GC648ME Rico Revisited
Type: Traditional | Size: Micro | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: sjclimber @ | Hide Date: 09/28/2015 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N37° 41.664 W108° 01.906 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0

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Interesting historical site which once was cover for an archived cache.

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Rico, CO is a quaint small mining town in SW Colorado. Escalante was likely the first "white" man to travel through this area, but it wasn't until the early 1830's that trappers stayed in the area for any length of time. Precious minerals were discovered by Colonel Nash in 1866 but valuable finds were not made until some years later by Sheldon Shafer and Joe Fearheiler, prospectors from Montana. The Utes surrendered their claims to the territory in 1878. Rico reached it apex in 1892. The population of 5,000 supported 23 saloons, 3 blocks of red-light district, 2 churches, 2 newspapers, a theater, boarding houses and the Rico State Bank. Gold and silver were mined as well as zinc, lead and copper.

You are looking at the Atlantic Cable headframe and hoist. Constructed by the Dolores Silver and Refining Company in 1898-1905, it was later modified in the early 1940's with electric lighting and corrugated metal roofing and siding. The structure serviced the Atlantic Cable Mine, considered to be one of the earliest (1878) and richest mines in the Rico Mining District. The early focus of this mine was on silver, but by 1907, this had changed to zinc. During World War II the focus was both lead and zinc.*

Nearby is an ore bucket and induction motor.

There may be as many as three containers in this general area, two from an archived cache. You are looking for a 2" X 1" magnetic container. It can be easily dislodged to be lost forever, so please be careful. Thanks..

*www.ricocolorado.org, Colorado, Federal Writers Project.

06/12/2019 By Team Tierra Buena
On the tail end of a month-long road trip that took us from our home in Phoenix to GeoWoodstock in Fort Worth and family in St. Louis and Denver. Today we left Montrose for Valley of the Gods, Utah.

We needed Dolores County to add to our collection, so we were happy to stop here and find this one after a few minutes of searching. Thanks for the cache.

05/14/2019 By Cache Dipper
Found quickly. Happy!!!

01/21/2019 By kekj
Yet again on our way to PHX, this time driving so logging a passel of Tbugs to caches newly and\or previously found along the way to provide them with map way-points for mileage.

11/28/2018 By R&B CO
We were headed up to Telluride today and stopped in Rico on the way to get a few caches in Dolores County. TFTC

11/12/2018 By ch06
Thank you for this cache.

10/23/2018 By been-jam-in-w-april
My second attempt approximately one year apart TFTC SL

10/12/2018 By BluePearl
Out on an excellent geocaching road trip. Thanks for bringing us to a beautiful area!

10/09/2018 By Hives
After finishing the CoM's in Delta, we headed south for a few new counties. We couldn't have picked a better time to visit this area as the views were spectacular. Still had a lot of fall colors to enjoy plus the snow covered mountain tops. A very enjoyable afternoon adventure. Had to check around a bit but one of the party went right to it! Nice hide. SL. TFTC

10/09/2018 By ARK GOOSE
Caching with Hives and picking up counties in Colorado SL - TFTC

10/07/2018 By DigDug15
Found with Lidlove on our way thru Rico on our CO hot springs tour. Signed log and replaced. Thanks!

08/19/2018 By IowaGerd
A pretty good hide, actually.

08/12/2018 By siff
I found the original (archived) cache a this location almost 10 years ago. Nice and easy find on a slightly drippy evening after dinner at the Enterprise. SL, TFTC!

07/27/2018 By msmosier
I did find plenty of cobwebs.

07/16/2018 By cal25
I think it's really cool that they're preserving this old structure for everyone to see. Found a geocache without too much effort. Thank you for placing and maintaining this geocache.

07/12/2018 By AZSNOJEEP
Got it. TFTC. Now off to the museum