Old Saw Mills at Thresher’s Day

After the Harvest, lots of communities will have their heritage festival of some type.  These run through October in some parts of the country.  Here one can see many of the old machines that were used during the 1800’s in to the early 1900’s.  Lots of this could be found in the mining camps as well as the prairie land. 

The pictures are from scanned slides I took a number of years ago, well decades ago.  Since then things have changed some yet here is a glimpse into another era that is slipping into fading memory banks. 

The steam engine was developed during the early 1800’s and one of the reasons for the Industrial revolution.  The vertical steam donkey supplied power to factories and was put on the wheels to operate early trains.  Here the steam engine is a tractor that is being used to operate a saw mill. 

Lumber was critical to any early pioneer endeavor.  Building houses, shops, sheds, buildings… etc. 

The mill could be set up in the woods, town, camp or wherever a supply of wood could be found.  Down into the mine shafts the timbers went for bracing.  Out on the land there was a home raising and on the corner was a half frame for a saloon tent. 

It was fascinating to watch the old timers operate these old pieces of machinery that their parents or grandparents had used to help build their home. 

The lumber would take shape and one could feel the anticipation of new structures being built,a dream coming to life.  It was a shared experience, neighbor helping neighbor.  Working together to accomplish their dream. 

The crowd was just as enjoyable as was watching the different machines operate. 

because of the plethora of government regulations many of these old machines now sit back in the corner of the barn collecting dust. 

Money of the Greenies

Read the other day that the big business of being green in now in the trillions.  The snake oil of climate change has been bought by many and they have been good capitalists and turned their fear mongering into trillions of dollars.  Like rats, the followers of the greenies will follow them over the cliff, even to self destruction.  People can point this out and they look them in the eye and call them liars.   Even when the facts are contrary to what the climate change advocates are advocating.  If a person watches them closely they have a tendency of self destruction. 

I get close and personal with the green energy stuff because of all the wind turbines that were built in the area and near by.  Now approaching over 5000 within a couple hours drive.  There are some large solar panel arrays nearby also and the oil patch in around.  In Denver is the National Lab for renewable energies, somewhat of an oxymoron. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=41&v=Gv7DOVw_iDE

These giant things are termed as being green, but are they really. 

Look at the size of one these things, rated at 1.5 KW.  Then look at how much space they use compared to a 500 KW fired generation station.  Their foot print is incredible.  There is the station base, where it is mounted, then the access road for repairs and servicing.  Then the cabling to get the power to a transmission line.  Throw in a sub station and all of a sudden, one big footprint.  How much land is lost compared to a power plant and much wildlife is affected plus your food basket. 

Next thing, look at what it takes to build one of these wind turbines. 

The tower is four sections of steel, each 50 feet long weighing about 100,000 lbs. each.  Question, how much iron ore is need to build one of these of steel?  How much energy has to be expended to process the ore, then process the steel then form the tower sections?  All of a sudden we are looking at lots of energy being expended just to begin building one. 

Then on top is the narcel. the turbine generator.  Again well over 100,000 lbs.  The housing is steel but the working parts are copper and rare earth metals.  So how much energy has to be spent to mine the ore, then process the ore and then mill it to a useable material.  It is not a simple one or two step process. 

Then there is the hub, blades and nose cap.  A mixture of steel, carbon fibers and other materials.  Carbon fibers are petroleum based product.  They are also very easily damaged by lightening and high winds.  Again, what kind of energy has to be spent to get these materials out of the ground and into some kind of useable form?

How much energy has been consumed just to manufacture the components?  They only generate 1.5 KW and on average a useable life of less then 15 years and many sustain lots of damage and or malfunctions.  Now that the bits and pieces are built, they have to be shipped to the installation site. 

Each blade takes and over size truck, 3 blades.  Each tower section takes an overweight truck, 4 sections.  The narcel takes a special oversize truck, 1 piece.  The hub and cone on one trailer.  Now that all of this is being shipped there are the guts that go in the tower from the narcel.  The cables, the elevator and the instruments.  Then the cable to connect into the grid. 

Whoa there is a whole bunch more of energy being spent on manufacture, mining, milling, processing and production. 

With all the parts, there is lots of energy used up in transportation.  Particularly for the components that get shipped in from overseas.

The next energy expense is site preparation.  A 10 story hole is dug then filled with concrete as a mounting pad for the windmill.  The manufacture of cement is one of the most energy intense process there is.  Then the cement is shipped to the batch plant where it is mixed with an aggregate to make concrete.  Both components are intense energy mining endeavor.   Tons of earth have to be moved just get the site ready.  Along with the mining for the other materials, some seriously big holes had to be dug in the ground.  Now all this concrete has to hauled out to the job site and dumped in the ground. 

Next, equipment has to be brought to the job site for assembly.  There are cranes for unloading, other equipment for moving machines around, then a huge crane to set things in place.  Again a very intense energy operation.  There had to be roads graded for access streets and buried cables. 

Now repeat this operation a hundred times and let me know how long these turbines have to last before they have a return on investment.   Now you can see why there has to be a government subsidy.  A wind turbine is a negative cash flow machine. 

One thing that seldom shows up in the news, are the farms that have been shut down.  The other is how many failures they have with them.  During high wind storms they are shut down and after severe lightening storms there is lots of repair work waiting.  There comes a time when repairs is no longer feasible.  So the windmill become a static display to  …………….?

Now if some one calls them green energy, I look at them and ask what other jokes do you have. 

Kirk, CO

 

 

            Out there somewhere is one of the coolest little towns from a century and then some more years ago.  During the late 1800’s, towns would spring up around a community.  A Post Office would start and soon there would be stores and shops.  Occasionally the commercial buildings would be a few miles from the Post Office and this became the town.  It appears this is what happened with Kirk. 

            The map shows a previous Kirk Post Office couple of miles north of the present day Kirk.  A Post Office would start in a farmhouse but the town would spring up at another location and eventually the Post Office would move to the town.

            Here on the central plains of Eastern Colorado the little town of Kirk still survives.  Located on a secondary state highway and junction with a country road lies the little village of Kirk.  It is pretty much what a pioneer community would have looked like a couple of centuries ago.  On the corners are the stores.  A grocery store, a bank, meat processing and an empty shop, all that missing is the livery stable and a lumber yard.  The grain elevator and feed store stand at the south entrance to town on the north is a CO-OP. 

 

            The little village is about three blocks long and two blocks wide.  There are a few residents that live there. Populations was unknown but in the vicinity of 50 people live there.  There are a couple of churches, town park with playground and ball filed.  The school is long gone, consolidated with some neighboring towns. 

The occasional car passes through and there are shoppers in town on occasion.  The Post Office stays busy.  The newspaper has rolled up the mat.  The big farm truck rumbles trough more than cars.  Road crews pass through checking on roads and signs, a sheriff’s deputy cruises town and stops at the grocery for coffee n a roll. 

Here time has stood still and a small village has survived the bigness of the big box mind set. 

There empty stores that still stand on main street.  Showing when Kirk was a busier town and there were more people in the area. 

 

            The bank is a fairly non discreet building and fairly new.  With the blink of an eye, one could drive right past and not notice. 

            Across the corner from the bank is the meat processing locker.  The meat locker used to be an icon in small town America.  Today they are fading into the sunset of memories.

            There are a variety of homes scattered around the little burg.  For whatever reason, these little wide spots have junkyards.  Kirk is no different, the house surrounded by junk cars sits on the edge of town.  

 

            Out on HWY 36 is a sign indicating there is a little town back down the road a ways.  For those that turn, be ready for a short trip back in time.  For here, is what a lots of the little ghost town on the plains used to be like. 

 

 

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Corporal Baatz

One of those little puzzling quirks in History.  A German POW is still buried in a National Cemetery.

A ll types of questions rose of the mire of my grey matter.  When I first found out about the POW, I had to have answers. 

Being less then a detective, I went looking for answers.  Bottom line was, after the war ended, no body claimed the remains.  Even the country did not claim him.  So in Ft Logan national Cemetery the remains of one German POW rests in peace. 

During the research I found ot that Colorado had over 30 POW camps scattered around the state and across the country there were numerous POW.  Most were in farm areas and the POW’s were expected to do farm wok while in captivity.  This led to minor conflicts here and there and other stories.  Most of these camps are now gone and only memories are left. 

Baatz was not the only German to die while in custody of the US.  There were others who died, Baatz was the only one not claimed.  Not next of kin could be located.  The cause of death, I did not ask, yet there a few that passed on from lead poisoning from a farmers shot gun. 

A few of the German soldiers refused to work in the fields and the local farmer would get upset with them.  One such farmer told the POW when he came to work the next day if he did not work the soldier would be at the end of the shot gen barrel. 

Next day the POWE shows up, again he refuses to work.  Farmer goes off and retrieves his shotgun.  Different type casualty of war. 

Then there was the POW that was an affair with one of the local gals.  She was 2nd generation German and brought baked goods to the POW’s.  She fell for one of the troopers and he found a way to get out of camp.   A night he would leave camp for the evening to spend it with the lady that was just a ways down the road. 

this went on for sometime before it was discovered.  There also various types of escapes and manhunts.  Yet the mystery of Karl Baatz is still a mystery. 

Wheat Harvest

Once a year, people get a little frantic in the prairie bread basket, when the wheat ripens.

One eye furtively watching the sky, other watching the wheat turn.  A ritual the farmer has perfected.  The weather is not to hos liking nor is the whet ripening fast enough. 

Then the day arrives.  The big monster machines show and start gobbling up the wheat. 

Field after field they shorn off.  With a wet spring there are bumper crops sitting in the ground.  The frenzy is rising to a pitch as they rush to get the wheat cut before any nasty weather. 

The railroads are hopping to get rail cars in for them to ship the wheat out.  Stacks of gold glisten in the distance. 

Trucks hauling the harvest into town.  The grain elevators busy getting them unloaded so then can hustle back out for another load. 

Time is of the essence, for the weatherman has forecast afternoon thunder storms. 

On through the heat of day, the combines march on.  The traffic on the Interstate whizzes by as the big machines gobble up the plenty of the land.

Into the afternoon they grind on, clouds building.  Hurrying to beat the weather.  The harvest waits for not one.  It is on God’s schedule and one has to make do with that. 

Spring Valley, CO

 

Sitting on the banks of the West Cherry Creek River Branch, just north of the Palmer Divide is the little village of Spring Valley.  The school is still standing with a couple of out buildings and on north a ways is the cemetery and church. 

The Cherokee Trail passed through the area in the 1850’s and the Military had mapped out the area for travelers.  Trade from Mexico went through this area and the Mountain Man had been trapping in the area for decades.  With the numerous springs and the stream to follow it was a well traveled route. 

When the Cherokee Indians passed through they were on their way to the gold fields of California.  They were quite the gold miners in their home country of Georgia and they wanted to see what the west coast had to offer.  As they traveled they would pan in the streams looking for the shinny flakes.  Along the cherry Creek river the Indians found lots of teasers.  When got to where the river met they Platte River they found good flakes of gold.  Here they set up a camp at the confluence of the Cherry Creek and the Platte River, calling it Auraria, after their home in Georgia. 

The Indians searched the other streams nearby and where Ralston Creek meets Clear Creek they found their first good gold deposit in the river.  Returning to their camp, it was decided that small group would return to Oklahoma where they had been moved to and tell other members.  The rest would go onto California and the following year they would meet the other members from the tribe at Auraria Camp with their equipment. 

Soon the news of the gold finds in the rivers of Colorado was spreading and people were heading into the new frontier to seek out their fortune. 

The military built a fort in the Spring Valley to protect the travelers from attacks, Fort Iron.  A short distance to the north is where the Smoky Hill Trail joined Cherry Creek to go north.  Soon Cherry Creek was bustling trail of fortune seekers.  There were wagon trains of freight moving northward to supply the miners. 

More and more people began to move in and settle in the area.  The late 1800’s the community of Spring valley was established.  Stores were built, a schoolhouse, homes, a Post Office and other shops.  It was a rich ground for farming and raising cattle.  Potatoes, beans and hay were the major crops grown in the fertile area. 

As civilization expanded, highways were built and none went near the little farming/ranching community.  Soon the shops and stores were moving and the Post Office closed.  The window of history was closing on the once busy little town. 

Here is a link to the Douglas County Historical Society web page about little town.  It appears the Society had a lease on the property but lost it for some reason. 

http://www.douglas.co.us/about-us/historic-preservation/county-landmarks/spring-valley-school-district-no-3/

 

This area along the County line is some of the most spectacular ranching land in Colorado.  Sadly developers are acquiring some land and planting 2X6’s with roofs in the area, putting blotches on the rolling vistas. 

The school had been cared for but now appears to being neglected and at the whims of nature.  It is believed to of been built in the mid 1870’s.  For an old wooden building to have survived that long is a testimony to the care it had received.  The out building show signs of neglect yet they still stand after all those years.  On a hillside overlooking the valley resides the little country school. 

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