"RESCUE ON BATTLEAXE ROAD" BY JIM HATT.....

[somehiker]

Research can sometimes lead to interesting places.
Anyone know where many of these are found, who built them and for what purpose ?
Also very interesting is what they are called.....

[somehiker]

Another....a bit smaller

[somehiker]

Associated carving....

[somehiker]

Due to something I noticed when visiting the old "stone house" to the west of the Cochran town site, I suspected a bit more research might be worthwhile. This is some of what I have found......

‘clocháns’

"Skellig Michael, only 44 acres (17 hectares) in area, is dominated by two crags, one of 712 feet (218 metres) and another of 597 feet (183 metres). On top of the latter, reached via steep, winding stairways cut from the rock, there is an artificial platform with a cluster of six circular drystone huts (clochans), two boat- shaped oratories, some stone crosses, and a cemetery – all that remains of a monastery established, possibly by St. Fionán, sometime in the sixth century A.D. and called “the most westerly of Christ’s fortresses in the Western world.” …"

http://omniumsanctorumhiberniae.blogspo ... -huts.html
http://limewindow.wordpress.com/2012/02 ... one-cells/
http://nbba.files.wordpress.com/2011/06 ... .jpg?w=640
"Photo (1875) of a cell of an ancient Irish Monastery - Scielg Michil (early 500s). Gibbon hates monks and monasteries - mostly for their violence, ignorance, and hypocrisy. The Irish (although on the receiving end of Gibbons scorn again) were the exception. Theirs was a culture devoted to poverty, hardship, and scholarship. In the 700s, for a century or so, the Irish were the light of Europe and the best scholars/schools of the continent. Charlemagne booted up his Renaissance on the shoulders of hard-working, Irish intellectuals - Look at this cell! hardly the acme of sybaritic luxury"

"Reading up on the history of the Coke Ovens, there are two conflicting stories: One is that the Pinal Consolidated Mining Company built them in 1882 to turn mesquite into charcoal, which was used to smelt ore from silver mines in the nearby ghost town of Cochran. Charcoal burns hotter than the wood from which it was derived from. The other story is from William Fred Jenkins, who homesteaded the banks of the Gila and actually lived in one of the kilns. According to Mr. Jenkins, the structures were not kilns, but smelters built by Scottish miners in the 1850s. Either way, the structures, made of native stone cut into blocks and held together by decomposed granite are an impressive 30 feet high and 72 feet in circumference and stand out from the surrounding area with the Gila river below and the cliffs of North Butte rising behind them."
http://www.azhikers.org/reports/p_2012/CokeOvens.html

[coazon de oro]

Howdy Somehiker,

Things do get labeled wrong every now, and then. In the case of these so called "Coke Ovens", I believe that they are really just charcoal kilns. Why this has not been corrected is beyond me.

Coke ovens are usually used to turn bituminous coal into coke, this coal seems to be absent from the area. It seems that people were connecting them to Cochran, and the name stuck.

These charcoal kilns are all over mining country, Arizona also has one in the Bradshaws near Prescott. Nevada has them all over the state, and you can find them in California, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The ones in Frisco Colorado look more like these ones. They were all used to produce charcoal for smelting the precious metals.

Charcoal kilns all have the small holes around the bottom, even the ones made with clay. The Clochans, and other beehive dwellings do not have these holes around the bottom. These dwellings are also found in Syria, and Turkey, while Africa has some made of mud.

I found these other links, on the history of the Cochran "Coke Ovens", hope they work.
www.copperarea.com/pages/ray-mining-history/
http://www.copperarea.com/pages/cochran ... uilt-them/

Homar

[somehiker]

Hi Homar:

I have never doubted the Beehive Ovens at Cochran were used as charcoal kilns, in part because of the draft holes around the lower periphery, and regardless of the actual date of their original construction. But I did find it interesting....and another one of those strange co-incidences that crop up now and then, that they happen to be the same shape and type of construction as those ancient habitats found across the pond. That the name for them over there was "Clochans"....so close to Cochran is also interesting, as is the similarity between "Corazon" and the "Coazon" as used on both the H/P stone and as part of your posting ID. The mapmaker had a purpose in the apparent misspelling. Did you as well ?

Aside from all that, there are some other leads I hope to pursue which relate to the Cochran area.
More recent access to other collections has led to information that the small stone house ruin on the opposite side of the Gila was definitely not built as a stagecoach stop, and that the "scrapings" might indeed be much older than previously surmised.

Regards:SH.

[deducer]

More recent access to other collections has led to information that the small stone house ruin on the opposite side of the Gila was definitely not built as a stagecoach stop, and that the "scrapings" might indeed be much older than previously surmised.
Regards:SH.

Are you able to disclose or elaborate on the information? Would be interested in learning more.

[somehiker]

Will do so as soon as I have time for a bit more research. Corroborating documentation and timelines may require a larger net. Another visit to the location, along with a more thorough search of the surrounding area might prove to be rewarding. In the meantime, I will forward some of what I've found so far.

Regards:SH.