Community of the Dead and Living

Community of the Dead and Living
The Central City Cemetery is just about the only square mile in Central City without slot machines.

The scattered graves belong to early Colorado pioneers including hard-rock miners, merchants, farmers, politicians, families and children; in short, all the human elements necessary to great a thriving 1800's hard-rock mining Community.

The area is a tribute to hard-rock miners not only from the US, but from Wales, Ireland and the UK; tough men who mined and purified gold using explosives, cyanide and mercury (quicksilver.)

So much for the Community of the Dead, what about the Living?

Consider the Aspen Tree Grove. Aspen colonies originate from a single seedling which spreads its roots over a large area. This root structure can send up many trees. While Aspens can live to be 100 to 150 years old, the underlying root structure is much longer lived, perhaps even thousands of years.

The early pioneers cleared the Aspen off of this hill to bury their dead. For decades the cemetery was maintained by loving family members. Today some graves are still cleared and visited; others, are fading away; rotting wood and crumbling stones methodically erased from the earth by the new Aspens; new Aspens with ancient roots.

USA-Canada / USA-Colorado

Lat: 39° 48' 24.62" N
Long: 106° 32' 22.51" W

Elevation: 8973

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Medium. Nearby, but not to the last decimal.

D200, Sigma 8mm, Camera Raw Work flow, PTGUI, PanoCube, CS2, Manfrotto SPH on Manfrotto heavy stick tripod.