Thursday, December 08, 2011

Aurora Ghost Town (Mark Twain)

Heading back to the the fork in the road I headed off to the left side this time. This was still considered Pine Street.Further on down. Back in the day the sides of these roads would have had small cabins people lived in.
I was just checking out this interesting crag here.The most famous resident of Aurora, although very temporary, was a young Samuel Clemens. The future Mark Twain. He came here seeking riches in mining and milling in Aurora. He only stayed for a few months in 1862. This is because he soon realized that the physical labor and investing in mining was a little too demanding for him. He was remembered for being a good story teller, and it was during this time he started to transition into his real talent: writing. He eventually moved to Virginia City to start writing for the newspaper.
In the above picture I turned around. While at Aurora, Mark Twain lived at a few places, but one place he lived at was the cabin of Tom Howland. From what I can tell, that cabin would have been really close to here.





















A lot more could be said about Mark Twain's time in Aurora. He did write about his time here in his autobiography titled Roughing It. His big story in that is how he and his friends should have made big money on a claim at Last Chance Hill, but they failed to register their claim in time. Another story that was fun to read was how he got stuck on one of the islands at Mono Lake. Something to keep in mind while reading his account, Twain loved to tell a great story and was not above exaggerating to make a good story. If I have some time at the end of the month I will show something he mentions in his book that was a few miles away from Aurora.
 
This marks the end of the second phase of this series on Aurora. The third and final phase deals with the cemetery back at where I started in the first blog. That will be next.

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Youtube Version)

Aurora Ghost Town: East Pine Street (Vimeo Version)