Ghost towns
Frisco, Utah was an old mining town in the late 1800s. At its peak, the town’s population was about 6,000 people, mostly miners and their families, and an 1879 directory lists 33 businesses with services, which included eight saloons. Today almost nothing remains but some foundations and a cemetery, but it’s the reputation of this place that led me to seek it out.
You see, Frisco was one of those old west towns like you see in the movies. The streets running though the town had more than twenty saloons, brothels, and gambling houses. It also had the reputation of being a very dangerous place to be. All kinds of crime ranging from muggings to murders happened on a daily basis. So much so, that the town hired a marshal from Nevada and told him to “clean up the town.” Legend has it that they offered to build him a new jail, but he declined saying “don’t need no new jail.” Legend also has it that he then proceeded to kill six men that same night as a warning to all the outlaws that indeed shit would not be taken. Just like in the movies.
In 1885 a cave-in of the main condemned the town. Once the collapse sealed in the biggest and most profitable mine in the area, the town began to dwindle. By the turn of the century, only a handful of businesses still remained, and by the 1920s, Frisco was a ghost town.
As a word of warning to anyone ghost towning in Utah, do NOT follow Google maps. The directions it gave me took me way off into the mountains somewhere, nowhere near where the actual town was. Having said that, and after finally finding it, here’s how you actually get to Frisco.
Get your map of Utah, then find “Nowhere.” Now that you’ve found “Nowhere”, proceed to locate the boundaries. Next, having found the outer boundaries, go to the middle of “Nowhere.” That’s where you’ll find Frisco.
Nestled at the base of the San Francisco mountains, you’ll find Frisco to be nothing more than a few crumbling foundations, one last standing building, and some old charcoal kilns. Nothing much remains of a once-booming mining town. It’s even a little creepy, in my opinion.
I gotta admit, the place is still cool, especially given its history. Walking along the streets though, it’s hard to imagine what it must have looked and felt like a hundred years ago. You try to picture buildings and saloons, along with people and horses and activity, but time has done its deed and stripped Frisco to the bare bones. In a few more years, it will likely be gone completely. Until then, we still have pictures.
I enjoyed walking around, absorbing the atmosphere and trying to picture the town the way it was. Back in the 1800s it was brutal, but now it’s very peaceful and serene, almost like it’s been laid to rest. I think they call them ghost towns for that reason.
Of course, I couldn’t leave without finding the town cemetery. There’s a story about a family by the name of Sackett out of San Francisco, California who came to Frisco when the town got started. An author by the name of Louis L’amore even wrote several stories about the Sacketts, and I wanted to see if there was any truth to this. Behold:
There are actually a great many headstones with the name Sackett on them. I guess sometimes fiction and truth share a common thread.
Here are a couple more shots in the cemetery.
It was starting to get dark as I walked through the old cemetery, reading the names and the dates on the headstones. Not surprisingly, a lot of them were children, some of them not even a year old. Frisco really was a rough town.
After wandering through the town and seeing the cemetery, there was only one thing left that I needed to do…
Watch the sun go down on the old west.
Creepy. I went to a ghost town when I was a kid, but I don’t remember which one. I’m sure it wasn’t this one, though, because there was an establishment nearby that tried to profit off tourists.
Ok, I totally have to get directions to where this is. I would LOVE to go there!!!! Is it in Tooele or is in in the SL Valley? From the last picture it looks as though it could be up near Copperton and the Bingham Canyon Mine. Seriously send me info on how to get there!!
@Tauni: If only it were that close. Frisco is in Beaver county. To get there, take 15 down to Beaver, then jump on 21 and head northwest about 40 miles to a town called Milford. 21 turns west in Milford, so stay on that and drive about 16 miles into the boonies. You can see the charcoal kilns in Frisco from the side of the road if you look to your right. The town is about 220 miles from Salt Lake, and it takes about 3.5 hours to get there.
If you go, do it soon. Just last year there were several more buildings still standing, but now there’s just the one. There are no trespassing signs all over now, and several areas are fenced off. From what I understand, they want to start mining in the area again, so I would guess that within 2-3 years they’ll probably finish tearing the town down. See it while you can.
Can they do that even though it is marked as a historical landmark (read up on it last night and I guess in the 1980′s they made part of it a historical site).
Very cool Nic!! Thank you for sharing the story of this little town and your beautiful pictures of it.
Next time you’re over I’ll have to see if I can dig out my old black and whites of some “ghost” town houses I shot back in the day.
My grandfather was born here in 1922. He is still alive at 88. His family (grandparents) were Danish immigrants that came to the U.S. in 1883. He ran away from home at 17, I think the family had left Frisco by then, and he joined the army shortly afterwards. I saw his pictures of the place when he went back maybe 30-35 years ago. This place is so bleak, I would run away too! He kept mining as a drill operator and heavy equipment mechanic after WW2, for silver and later for gypsum; traveling to where the work was, through Utah and Nevada. I’m thrilled to see the Sacketts were here, as I’m a big Louis L’Amour fan