of the old gravel roadway. This provides a smooth access to the ghost town.... I assume its for the hiker traffic as the ghosts probably don't care if the road is paved.
One of the buildings has recently been stabilized. This is the MacNaughton cottage where Teddy Roosevelt was vacationing in 1901 when he got the news that President McKinley was succumbing to his assassins gunshot wounds. He raced to the train station but arrived only to receive a telegram that the president had died…. Thus he took office. It holds some significance in US history so it is being preserved. Not sure of the preservation techniques however. I took a close look and the new siding (to replace the rotted out boards) is a pressed board siding... I don't think its historically accurate but I guess the important thing is its helping to keep the rain and critters out.
A little further down the road is the MacIntyre furnace that is also being preserved. This was a remnant of an iron works built here in the 1840s. The furnace towers some 60feet in the air and looks a little like a Mayan temple but is perhaps more a monument to the industrial age. It is kind of nice to see it enshrouded in the forest. In its day it would have consumed every tree for miles but Nature has reclaimed her own. It’s a nice example of a dry stone tower using massive stones. The flue and fireboxes are all mortared brick masonry. The preservationists are installing a high quality copper roof and rebuilding the brickwork to keep the water out. They’ve even installed a plexiglass arched roof (not original ;-) over the open chimney tops to keep the rain out. I wandered around the site for a short while and can see all kinds of remnants of the ironworks including the compressor and bellows for the furnace, a breached dam and other decaying structures. Definitely worth the time to explore some more the next time I come down.
After the hike on Sunday I decided to take some time to explore the ghost town at the trailhead. These are predominantly the old buildings from the Tawhaus club that operated in the late 1800s and into the 1900s as a fish and game club. Along the road – and a little deeper in the bush - are a number of slowly collapsing buildings. Just recently a brand new asphalt road surface has been put down on top of the old gravel roadway. This provides a smooth access to the ghost town.... I assume its for the hiker traffic as the ghosts probably don't care if the road is paved. 
One of the buildings has recently been stabilized. This is the MacNaughton cottage where Teddy Roosevelt was vacationing in 1901 when he got the news that President McKinley was succumbing to his assassins gunshot wounds. He raced to the train station but arrived only to receive a telegram that the president had died…. Thus he took office. It holds some significance in US history so it is being preserved. Not sure of the preservation techniques however. I took a close look and the new siding (to replace the rotted out boards) is a pressed board siding... I don't think its historically accurate but I guess the important thing is its helping to keep the rain and critters out. 
A little further down the road is the MacIntyre furnace that is also being preserved. This was a remnant of an iron works built here in the 1840s. The furnace towers some 60feet in the air and looks a little like a Mayan temple but is perhaps more a monument to the industrial age. It is kind of nice to see it enshrouded in the forest. In its day it would have consumed every tree for miles but Nature has reclaimed her own. It’s a nice example of a dry stone tower using massive stones. The flue and fireboxes are all mortared brick masonry. The preservationists are installing a high quality copper roof and rebuilding the brickwork to keep the water out. They’ve even installed a plexiglass arched roof (not original ;-) over the open chimney tops to keep the rain out. I wandered around the site for a short while and can see all kinds of remnants of the ironworks including the compressor and bellows for the furnace, a breached dam and other decaying structures. Definitely worth the time to explore some more the next time I come down.
2 comments:
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