In search of Cooney
In 1875 a young miner named James Cooney discovered gold and silver in the Whitewater Valley. He prospected the mines he developed there until 1880 when he was killed by Apaches. His friends and his brother decided to bury him in the valley where he was killed so they found an enormous boulder, carved it out to serve as a tomb and then sealed up his body with ore from his mines.
This is the story we had heard in Glenwood and our ghost town map said that there used to be a town called Cooney. We thought we'd try to find it, also thinking that the tomb probably doesn't exist anymore but we might find something. While I was in the one general store in town, I picked up a packet of hiking trail maps thinking that there might be something in there. The guy running the store counter asks me what I'm looking for and I say Cooney, and he says "Cooney's tomb? I can tell you how to get there, in fact, I'll draw you a map."
It seems pretty straight forward, up Highway 180 and then a hard right onto Forest road 701, drive about 10 miles and it's right there. OK, no problem. We drove about 5 miles and came to a fork in the road. T. says "He didn't say anything about a fork, did he." Uh, no, he didn't. So we stay with 701 and keep driving. Another 2 miles or so and the road dead ends in a hiking trail. T. says "He didn't say anything about hiking, did he?" Um, no, he didn't.
But welcome to getting directions from the locals.
It really helps to know the right questions to ask when someone is drawing you a map... Well, what now? We decide to hike in, knowing that we A. have no idea where we are going and B. don't even know if this is the right road or what exactly we are looking for.
perfect!
So we start hiking along this trail that's more of a small ridge cut into the side of a slope with a roaring creek underneath it.
But the canyon we enter is beyond beautiful with a natural archway in the rocks far ahead of us.
However the trail is starting to get muddier and soon, it looks like a landslide took it out. We decide to climb the hills above it to circumvent the landslide, neccessitating scaling some rocks and climbing through part of the landslide, which we do, and then a little further on the trail just dead ends in the creek.
And there's no getting across it and staying dry. the water is running really fast, is dammed in places with logs and the rocks that still above water are too far apart for me to jump them.
Bummer! Especially since we have no idea what's further ahead of us, if anything. But the course of wisdom is to turn around, so we head back to the truck.
Once in the truck we decide to turn off on a dirt road just up the road and see if anything is up there. At every tourist destination we went to in NM, "No trepassing!" signs were very visibly posted on private property. Apparently trespassing by tourists is a real problem. But there aren't any signs on this road, so we take it.
We drive a couple of miles and around a curve we see a beautiful little valley surrounded by mesas and the remains of an early homestead. It's not on any map we've seen, including the ghost town map, so we have no idea what it is.
It doesn't look inhabited now but it does look like it's been inhabited sometime in the past several years. We wander around and take pictures and I started to get a feeling we were on private property but, as T. put it, the damage was already done so the only thing to do was not go into any of the buildings and probably leave soon lest we get chased off by an old prospector with a shotgun. We debate going further down the road and decide to do it (again, the trespassing damage being done).
We head down the road and find a little creek with a waterfall bisected by an earthen bridge that we tentatively drove across, and a mine shaft. We had found an early 20th century prospecting homestead and mine! It was very cool to find something that wasn't on the map - and in pursuit of something else, which is probably how a lot of things get discovered.
We didn't stay long, as the feeling that we were on private property intensified, but instead drove back to rd. 701. As we were exulting about how amazing it is to find stuff in the middle of the wilderness that you have never even heard of before, T. screeches to a halt and says, "There's Cooney's tomb."
Lo and behold, there it was. It's on a curve in the road so it's not visible from the other direction unless you know what you are looking for. But it's an immense boulder and obviously a tomb. After a homestead and mine it's a little anticlimactic but a great landmark nonetheless. And he appears to be undisturbed, more than 100 years after his death.
RIP Cooney.
This is the story we had heard in Glenwood and our ghost town map said that there used to be a town called Cooney. We thought we'd try to find it, also thinking that the tomb probably doesn't exist anymore but we might find something. While I was in the one general store in town, I picked up a packet of hiking trail maps thinking that there might be something in there. The guy running the store counter asks me what I'm looking for and I say Cooney, and he says "Cooney's tomb? I can tell you how to get there, in fact, I'll draw you a map."
It seems pretty straight forward, up Highway 180 and then a hard right onto Forest road 701, drive about 10 miles and it's right there. OK, no problem. We drove about 5 miles and came to a fork in the road. T. says "He didn't say anything about a fork, did he." Uh, no, he didn't. So we stay with 701 and keep driving. Another 2 miles or so and the road dead ends in a hiking trail. T. says "He didn't say anything about hiking, did he?" Um, no, he didn't.
But welcome to getting directions from the locals.
It really helps to know the right questions to ask when someone is drawing you a map... Well, what now? We decide to hike in, knowing that we A. have no idea where we are going and B. don't even know if this is the right road or what exactly we are looking for.
perfect!
So we start hiking along this trail that's more of a small ridge cut into the side of a slope with a roaring creek underneath it.
But the canyon we enter is beyond beautiful with a natural archway in the rocks far ahead of us.
However the trail is starting to get muddier and soon, it looks like a landslide took it out. We decide to climb the hills above it to circumvent the landslide, neccessitating scaling some rocks and climbing through part of the landslide, which we do, and then a little further on the trail just dead ends in the creek.
And there's no getting across it and staying dry. the water is running really fast, is dammed in places with logs and the rocks that still above water are too far apart for me to jump them.
Bummer! Especially since we have no idea what's further ahead of us, if anything. But the course of wisdom is to turn around, so we head back to the truck.
Once in the truck we decide to turn off on a dirt road just up the road and see if anything is up there. At every tourist destination we went to in NM, "No trepassing!" signs were very visibly posted on private property. Apparently trespassing by tourists is a real problem. But there aren't any signs on this road, so we take it.
We drive a couple of miles and around a curve we see a beautiful little valley surrounded by mesas and the remains of an early homestead. It's not on any map we've seen, including the ghost town map, so we have no idea what it is.
It doesn't look inhabited now but it does look like it's been inhabited sometime in the past several years. We wander around and take pictures and I started to get a feeling we were on private property but, as T. put it, the damage was already done so the only thing to do was not go into any of the buildings and probably leave soon lest we get chased off by an old prospector with a shotgun. We debate going further down the road and decide to do it (again, the trespassing damage being done).
We head down the road and find a little creek with a waterfall bisected by an earthen bridge that we tentatively drove across, and a mine shaft. We had found an early 20th century prospecting homestead and mine! It was very cool to find something that wasn't on the map - and in pursuit of something else, which is probably how a lot of things get discovered.
We didn't stay long, as the feeling that we were on private property intensified, but instead drove back to rd. 701. As we were exulting about how amazing it is to find stuff in the middle of the wilderness that you have never even heard of before, T. screeches to a halt and says, "There's Cooney's tomb."
Lo and behold, there it was. It's on a curve in the road so it's not visible from the other direction unless you know what you are looking for. But it's an immense boulder and obviously a tomb. After a homestead and mine it's a little anticlimactic but a great landmark nonetheless. And he appears to be undisturbed, more than 100 years after his death.
RIP Cooney.
posted by KBARRETT at 4:11 PM
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