WHAT is that?!
A few days ago I discovered this mysterious building while surfing Google Maps. I knew from previous vehicular explorations that there was no road, at least accessible to the public, that went out there. I had also looked the place up on the
King County Parcel Viewer to see who owned the land ... it came up as a vacant lot. Curiousity piqued, I posted some inquiries on my Facebook hiking groups' pages to see if anyone was familiar with the area. No one knew for certain, but one person pointed out that it appeared there was a bridge across the river by the Green River Gorge label. More mystery!
This is the entrance to the hike. It was a perfect foggy, cool day after Halloween morning.
A new friend I'd met a few weeks ago while doing volunteer trail work with the WTA wanted to check out the
Franklin Ghost Town hike and since I've been there a few times we decided to go together. My cousin Amelia joined us as well. I figured since we would be in the area that we should push on past the Franklin Cemetery if we could reach it, and see if we could locate this building. A month prior I had come out to the townsite with
another friend who was passing through Washington. We didn't make it to the cemetery because there were spiderwebs all over, including strung across the narrow trail past the No. 2 Shaft. The No. 2 Shaft is an awesome 1,300 ft open pit (with a grate over it).
After tossing rocks into the shaft and counting the seconds before hearing them land at the bottom, we ventured on to the Franklin Cemetery. The trail was a little muddy, but considering all the rain we've gotten lately, it wasn't that bad. Along the way we past some old foundations and even this cable car track.
The cemetery is a peculiar place, perched along a steep hill with many trees covered in English Ivy and the graves themselves are half-hidden in the dense underbrush where invasive blackberry bushes are rampant.
We kept walking and not before too long the trail straightened out and led down a hill where we came from behind up to this sign.
Even stranger, we popped out onto a gravel road. That was completely unexpected! We stopped for a quick snack break. Another couple ladies came down out of the cemetery after us. I showed them where we were on my map. They wanted to go find more of the Ghost Town. As we were all standing around idly chatting, and I was trying to get my bearings, a man on a bicycle came around the corner. I half expected him to tell us he lived down the road and that we weren't welcome in the area, but instead he said the Black Diamond Gun Club was down the way he'd come from. That made some sense since we'd been hearing gun shots in regular intervals for awhile, but we decided to press on anyway though since the county still had the land marked as vacant. Something didn't quite fit.
Where we were clicked in my head after Amelia and I climbed up a hill off the trail and saw this. The "road" on Google Maps wasn't a road at all, but the clearing for these power lines. I also looked at my map with the terrain view on and we both saw that the building was out on a flat outcrop surrounded by steep hills. The road ahead was winding its way down there. We definitely weren't giving up!
We turned south at a junction in the road. It turns out the road we were following is Hanging Gardens Park Rd which comes from Rt 169, but from that side there are no trespassing signs along it. I know because on another day I had tried to drive down it and quickly turned around after seeing them. As we headed south we came to a gate, but because there were no "no trespassing" signs we scrambled over it and continued on.
Soon enough, we caught sight of this view!! Heck yeah, we were going to make it!
The area all around is gorgeous of course. Here are just a couple pictures.
And finally, we hit the jackpot! The building came into view, two buildings actually. I remarked that the outward facing barbed wire was a good thing ... because if it had been inward facing, haha, what could possibly be being kept in??
This door was a bit creepy, especially with the bullet hole in the sign. Oh, and the doorknob on the other door had been shot at multiple times. But that man had been wrong, this wasn't where the gun range was. I figured out where it was after I got home and could more closely study the map. It wasn't far from us.
The Black Diamond Gun Club is about where the red marker is. We hiked on the north side of the river near the green area.
The road continued past the buildings and I thought it might lead to the other mystery, the bridge. We'd come this far already, why not? I sure am glad we continued on. I now know the bridge is called the cannon mine trestle.
We finally reached the end. As we headed out, the clouds broke up and the sun came out! I believe today marks my longest hike so far, at 4.88 miles. I know that's easy peasy for some of my friends, but I'm happy! I plan to continue increasing that number. We had Evey and my new friend's 11 year old daughter with us, too, and both girls did great! Zach even hiked some of it.
I found this
site during my research this evening. It looks like there's a great wealth of information out there on Franklin. I'm not sure why, but this townsite and the Green River Gorge area in general has captured my attention and I am loving learning all about it. While the exploration we did today wasn't underground, I think it has a similar intrigue for me ... what's over there? What's around that corner? What's the history of this place? I can't wait to come back again!
Another friend, after seeing my posts on Facebook, also let me know what the buildings were. The pump house for the Black Diamond water supply line that comes from their springs on the south side of the river. Thank you, Lisa! I am excited to learn more from you about the area, too!
