Was It Really Possible To Live In South...

This past weekend we decided to head up into the mountains. Instead of hitting one of the major resorts, we decided to take in a “ghost” town, and ended up in South Park.

South Park is the remains of an old mining town from the 1800’s, and has thousands of items on display from the actual town itself. It has 35 original buildings to tour, and is an amazing tribute to the life this early settlers led.

The first thing we noticed is how cold and windy it was - it’s the end of May! I can’t imagine how cold it must have been for these early settlers. Instead of today’s insulation, they used newspaper to fill in the cracks. [It's interesting to read some of the stories tacked to the walls.]

The houses were small. The rooms were even smaller. It was a huge stretch for my daughter to imagine sharing a tiny room with several siblings, and not having all the “stuff” of our modern lifestyle. You went to the store for basics - there were no choices. Especially 10,000 feet up on a mountain top.

The small one room school house was also of great interest. They had a couple of diplomas hanging from the turn of the century, and had slates and primary readers to look at. Again, a far stretch from today’s world.

Yet the people that settled in this cold country were truly entrepreneurs at heart. They had a passion for a better life, and were willing to do a lot to make sure they achieved it. And for some, it did indeed become a better life.