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| The ghost town of Owanka, SD |
The last week of April, I traveled to Rapid City for work mid-week. On the way out and on the way back, I was able to take some major detours in order to satisfy a few of my ghost town curiosities. Another SD photographer (Robin Hao Gonzalez) had been posting shots of a little town called Owanka that intrigued me. Come to find out, it is not that far off I-90 and just west of the Cheyenne River. I found it on a hot (84 degrees), Wednesday at about three in the afternoon. Not the greatest light to shoot, so I only got a couple shots from the ridge above. Below is a shot with my long lens of the abandoned elevator. I used the (new to me) photomatix plug-in in Aperture to get the black and white image of the same photo. I think it looks pretty cool. As always, click on a photo for a larger file to view and thanks for stopping by.
Last December, I tried to find Tinton, SD as it was reported to be a ghost town with many buildings still standing (abandoned sometime in the 1950s). The problem was that it was located high up in the Northern Black Hills, so it was covered in a lot of snow and unless I rented a snowmobile, I was unable to get there. So I decided to go and find it this time around. I was successful, sort of. I found the edge of town, but it is apparently located on private property and there were "no trespassing" signs posted quite clearly everywhere. I resisted the temptation to explore further and shot the photos below from the road. I'd love to go in and explore more down the barely visible road because if you look on google maps, the satellite photos show many more buildings beyond these. I need to find out who to call to get permission to go back there. If anybody knows, feel free to leave the info in a comment and thanks much!
2 comments:
Christian,
I believe the land is still owned by the Homestake Company even though the Homestake Gold Mine is no longer in operation. If not, try the US Forest Service in SD as we always went to Tinton on a Forest Service road. We haven't been there for 4-5 years, and there were still houses barely standing. 20 years ago, or so, we removed some pictures that had been painted onto the wall by the Postmistress who lived there, Diane Tollefson (sp?) before the house crumbled. My dad grew up in Lead so knew a few people who lived there.
Tinton Enterprises LTD owns the town of Tinton, try calling them. If they give you permission let us know.
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