Vectors and Elkhorn Ghost Town

As I write this, Covid-19 (coronavirus) is converting people all around me into vectors to carry the disease from one place to the next.  Vectors of this virus are often asymptomatic and have no idea they carry sickness and possible death everywhere they go.

I may be a vector.

A sobering thought.

As I watch events unfold today (from as much isolation as possible) I think about the many times I visited the graveyard at Elkhorn Ghost Town.  What remains of Elkhorn is nuzzled on the backside of the mountains you see as you peer out from my bay windows.  

Elkhorn, a mining town in every respect, reached a population of 2500 during the peak of silver production in the 1880s.  Though remote, Elkhorn grew quickly once a silver lode was discovered there.  Elkhorn, however, was different in that whole families of European immigrants came to populate the town rather than the usual flurry of single, raucous men.

The immigrants carved an honest community from the wood and stone of the nearby mountains.  At one point, the town boasted three hotels and a two-lane bowling alley.  Elkhorn bustled until the silver crash of 1893.  The saddest episode, though, befell Elkhorn in the latter half of 1888 and extending into the early months of 1889.

A deadly diphtheria epidemic swept through the mountain town.

The graveyard there—now overtaken by the forest again—tells of the end.  Mothers buried alongside their young children.  Infants buried alongside big brothers.  Many families lost multiple children—often within days of each other.  Dozens of Elkhorn inhabitants perished with only a few months.

I recall standing before some of the time-toppled grave markers in the mountains there…trying to imagine the fear.

That fear is a little easier to imagine today.

—Mitchell Hegman

PHOTO: Beatrice and Clara (age 3 and 5)