Stan and Lana's Adventure - 1/15/12

Stan and I decided that we wanted to go for 

another adventure, so today after church we packed 
us a small picnic and off we went.

Stan and I had already decided where we 
wanted to go this week. 

We were headed to the Ghost Town of St. Thomas, Nevada

Lake Mead is on the rise and the water is 

almost to St. Thomas,so once again the 

small town will be underwater.

We wanted to go and see the foundations and what 

was down there before it disappeared again.

Stan's Grandpa and Grandma Chadburn

lived there until the 1930's.

Here is a little history of the Settlement of St. Thomas

In January 1865, the first Mormon settlers arrived at St. Thomas with Thomas S. Smith as their leader. The settlement was located at a prime farming location, at the confluence of the Muddy and Virgin Rivers. The intentions of the Mormon settlement were to be a direct connection to Salt Lake City through a possible route up the Colorado River.

After seeing the impossibility of travel on the Colorado and after a survey showing the town was in Nevada, most of the Mormons retreated out of Muddy Valley in the winter of 1870-71.
 

When the Mormons left, others claimed their abandoned properties. Then by 1880 the Mormons started to drift back to St. Thomas and the town grew to several hundred again.

By the end of the 1800s, farming was the main function and the life of the valley. Cotton was grown along with other crops. Salt was mined for shipment to St. George and mining towns in Nevada.

The Union Pacific railroad built a branch down the valley and used St. Thomas as a terminus. Between 1910 and 1918 it was a busy frontier town. Then during the First World War the price of copper rose and with thousands of head of stock being freighted from St. Thomas to Grand Gulch mine things really got lively. It was at this same time that the Arrowhead Trail was built through the Valley of Fire to St Thomas, which caused the tourist business to grow for the Gentry Hotel along with the five other businesses including Gentry's Store, R Hanning Grocery Store, William Sellers Cafe, Howell Garage, and Rox Whitmore Meat Market.

But everything came to a halt shortly after the completion of Hoover Dam in 1936. The resulting rise in the waters of the Colorado River finally forced permanent abandonment of this little frontier town.

The residents of St. Thomas sold their land, tore down homes and moved to Overton and the surrounding towns. On June 11, 1938, Hugh Lord rowed away from his house, the last citizen to leave. The community was soon covered by the lake, a victim of a rapidly changing landscape and lifestyle in the desert.

Here are the photos that we took of St. Thomas:

We had an awesome day walking around the town 
where his grandparents once lived. 

I hope you enjoy reading about and looking at the 
photos of our adventures.

I can't wait til next week ...

Thanks for stopping by, 

Lana

Stan and Lana's Adventure - 1/8/12

 Stan and I have been going for little 

adventures after church every Sunday.

Today we decided to go for a little ride down by Lake Mead.

We wanted to see how full the lake it getting.

I saw the sigh to Stewart's Point and told my 
hubby that I would like to go there.

I have lived here for 28+ years and I haven't 
ever been down there. 

So off to Stewart's Point we went.

Stan and Lana 

by 

Lake Mead

What a beautiful day for a drive and picnic by the lake

While we were hiking and looking around 

we came across something that looked a little bit odd...

from far away it looked like a small grave yard..

so of course.. I had to explore...

As we walked over I could see a little rock arch 
with a perfect heart rock inside..

some one had a lot of time on their hands 
and they were very creative.

I took some guesses of what I thought 
the rockformations looked like...

look at the photos close and see what you see, 

then comment and let me know what you came up with.

 I think this one is a guitar

this one looked like a large bird

a perfect heart

this one for sure is a snake
(it was at least 25 feet long)

here is more of the snake

and here is a close up of the snakes head

(the teeth and eyes were all glued to the large rock)

I am not sure what this was..  what do you see?

this one looked like an airplane

again I am not  sure what this was... 

but it had several heart shaped rocks attached

 

 a face

(again all the rocks were glued together)

 this one looked like a bunch of little mushrooms

 again... what do you think this one is?

 There were so many of these, 
I had to take pictures of all of them.

The lake is rising and possibly in a few weeks 
they will all be under water. 

 

 not sure again what this one is.. 
but it had a cute little face.

You can see the BIG EYES really good..
but as for the rest ??

 

 I thought at first the rocks piled 

up were suppose to be 

a rattle possibly for a snake.. 

but it didn't look anything like a snake 

 another perfect  heart

 a circle with three heart shaped rocks

 another heart

This was a fun find.. I am not sure what it is 

that we found but it was something 

that I haven't ever seen  before. 

A group of people or someone had to have camped 

there for quit a while to get all of this done. 

Every single rock was glued together.

Me and my hubby enjoy our Sunday drives together.

I can't wait to see where we end up next week!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Lana