American bought a ghost town and was stuck there for six months due to a pandemic

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Complete isolation in the company of 7 cats and 4 goats.

31-year-old American Brent Underwood, along with his friend John Beer, bought a ghost town called Cerro Gordo, California. The deal cost a whopping $ 1.4 million. Brent spent all his savings on it, borrowed from friends and enlisted the help of investors. All in order to make a real attraction out of this abandoned place.

In early 2020, Brent decides to self-isolate in Cerro Gordo to survive the coronavirus pandemic. The original plan was to stay there for 3-4 weeks, which is how long, in his opinion, the quarantine should have lasted. However, in the end, Underwood stayed in the city for 6 months almost completely alone - at first he was stuck there due to a blizzard, and then he simply fell in love with this place.

Cerro Gordo or Cerro Gordo Mines is a 300 acre ghost town (1.2 sq km). It was founded in 1865 on a silver deposit. Once its population reached 4,000 people who lived in 400 houses. With the exhaustion of the mine, the city was deserted. Brent is now the only resident of the remaining 22 houses. He is accompanied by 7 cats and 4 goats.

During the quarantine, Brent took over the renovation and restoration of buildings. He converted the two-story house into a place for people to live, cleaned and rebuilt the former garage turned into a chapel, equipped the barn to make it a cozy place for writers, and converted the store into a museum, where he displayed many interesting things he found in the city.

His most important project at the moment is the restoration of the city's water supply system. Cerro Gordo has a 900 feet (274 meters) deep mine with an 1800s lift.

He teamed up with several residents of neighboring cities and descended 700 feet to establish water supplies. They replaced the pump, rebuilt more than 500 feet of pipeline, and now has water in the city for the first time in 15 years.

The mine, on which the city was founded, also did not go unnoticed by Brent. He has already investigated part of the communications and found there the remains of the miners' old denim clothes, a rusty pistol and even dynamite.

Brent noted that the 6-month stay at Cerro Gordo was not easy. The city's gem, the American Hotel, which has stood here since 1871, was burned down by someone tinkering with 100 years of wiring. Then there was an earthquake, which shook the buildings a little, and heavy hail, which damaged the power supply system.

On top of that, something eerie is happening in the city, according to Brent. Once he noticed that a light was on in the kitchen of one of the houses - the curtain moved, and someone's face appeared. At first he thought they were contractors, but soon found that they had left a few weeks ago. Afterwards, Brent locked the door of this house, but one day the light turned on again. Needless to say, he hasn't wanted to go in there ever since.

Now Brent continues to live in the city. He plans to work for another month before winter and after that he will continue to work in the spring. His plan is to open the city to visitors until next summer. He talks about his life with the help of and.

The video about 6 months of life in Cerro Gordo got more than 650,000 views and 4,000 comments in two weeks. Viewers follow Brent's progress and even offer their help in restoring this piece of history.