S1 Ep37: Jacob City Miners

This is Sarah Spain from Good Game with Sarah Spain, brought to you in part by Vital Farms. Let me tell you why Vital Farms pasture-raised eggs are the only eggs I have in my fridge. The hens. They're living the good life. Fresh air, sunshine, and wide-open pastures. I use my Vital Farms for my famous frittatas. And you can trace your eggs back to the farm they came from. Check the carton for the farm name, pop it into vitalfarms.com slash farm, and boom, you're looking at the pasture. So next time you're in the store, look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms. Good eggs. No shortcuts. So much baseball. DirecTV has the most MLB games in one place. DirecTV baseball stats and baseball scores and streaming baseball on your couch and at the park and wherever you want on DirecTV! Visit directtv.com today. It's DirecTV like you've never seen it. Claim based on total games on national and regional sports networks. R-sends included with choice or hire. Availability varies by zip code and package. Mobile app. U.S. only. Up to three concurrent streams. MLB trademarks. Used with permission. Astonishing Legends Network. The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends. And now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them too. Join us weekly in Blanket Fortiana as we dig through your intriguing messages to the Astonishing Dead Letter office. Tonight's episode, Jacob City Miners. So, I know I've told my story about going to Bannock, Montana on the show a few times. Just recently as well, too. Because, again, I had an experience, let's say. I don't think I saw any ghosts. I didn't register my visual field, but I felt something there, which I did not at the time connect to a supernatural or paranormal experience. But thinking back later, it's like, well, that makes a lot of sense to me. But anyway, there's surely nothing like visiting a real Western ghost town. I know a lot of people say it's a bunch of run-down shacks. Who cares? But they're fun. I mean, we love Western history. And if you want to hear more about Bannock, and I don't even think I talked about it in our series here, because, again, I didn't make the connection until maybe a few years later. But we covered it in the Sheriff and Outlaw Henry Plummer, three parts here, starting with episode 68. So, if you're curious about a fascinating story also about just Henry Plummer as a sheriff and the Old West outlaw, kind of a gangster bandit-y kind of things. So, check that out if you're interested in early American West history and cowboys and bad men. Yeah, and the birth of vigilantism. Right, exactly. And 3777 and lots of lore, robber's roost. Anyway, a lot of fun. But you've been to a few ghost towns, haven't you? I have, but none of the named ones. I've not been to proper ones. These are more just abandoned structures out in the middle of nowhere, because my dad, he's a civil engineer. And he used to do search and rescue as well in the Southwest. So, when I was a kid, he would take me on these road trips. My parents were divorced since I was two. So, what I would do was get to go see him for a month or two. And we would do these crazy road trips in the Southwest. And I talked about this on Astonishing Legends before. But he knew where everything was. So, we would hit that BLM land, which is Bureau of Land Management folks for people who haven't been to the desert Southwest. These huge tracts of land that you can go out and just kind of roam around. I mean, you have to stay on trails. There's rules. But you can go and kind of camp where you want within the rules and see all kinds of things. And he always knew where that crap was, because on top of everything else, my dad's a map nerd. So, he was like, oh, there's a whole town over here that nobody even knows about. So, I've seen a few of those places. And they were creepy. And I've walked around in the buildings, which you probably shouldn't do, because they're about to fall down at any moment. But it's wild to see. And you never forget what it feels like. It really takes you back. You're like, wow, can you imagine what it would have been like living here back when this town was in its heyday for whatever reason, which usually was just a mine or the railroad. It was one of those two things. Exactly. And it's, you know, again, they get decrepit. They get torn down. I think the – my dad always complained. I think it was the U.S. Forest Service probably in the 80s or 90s started having a rule about not leaving those up because they're an attractive nuisance, I think, is the law called it. Yes. We're going to talk about that tonight. Right, right. And, you know, you can get hurt. But generally, if you know what you're doing, poking around there, they're just kind of cool to check out. And if you're – if lawful, do a little metal detecting. And I was kind of into that. Still am, but hadn't done any since then. And, of course, a lot of these places are protected, so they don't like you doing that. But if you find a place like that, there's little tips and tricks, like you want to metal detect around the floorboards of the old saloon, where the saloon was, because people get tipsy, they come out, they got their change, they drop it, goes – falls down through the cracks, and that's a good place to look for old coins. Also, the town's dump, because if you like collecting old-timey medicine bottles and things like that, those ended up there. So just a lot of fun all around if you're into that. But there are a few ghost towns that are still relatively intact, and Bannock is one of them, where most of the buildings, like the Meade Hotel, is still erected. You cannot go up into the second floor because, again, safety concerns. But you can see, I think, the original bar, the carved bar that came out from back east is still in place. A lot of the structures are still up. So it's a lot of fun. They do recreations there. And also Bodie. I think there's one place where it's like people just left. And you'll see the casino there where there's still poker chips on the tables and the roulette wheel is still there. And it's been plexiglassed off, like Bannock, too. But you can see what it was really like back in those days and just how it's different than a lot of the westerns you see on TV. So anyway, just a lot of fun history, but also chock full of ghosts and some other unexplainable weird phenomenon. And that leads us to tonight's dead letter, which comes to us from listener Cody, who went to a ghost town in Utah called Jacob City with a bunch of friends and some dogs and found out that they weren't the only ones there. Me and eight other friends decided we wanted to go camp out at a known haunted mine area way up in the mountains by our town. It's called Jacob City and was once a mining area but closed and shut down now. The route we took to get there was a steep one-lane road that requires four-wheel drive in a lot of places. Once you get there, there's a flat gravel area where you can spread out and set up camp. When we all got out of our vehicles, it was all of us and three dogs. One was mine and my friend brought his two huskies. I brought my dog Dex because he was a fantastic dog who I thought would be a great deterrent for any mountain lions or anything else that may be in that area. We explored an old half-standing cabin that was left up there and a few mine shaft openings, but they were all welded shut. Nothing really happened for a while and it was actually a nice area to oversee the valley below. When it got darker later, we started a fire and all sat around it. I thought, hey, why don't we make some recordings with our phones? We can ask questions and see if we get anything weird. I started out by asking, hello, is anyone there? Do you have a name? Things like that. When I went back and replayed it, I didn't hear any voices. But I did hear what sounded like pickaxes hitting rock or stone. When we heard that, all our eyes brightened up like, holy cow, we actually got something crazy on the recording. We proceeded to ask more and more questions, but we only heard background noises like pickaxes at work or what sounded like chatter between people that we really couldn't understand. It got to be around midnight and I wanted to get more reactions, so I started asking in a strong tone for names and who they wanted to talk to. The next time I replayed the recording, it said, Cody, we want to talk to Cody. At that point, I was freaking out a bit. I'm pretty sure no one said my name while we were up there. Everyone else seemed startled, too. When another person started recording asking, why me? We heard, come over here, in a somewhat demanding voice. My courage drained from my body and I started telling everyone, I don't think I can spend the night here. A couple of my buddies started laughing, saying they would watch and protect me from anything trying to drag me off in the night. Shortly after that, our dogs all started whining and ran toward our cars to get in. My friend's girlfriend opened the door and all the dogs just jumped in. I was upset because at this point, I was terrified and I wanted my dog back next to me around the fire. I should have said that my dog, Dex, was a dog that never barked or anything, ever. He was just a dopey, good dog. He came from a duck hunting household, so he was also trained. But with other dogs or strangers, he would just look and wag his tail. He'd never been aggressive to anyone or anything. When I went to get him back from the truck he'd jumped into, he and the other two dogs were huddled on the opposite side of the cab, shaking and whining. When I went to reach for Dex's collar to get him out, he started to growl and bared his teeth at me. I've never seen that with him before, and I looked back to my friends and I said, we need to leave. Everyone was about on the same page, but there were two people who wanted to stay. At that moment, a very strong wind came through the canyon and started blowing everything around. Our fire was getting huge and everyone started to panic, so we doused it, immediately packed up, and drove down the mountain as soon as possible. When we got back into town, everything seemed to get back to normal. The dogs were fine. It was around 4 a.m. at this point, and everyone was exhausted, so we all just decided to go back home. Something strange is going on in Blanket Fortiana tonight. We'll return in moments. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Embatta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing, whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future. Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff? Yes. Building actual physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point with quantum? By 2029, we'll build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer. That is one that can run a very, very large, large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit ibm.com slash quantum. All right, quick quiz for the hiring managers out there. What's worse, being understaffed or being poorly staffed? Well, that's a trick question because both are recipes for chaos. Either way, just say to yourself, this is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. You'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills, certifications, and everything else you're looking for. Or go a different way and get no traction. Seriously, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. It really is a no-brainer. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help your job get the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. Back to tonight's dead letter. Wow. Yeah. First question to you, sir. Would you have stayed? It's hard to say, man. It's hard to say just from this letter. I don't think I would have. Obviously, I have. Anyone that listens to our main show knows I've had prior experience with EVPs. I probably wouldn't have even asked these particular questions. I might have said something else with the recordings. But this does feel a little bit like, I mean, it's one thing. It's weird to hear these environmental sounds on an EVP, which I've heard of before, but it's more rare. Usually, it's voices or chatter or something you can't understand or something you can understand very clearly. But to hear something from the time period, like background noises or working sounds, that is really pretty interesting to me. I don't know of a lot of EVP stories like that. Do you? Occasionally, you'll get some sounds. It's funny. It's like a reverse era cue. If you don't know, ghost hunters, they'll play background noises or music or chatter or something that is of the period and that location to try and spark some interaction or wake things up. Yeah. Our friend John Killian does that when he's doing investigations. Yeah. I've done that too with Roger and Jill. And Jill had played some Confederate music from the American Civil War at, I believe, the Octagon House. And what's interesting is Roger's random number generator activity meter, let's say. I can't remember what the name is. I should know. But basically, it calculates non-randomness. Right. Generally, as it's running, you have a level of just, well, that's the computer. It's just generating random numbers. And it has a level of activity that is background, right? Right. And when things spike up, it means something's unusual. As I love how you describe it. So I'm going to say it here again. It's like you throw out a handful of quarters and they all scatter around the ground. Well, that's random. Their location where they end up. You throw out a stack of quarters and they land in a stack. That's not random. That should not happen. Right. Something is participating in the results. Right. Or I added, if you throw them out and they spell out a word. Okay. That's not random. Right. That is a spike in activity of some kind that is unseen. And so here, what I loved about the description of the story is how it kind of ramps up. And so as you're talking, Scott, it's like I have heard of background sounds with EVPs, but usually people have also just heard them with the naked ear. And you hear this all the time. That reminds us of stone tape theory is that the sounds of working, famously people have heard, especially in England and in Europe, the sound of horses' hooves and armor clattering on cobblestone streets and men yelling. And it sounds like some kind of a military column formation going down the street, but seeing nothing. Right. Or carriages rolling down the street on something like cobblestones and seeing nothing. And so is that just, is that a ghost carriage? Is that a ghost soldiers? Or is it just background that's a energy of a human activity that's been trapped in the surrounding environment and gets released periodically, like a never playing tape of some kind. And so you start off thinking like, well, maybe that's what it is. Just men working here at a dig site at a mine. And you're just hearing the natural sounds that are somehow embedded into the, uh, into the area and the, you can't hear them, but the recorder's picking them up. Yes. And then I like how it progresses. Not if I was there, maybe, but how it progresses that you then poke the bear. It's like, you want to talk to somebody. It's like, uh, you here? Like, yeah, we're here. And we know who you are. Yeah. Well, he, and he sounds like Cody was getting a little aggressive with it too, which is not something we generally recommend. I've got a lot of people who I think aren't believers or think nothing's ever going to happen to them or it's pretty easy to go for that thing, but it's not always wise to piss off the unseen. But as you'll see, and again, if you don't believe this, it's all silly. I know. But, uh, if you watch the ghost hunting show, Zach began, well, you know, they're doing a show. And so just to get nothing is not a show. Right. So you want to provoke. And, uh, I know Amy Brunia, we saw her with the Villisca house and I agree with her. She said, you don't usually do this, but they were getting nothing. And so you need to do an entertaining show. And so she started getting a little aggressive with the questioning and, uh, confrontational, let's say not nothing insulting, but just more confrontational poking the barrel a little bit more. And then you do get a response. And so here it's like, you're, you're asking to engage and then you get engagement and another meter, uh, which is also good. And, and generally like folks, I think you don't take a dog on a ghost hunt on a lockdown because of course they can wander around or make extra noise and they're not controllable. But here it's a good meter because I wonder what the dogs were sensing or seeing. Yeah. What do they see that we can't? And it's like, okay, I'm out of here. I know I'm a good boy. Yeah. I'm getting another truck and you better get us out of here. Do not try to pull me out. I can't drive. I don't have thumbs. Yeah. And so, yeah, if you believe the story, they sent something that showed up not at the beginning because they were fine at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Walking around doing dog stuff. And, uh, then once you poke the bear, it's like, oh, something's here now. And either we can sense it, smell it, hear it or see it. And, uh, it's not good. And it's not just like a friendly stranger because we've heard so many stories now, you and I have, uh, go seeing, uh, past family members and react to them in a friendly way or just curious, like your cat staring at something, uh, your own dog looking at the doorway of the bedroom when I was staying there, which you don't believe me, but I do believe that she sent something coming down the hall and standing in the doorway, which I could not see. But apart from that, that's another fascinating element to the story. And, uh, so did it start out as just background energy of a spiritual nature and someone showed up once you asked to, uh, have some interaction and then what was it? And, uh, yeah, it's like, I think it's that feeling. We just talked about that feeling about being in Bannock and, and me getting a sense that I needed to leave immediately, but that was more physical. Like I was so weirdly suddenly thirsty that the idea popped in my head. If I don't get to water soon and other people, I could pass out and I could die up here. Yeah. And so, uh, Marty and I just turned to each other and said, it's time to go. Yeah. So I love the story just for where the location is, uh, the feelings and how it, how it amplifies, how it ramps up. Well, let's talk about that. I did a little research on Jacob City, which I had never heard of. It's in Tuella County, Utah, which was a strong mining community. I learned a lot about it when I was prepping this one. There's so much mining in Utah. Obviously people know that. And there's been horrible things that happened to it. There's super fun sites. There's encroachment on, uh, Native American land and all that kind of stuff, but mining is part of the fabric of Utah's history and the West history in that area. But Jacob City was, I guess, uh, started in 1865 when ore was discovered there. And by 1876, it had almost 300 people in it. And even back then it was hard to get to, but it had stores at a school, a hotel, saloons, gambling houses, and of course, miners' cabins. And the mines stopped producing. Their peak was like 75, 1875 and 1876. And after that, they stopped producing. And by the 1900s, it was pretty much gone. So when we went digging on this one, I was like, I want to find any kind of history on Jacob City that I could, because you usually can find stuff. I mean, Forrest and I also, we've done the main show. We've talked about Panamint City, which is in Death Valley, which is a famous, like, gold rush town that is in what's called an alluvial fan in the mountains there, which is where the rocks are all, like, cascade down from cliff sides because of erosion. It's what makes Monument Valley monuments look like mittens with skirts around the bases. That's an alluvial fan, that skirt. All stuff I've learned from my dad, who I mentioned in our last episode, is teaching me this kind of crap. So anyway, but Panamint City was in one of those, and it flooded out one day. Well, you know the great treasure story behind that, right? No, yeah, that's what I'm getting to. There was a safe. It was like payroll for all the miners was in the safe, which vanished and was, you know, in the flash flood and whatever. So everybody tries to go there, and it's impossible to get to. And it used to be that you could maybe get there with four-wheel drive or whatever, but. Yeah, you can. It's a very long hike. I think you can get there. It's very rocky. So you can. And there's a little bitty general store there, or there used to be with, like, one guy. Yeah. You know, there, and we get tourists coming through who are brave enough. But what you're talking about is, I think the mining town was in a, yeah, that ravine. And so they had an unusual flash flood, not uncommon for deserty areas. And with the water nowhere to go, they claimed that the water that came down through the town was 20, maybe 30 feet high. Oh my God. And it washed everything out in this alluvial fan. And somewhere that safe is out there buried. Right. And today's value could have about $20 million in it. Right. But again, as we say about treasure hunting stories, and we've covered more than a few, including the Pirate Lafitte's Lost Treasure. That's a good series. Go check it out if you haven't, which is a different thing that was down in New Orleans. But still, if you do find it, I don't think you always report it. So then that's the thing about when you're hunting for treasure like that. It's like, you don't know if it's truly never been found or if someone found it and then just fenced it. Again, and there's a term that originated with New Orleans fencing. So who knows if it's still there, Panamint City. And this town didn't have a treasure, but other than the treasure of the history and the fact that it was a mining community, it was surrounded by a crescent-shaped collection of mines, just dozens and dozens of them apparently. Well, speaking of, in a much lower value monetarily, but treasure-wise, this is in a town nearby in Death Valley. And our little family history is that, you know, my grandparents used to, they were kind of rockhounds and they loved to travel the Southwest by trailer and visit all these places like Tonopah and Pahrump. And they were out in Death Valley and came across this guy there, you know, somewhere in town or at a diner and they started talking, you know, talking to him. He was a retired policeman and he and his wife had retired out to the area. And he said, oh, if you folks are poking around and you don't mind a little bit of a hike up the side of this mountain, it's an old miner's cabin. And, you know, I've hiked up there with my dog quite a bit, but, you know, it's a little bit of a strenuous, it's not really easy, but you can do it, you know, looking at them. And he said, you know, I'm what, in my late 60s, retired, you could do it. But he said that miner's cabin is like the guy just left. And probably the poor old timer maybe got sick, come down out of the cabin to get some medical attention, but he never went back apparently. And he said, it's just like the way he left it. And he said, it's full of really well-kept antiques. And he said, like, if you go up there, he said, you should take something. Now, I know a lot of people are maybe not down with that, but my grandparents were like, well, you know, this guy's a retired policeman. And his point of view was that, look, somebody is going to go up there and snatch it all or smash it or just burn the place down and, you know, ruin it. I know you folks would take good care of this stuff. He said, you should just go up and, you know, grab an old lantern or something. You know, he said, I've gotten a few things, but he said, I know eventually, yeah, people are going to trash it and, or, you know, they're going to take it anyway. So you folks are nice, go and get something. And my grandparents decided not to make that hike. So they never went up there, but I always remember the story. So two other friends of mine, we did go four wheeling up there to try and find it. And we found where the cabin was supposed to be from my grandmother's recollection. And it was around there and all we found was like a really old foundation of probably where the cabin was. So it was gone, you know, I mean, that story, they, they heard that probably in the late seventies, early eighties. And by the time we went in the late nineties, it was gone. And, but we found an old mine and it was just not welded shut like this story. It was open and you do get a feeling as you walk into it and it gets darker and darker. It's like, okay, there's a, probably a safe limit to how far back you could walk. But in apropos to the story, it's like my sense of adventure wanted to go all the way. Like I want to go and see as much as I can, but we decided not to. That was a long, I'm not sure a, a Hummer could make it up there or a portal axle vehicle because it was, uh, but there were abandoned trucks and all kinds of mining gear and this giant round metal ball that held the water for the pressure washing for the mine, I think, and just other water needs. And that was still bolted the side of the hill. And so lots of fun, but could be a little dangerous if you get hurt. It's a long walk back. But in any case, that's our little treasure story of not finding anything. But, but getting back to, uh, I love old ghost mining stories and speaking of Zach and ghost adventures, the tintic mines episode was a frightening one where they get the, the screaming men on the DR 60, uh, Panasonic recorder for the first time. And it was like a few seconds of it. It's like, oh my gosh, this is terrifying. And I thought like, oh, you like that? We got to do 20 minutes of that. So, well, you know, it's funny. You should talk about that, like going into the mines, which, you know, and, and this gets into a whole thing with the BLM because they, they might, and by the way, the BLM may have taken down the cabin that you went looking for. Because they've started doing that and they've started welding all the mines shut and closing things down because people are disappearing. And one thing that Jacob City is a little bit famous for, although it's a little bit of a forgotten story now was in 1989, a little boy's part of a boy scout troop that was up there who wandered into a mine and disappeared. And there was like a multi-day search for him. His name was Josh and they couldn't find him. And it seemed like, uh, folks thought he was dead. And eventually they did find him and rescue him. And there's very few articles on the internet about that these days. So that was in 1989, but that is one of the things up there. But that's why I think it's interesting when Cody said to it, well, we did see this one mine, but it was welded shut. BLM probably went up there and welded it shut. And when I was looking around for more stories about this today, there was a website that I, a BLM website, I think it was BLM or not national parks, where it's a whole reporting area. And it was, it was saying for Utah, they think there's a 11, 12, 15,000 mines that they don't know where they are. And you're supposed to go there and tell them if you find one that isn't closed up because they don't want people disappearing or dying or putting rescuers' lives at risk or whatever. So understandable. Yeah, it's, it's pretty wild, but it's like, it is so hard when you come across something like that. It's like, you want to go in just a little bit, you know, you want to see what did it feel like, but it's freaky business. I, but I did find, and there was, I couldn't find anything really other than old newspaper articles because I wanted to know what Jacob City felt like at its height. Because you were thinking about who these people were that were talking to Cody or, or these, I say people, ghost spirits, whatever. And you never know what you're talking to for the record, but listen to some of these excerpts. These are, I'm going to read excerpts from these articles. I've got four or five of them. This is from the Salt Lake Weekly Tribune of May 16th, 1874. And it's just a little segment of a larger article. Jacob City has improved somewhat in the past week. D. Egan has opened his new billiard parlor. The tables are well employed and crowds nightly surround the tiger board and bar. Josiah Seeley Esquire is grading a lot to build and furnish a dry goods and grocery establishment. Messieurs Spangler and Kelly are now erecting an addition of 25 feet to their store. Morris Lippman, agent of Wells Fargo & Co., will soon commence the erection of a large store and wear room. We have a new fruit and provision stand and other improvements are being made of which I will speak at some future time. The hurdy runs as usual, games of chance, et cetera, numerous. And that's just signed Arden, whoever Arden wants. So he gives you a little bit of a vibe. And there's another article just about a road. They were like, we need a road to get there. It's impossible getting in and out of this place. So there was all this stuff about a road in 1874. And then once they built the road, like a mule team fell off of it and a guy almost died. And they're like, oh, we need to fix the road. And the whole thing was like, there needs to be a better road to get in and out and eventually a tramway because so many people were living up there and working up there. I'd like this one other excerpt. A grand ball was given at the Dry Canyon House by Charles Whitehead of the Mono Restaurant on last Friday night. Sixteen of Jacob City's fair ones were in attendance and a large number of our prominent miners engaged in tripping the light fantastic toe until midnight and then partook of a splendid repast served by Charlie, after which the party returned to the dance. So that's a nice little segment. Here's the thing about a hotel there. The Kirby House has been taken entire charge of by Miss L. Steele, who has refitted it in good style with good beds and a good restaurant. At this hotel, the stage coming over the new route now lands its passengers. Mrs. Steele has a wide reputation as a hostess and requires no recommendation. And I did read where a four-horse team stagecoach was running daily back and forth to Jacob City during its height in 1874 and 1875. The other thing is a term I still hear in bars today, mixologist. Yes, now it's hip, yeah. Yeah, so mixologists. Among these artists, we find at the Headquarters Saloon, Alex Sibley, who is kept constantly busy in dispensing the latest mixed and at the fashion, Hank White is not behind in furnishing patrons. So there's, I guess they're starting to mix their beverages up there. Yeah, I would love to visit. So there's other stories there where they run out. It's almost like the news of the day. It's about what each mine is doing. And it's a long list in all the mines. The mine is like the Grand Queen, the Grand Dame, the whatever. They have nicknames or whatever. And there's 30 or 40 of them. And they're all there in Jacob City. So these folks are down in Jacob City. Then they go up into the hills. They work. They die. I found more than a few stories about somebody shot somebody else and they're going to court. You know, that was happening in town a lot. But it's very much kind of a Deadwood vibe where just, you know, things get a little crazy and people are shooting each other. And, you know, it's a tough town, but it sounds interesting. And the last article, the latest article I could find on Jacob City that was pertinent, again, from the Salt Lake Tribune. This was in April 28th of 1902. The headline is, Seeks Deserted Village. Colorado man engaged in search for Jacob City, once a thriving town at the head of Dry Canyon. John Cairns of Central City, Colorado, who was stopping at the White House, is in a good frame of mind to enjoy Goldsmith's deserted village. When he left home a few days ago, he left orders to have all his mail sent to Jacob City, Utah. When he arrived in Salt Lake, he found that Jacob City had sunk into oblivion over a quarter of a century ago and that there was nothing left to tell the story of the once thriving town, but a few holes in the ground and some piles of crumbling brick and stone. Still more strange, Mr. Cairns arranged to buy a mining property known as the Eureka Load on the understanding that it was within a stone's throw of Jacob City, and now learns that the men with whom he agreed to buy have not seen the place in 31 years. The mining claim is patented. It joins the hidden treasure mine in Dry Canyon, about 10 miles above Stockton in the Ophir District. Mr. Cairns is an experienced miner from Colorado and expects good things from the property. He secured an option on it from H.H. Moulton and James Yates of Kansas City, who located it over 31 years ago. So this talks about the ore and everything, and the last paragraph just says, many of the old-time miners remember Jacob City as a bustling, prosperous town of considerable size at the head of the Dry Canyon 30 years ago. The inquiries of Mr. Cairns concerning it stirred up a swarm of reminiscence. There is now nothing tangible left of Jacob City. Wow. That was 1902, that article. Yeah. Wow. So what we were talking about earlier with the BLM, there's a whole bunch of stuff about how they're closing all the mines down and destroying in a lot of ways. It's controversial, and a lot of preservationists, Southwestern preservationists, are very much against closing mines and tear down buildings and all that kind of thing. Yeah, we were just talking about that back when I was talking about Bannock, and I mentioned that my dad always was grumbling about that because to him, and to us too, as a family and folks we know, it's a bit of history. And yeah, it's an attractive nuisance in a way, and people could get hurt, lots of rusty nails, things like that. And certainly mines are a different thing. That is where, yeah, people are going to have to risk their lives to go looking for you. And by the way, remember that creepy video of somebody, I think it was somebody on YouTube, we were looking into that. There's a whole mystery, which we should probably cover about, that is the lost M mine, that there's a shape with an M. Yes, yes, I've read about that. And I think somebody went in there with a camera and- Never came out. Well, yeah, there was, right. And this was somebody who, it was experienced also, was packing a sidearm. Uh, that's a different story, but somebody went in there to that mine and there's chains hanging down and, uh, he's got a light down the mine and he said like, there's no wind here. And he, I think he held up some paper or something and basically said, there's no wind here. And those chains are swinging back and forth and you can see that in the video. Yes. And it creeped him out and he left. So, uh, but yeah, getting back to, uh, the history of it, these old miners' cabins, it's like, uh, there's so much fun, at least I have a lot of fun just poking around them and just seeing what it was like. And, uh, if you've seen, you know, Secret of Skinwalker Ranch out at Homestead too, and it looks like that. Okay. It's all dilapidated. Everything's curled up, dried up, rotted. But if you like that kind of urban decay, uh, exploration, uh, they're a lot of fun, but yeah. So it is controversial where people were saying like, Hey, you know, you don't need to clear the land of all these, but I guess, uh, yeah, they thought it was a, a nuisance. So they went in and basically scraped it off and you don't have any of that kind of visual history anymore, even though I can understand it looks ugly, but. Well, this is a pretty cool story. I mean, and I confess, I kind of want to go up there. Yeah, I'd go back. Whenever like, yeah, digging, digging around on it though. It's, it's, it does seem super hard to get to. A lot of folks say you need like a side-by-side or a hardcore, like four-wheel ATV to get up there at this point. Although there's another, there's two ways to get there. Originally, one of them was pretty treacherous and the other one I think is a little bit easier, but it comes from a whole different area. So it depends on where you are. It's kind of like getting, getting to Sedona. It's wild. The two different routes that I know getting there from Flagstaff. One of them is just this mountain windy, crazy thing that goes through all these cliffs and takes forever, but it's beautiful. So that's how all these places are when you're approaching them. You can like, Oh, you can go the easy way or you can go to one that's more interesting, but takes longer and you might die. So, um, there's a lot of that going on here, but this is, it's a fascinating story. And I'd be curious to know really what year it was, because it's not clear to us when you went there, Cody, if you hear this, um, you, you sent this story in a little while ago, so I'm not sure if you're going to hear it. I'm going to drop you an email just to let you know that it's running, but I would like to hear the EVPs if you kept them, but you might not have, this could have been 15 years ago or 20 years ago, who knows? However, I do know this because I've had concurrent Apple devices for a thousand years now. I've got, I've got voice memos and recordings on my iPhone that are like 20 years old that are still there because whenever you upgrade, when you transfer, you do the migration, they just stay there. So maybe you have this stuff on your phone. If you had an iPhone back then or some other thing that gave you continuity when you got our newer phone, who knows, who knows, but it would be cool to hear the pickaxes and stuff that you were talking to experience that the wind whipping up to, which you've also seen at this skinwalker ranch is when suddenly I know it's the day that can happen. Yes, I've been out when it has, but odd that it was in context, just kind of like, we're going to mix things up for you. Speaking of mixology and scare your dogs, but I would go back and I would just to see if it could happen again. And if it did, then you know that maybe something's up, but maybe you're not all that curious after an experience like that. Because again, I understand the fear and the common sense of like, why push it? On the other hand, I would love to see people who are really skeptical of this just to check it out to see if they had the same experience or if they would, because obviously at a logical sense, like it's all in your head, you're imagining this. I know the dogs are reacting to something out there. Maybe it was a cougar. Maybe there's something out there. And so that's just nothing. And then you have nothing to be worried about from an invisible compelling force, right? There's nothing to be scared of. There's no one out there. You're totally safe. So it's just your imaginations. Go back up there and see what happens. It could be a mountain lion, right? They could have been being stalked and the dogs knew that. Possibly. Well, it depends. Yeah, it depends on the dog. Now, if he's a hunting dog, a lot of folks use dogs to tree black bear and cougars. And, but we don't know what the dog was trained for or how they reacted in a group. But generally from my experience and with others that if you have dogs that are of that outdoorsy nature that have been trained for that kind of stuff is that they will alert and, you know, start barking and get kind of excited or agitated. If there's some kind of threat, not totally scared out of their wits like this, which is, uh, that's like the reaction that reminds me of, uh, we covered the Halloween stories and the gentleman that, uh, I don't know if we talked about the story, but he had like a massive pit bull that was scared of nothing would, would swallow you in one, in one gulp. And those two kids came to the door and the dog just lost it and hid under the bed for three days. And the guy could not get him out. He just would not come out. So, uh, there's something that they react to of, uh, of that nature where they know it's like, no, I don't care if you believe this or not, we're not going there and do not try to drag me out. And I said, it also reminded me of Chevy Chase and Vacation where Rusty, it's like, dad, you okay? Don't touch. It's like, I always think of that. Yeah. I've just, no, we're not coming out. And so it's just fascinating. It's an interesting spot to go back. And like I said, it's all of like ghost hunting where if you find a place, it's like a good fishing hole. You might be able to get some reaction again because you know it's happened there before, but then you go back and maybe nothing happens. And it depends on the people too. If you and I went back, nothing would happen because that would be a good episode and that's not what they want for us. They don't want us to have a good episode except for maybe whatever's at the Sally house, which clearly was interested. Well, that was a joke on you, I believe. Yeah. So it worked, but yeah, no, thanks for the story here. I, I, again, we love these types of, uh, stories. I think the elements of it are, are very compelling and that's a personal one where if you weren't out there camping, if you've never been out in that kind of situation, maybe it doesn't resonate with you, but we have. So we felt it in a way, the atmospherics about it. Well, over the years, we've had no shortage of stories from folks like you, Cody, who've had a bad feeling when they were out camping somewhere. There's a ton of different types of circumstances to these stories, but one thing you hear constantly from people who don't even believe in the paranormal is trust your instincts. As Forrest said earlier, if something is making you feel like you should leave, leave. It is, as Gavin DeBecker says in his book on personal security, the gift of fear. What's fascinating in Cody's story though, is that this wasn't just a human reaction. His normally sweet, quiet dog behaved completely out of character. He did the right thing by leaving. After all, who's to say that sensing even a mundane and explainable danger isn't a paranormal experience in and of itself? The Astonishing Dead Letter Office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW Sound. The theme is based on the Astonishing Legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music, arranged by Alan Carissia, who composes all the other music in the show. Tommy Beaver Design created the logo. The announcer is John Bolton. That's me. Stories are lightly edited for length, content, and readability, but otherwise presented as they're sent to us. We're always looking for more Dead Letters, so if you have a story of your own you'd like to share, email it to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. Please include how you would like to be credited. First name only? First name last initial? Anonymous? A pseudonym? Let us know. Due to the number of emails coming in, we often cannot respond, but we do read them all. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright, Astonishing Legends Productions. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Embatta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing, whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future. 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