The Ghosts of Gilman
Forty years ago, The New Jersey Zinc Company closed the gates of the little mining town of Gilman, Colorado. Once home to 350 people, over a century of mining and metals processing in Gilman had rendered it unfit for human occupation. The gates to the town, located on a spectacular precipice 9,000 feet high in the Rocky Mountains, were locked for good.
Gilman was abandoned to the winds and weather, and to occasional visits from urban explorers, graffiti artists and vandals who ignored the “No Trespassing" signs to walk on its abandoned streets and explore its abandoned buildings.
Amidst the crumbling physical infrastructure of Gilman there are lingering reminders that it was once very much a place human inhabitation. In a building that was once a medical centre, the floors are strewn with x-rays. In the thousands of scattered envelopes, there is still stark evidence that Gilman was once a home to mortal souls who lived, loved, and experienced life in the town, and toiled in miles of tunnels underground.
