Tech journalist Ashlee Vance visits Cerro Gordo, California's former largest silver mine, with its owner Brent. The site once produced nearly a billion dollars' worth of silver. Over six years, Brent has restored the historic hotel into a seven-room lodge, rebuilt the 1910 Gordon House and Lola's Palace of Pleasure, and preserved the aerial tramway and general store museum.
All right, we're up at the Cerro Gordo Mines with Brent, who is the, uh, the owner of said mines. I mean, you've got this amazing YouTube channel, but for people who haven't caught it, what, what is going on here?
So yeah, we are at the former mining town of Cerro Gordo, which at one point in time was the largest silver mine in California. You know, if you adjust it for inflation, they pulled almost a billion dollars worth of silver out of the hills around us. And these days, this is my home, this is where I live. I've been spending the last 6 years trying to bring life back to the town. And so we're hoping to get this to the place where people would come up, stay overnight, and kind of enjoy. Right here at this hotel, that's our main feature of it. That's the hotel that'll future have a bar and restaurant downstairs, 7 rooms upstairs. Um, yeah, this is a piece of California history that we're just trying to keep alive.
Yeah. And so we're here, what is it? February still. Are we still February? End of February. And so it's dumped a ton of snow like a week or so ago, but we're kind of getting— it's not so bad. It's kind of nice today.
Yeah, this is a, this is a treat for the winter.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so, and then, so that's where the hotel will be. We stayed in that house last night, so, and that's been there since 1910.
Yeah, that's the Gordon House.
Okay. And then Belshaw House. And then we got an outhouse.
Up there, one of the remaining brothels. That's Lola's Palace of Pleasure, the little thing on the right. Oh wow, okay. Ashlee Vance building where they tested the quality of the silver. The roller coaster looking thing was the beginning of the aerial tramway, so there used to be a cable from there all the way to the bottom of the hill to the lake. Okay. So they would send ore down in buckets like that. And then this was the old general store that we've made into a museum these days.
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, fantastic. All right, well, we will have an episode coming and you should check out Brent's YouTube channel, of course. And, uh, yeah, we'll have lots more A la mines.
Sounds good.
