Ghost town

This is the Buffalo Ridge ghost town, I guess? It's been running for 50 years. The original homestead is down the road and it's been around since the 1880s or so. While the ghost town is meant to look like it's falling apart, I'm pretty sure it was actually falling apart. Don't get me wrong--that's why I went. I love looking at things that are barely standing on their own. There's just something thrilling about it. Exciting and sad, I guess.



There were at least a dozen displays in the town--some that moved while a voice talked, and others that stayed still and there was a sign with hand-painted facts to read. I spent a solid half hour in the town and still didn't get to look at everything I wanted to. This scene gives me the heebee-jeebies: you can't really tell from the picture, but there are no teeth in the patient's mouth. It's just covered in fake blood. *Shiver* That's one of my worst fears.



There were little fact-boards everywhere. Since I'm on my way to the potato state, I decided to include this one. The boards were very entertaining, and educational. There were about 13 buildings: a saloon, a room where a Native American talked, where President Lincoln gave a speech, where women did laundry and suffered from "the loneliness", a saloon, a jail cell, and the gold mine. The edges of what might have at one time been a barn was dedicated to all the old-fashioned farm equipment.



This is one piece of farm equipment that looks like it belongs in a horror movie. Look at all those nails sticking out of it! It's freaky. It's called a "blue grass reaper." Reaper--of course.