Bachelor Cabins, Carson

Bachelor Cabins, Carson. . , Bachelor Cabins, also known as New Carson, is not to be confused with high altitude Old Carson which dates to 1882 when Joseph Christopher Carson , no relation to the famed scout , discovered the Bonanza King Mine on the treeless, 12,500'-elevation Continental Divide between Lost Trail Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande del Norte, and Wager Gulch draining into the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River. , Shadowed by the Continental Divide, privately-owned Bachelor Cabins are located among beetle-kill conifers near the head of Wager Gulch and adjacent to silver and gold mining claims including the Superior and namesake Bachelor Lode. , Col. Channing F. Meek acquired the mineral lodes in 1898 and to facilitate development incorporated the New York State-based Bachelor Gold Mining Co. , Meek envisioned a deep, northerly extension of the Bachelor Mine with three parallel shafts ultimately extending 1,250' deep. Despite critics who claimed the northerly extension of the Bachelor was outside the acknowledged mineral zone, Meek and his investors awarded a $20,000 contract to Tom Allen in July 1901, for the initial shaft 500' deep. , When the shaft reached 400' depth, complications developed when workers unexpectedly encountered substantial underground waterflow which required pumping in order to dewater the shaft. , In addition to the Bachelor, Meek was an investor in the ambitious Lion Tunnel near Animas Fork which was projected to bore 8,000' through the Continental Divide to provide railroad access to American Basin on the Upper Lake Fork. , Among Col. Meek's close friends and an investor with Bachelor Gold Mining Co. was eastern investor Abner McKinley, brother of U.S. President William McKinley. Meek joined members of Abner McKinley's family on the start of a month-long vacation in September 1901, with a planned stop at Lake City and visit to the Bachelor Mine. The party had just left Denver on September 6 when news was received that President McKinley had been shot at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York. With family members and Col. Meek close by, President McKinley died six days later. , The loss of Abner McKinley as an investor, together with disappointing results from the Bachelor Mine shaft, prompted Col. Meek to withdraw from his investments after 1903. , [photo captions] , Bachelor Cabins overview, dates to 1988: , 1) creek-side building housed water turbine which powered electric lights and telephone; , 2) false-front store and post office building was already collapsed by mid-1960s, shelving still visible on flattened walls; , 3) hip-roofed building served as both telephone and telegraph communications center; , 4) livery stable; , 5) C.F. Meek's state-of-the-art boarding house combined dining hall and kitchen with attached sleeping quarters boasting bunks with bedsprings and wool mattresses, Lake City TIMES reporting, “The Colonel likes to see the men comfortable, partly from a humane and partly from a business point of view.”; , 6) leaning precariously in 1988 and now nonexistent, this building is thought to have been built as a dining hall in advance of Abner McKinley's ill-fated visit in 1901; , 7) Bachelor Cabins were connected to the adjacent Bachelor Mine via a single-lane access road, portions of which were corduroyed with logs passing through a marshy section; , 8) mine structures at the Bachelor Mine were in a collapsed state by the 1960s, although hoisting machinery for an envisioned 1,250'-deep shaft still remained. Miners descending into the mine were transported on the shaft cage (donated by Joel and Celia Swank) with heavily dented metal roof which is displayed adjacent to this plaque. , 9) Then as now, Bachelor Cabins are located on private property among a myriad of overlapping mining claims, shown in light grey area at top right.