19TH CENTURY
HISTORICAL-SITE PANORAMAS
Calico, Cochise Stronghold, Lincoln, Lonely Dell, Point Fermin, Saint Francis de Paula, St. Elmo
Pre-Columbian / 16th-18th Century / 19th Century / 20th Century
HOVER YOUR CURSOR OVER ANY IMAGE to see its name and information. (Feature may not be available on mobile devices.)
Contact Martha if you’re interested in ordering a fine giclée print for your own enjoyment or licensing a digital image for your own creative project. Both full-size images and cropped panoramas are available for both.
CALICO GHOST TOWN, CALIFORNIA
The town of Calico began as so many others did in the 1880s, with the discover of silver in nearby mountains. But the boom followed the same trajectory as other “ghost towns” of today. By the mid 1890s, the town was dying.
Unlike most other such places, Calico came to life again in the 1950s when Walter Knott, a farmer who had hybridized the boysenberry and made it a commercial product, turned his land in Knott’s Berry Farm. He was trying to recreate an old California town when someone told him about nearby Calico, the real thing. Knott bought it, restored it, and turned it into a popular attraction, which now belongs to San Bernardino County.
COCHISE STRONGHOLD
The lovely natural area known as “Cochise Stronghold” consists of dense forests in the canyons and steep rock walls of southwest Arizona’s Dragoon Mountains. It once sheltered the famous Apache chief and others when the U.S. Army was hunting for them in the 1870s.
LINCOLN STATE HISTORIC PARK, NEW MEXICO
Lincoln State Historic Park is a remarkable spot containing an extensive collection of 19th Century buildings and artifacts ranging from a courthouse and jail to a well-stocked store, all associated with the notorious “Lincoln County War” and Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and other notables. Visiting the town of Lincoln is like walking into a time capsule from the 1880s.
As she often does, Martha chose to aim her camera at picturesque details that capture the essence of this place.
LONELY DELL RANCH, ARIZONA
near the Colorado River in the “Arizona Strip”
The ranch shown here was the hideaway homestead of John D. Lee, a Mormon polygamist who was responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which in September 1857 killed at least 120 pioneers passing through Utah in a wagon train. Lee and some of his wives and children later lived in this extremely remote (at that time) location from 1871 until 1877, when federal agents finally tracked him down, tried and executed him.
Lee’s home, called Lonely Dell Ranch, is now listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The Colorado and Paria Rivers merge nearby, at a spot where he built a ferry. Lee’s Ferry is now the place where modern-day explorers put their rafts for the trip through the nearby Grand Canyon.
POINT FERMIN LIGHTHOUSE, CALIFORNIA
Point Fermin Lighthouse is a “stick style” Victorian struture built in 1874 and named for Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, a missionary who had worked in the area a century earlier.
SAINT FRANCIS DE PAULA, NEW MEXICO
Between 1858 and 1869, multiple attempts to establish towns in the Tularosa Valley of New Mexico failed, due to a combination of bad weather, poor farm land, and repeated attacks by Apache tribes. After a final battle, the Spanish-speaking community fulfilled a previous promise made to St. Francis de Paula to build a Church in his honor if he would help them defeat the native people. Construction began in the fall of 1868 and was completed the next spring, when the first mass was held there.
ST. ELMO GHOST TOWN, COLORADO
St. Elmo (elevation 9,961′) lies in a narrow valley of the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains, near two of Colorado’s highest: Mt. Princeton and Mt. Antero. As the crow flies, it’s roughly halfway between Buena Vista and Gunnison in spectacular Chaffee County.
The town began as a mining hub in 1880. At its peak in the 1890s, it boasted multiple hotels, saloons, and brothels; a newspaper; a school; and the general store shown here. By the 1920s, it suffered the usual “ghost town” woes… failing mines, departure of its residents, and loss of railroad access. It’s well preserved, a beautiful and interesting place to visit.
- Return to HOME
- Return to PANORAMAS OVERVIEW
- Return to HISTORICAL-SITE PANORAMAS OVERVIEW
- Pre-Columbian / 16th-18th Century / 19th Century / 20th Century