Herbert Ghost Town

July 7th

On a Sunday afternoon drive, the older kids went to the Herbert ghost town just a few miles outside of Rexburg.

As we found on the Back Country Secrets website: The school and store in Herbert were mostly for the farmers and miners in the area. At it's peak, about 150 people lived here. The townsite became abandoned in the 1940's as most residents moved to Rexburg and Rigby. Most of the houses are found along the creek and are not visible from the road. The two room building on the bluff was the store and operated until the early 30's.  Automobiles pretty much killed this town because the store and school were no longer needed as Rexburg was close. Not only that, there are very hard winters in this area.

What else would they do in a ghost town but put on their most haunting faces?  Derek wins this competition!

Old stuff can be so cool!

Vivien has such a talent for taking beautiful photos!
It looks like Justin has traveled through time or jumped into a painting.

 We had heard rumor that Herbert was on private property and that the Walker's owned the property but we weren't sure which family to call so I reminded the kids that if the owner came out complaining that they might be on private property and to just be respectful. After a good time exploring, the owner did show up in a rather upset mood.  Bret did most of the talking explaining that they weren't there to do any damage and didn't mean to intrude, they just wanted to see the ghost town.  The owner ranted about them trespassing and was blaming the college for passing on legends of the place which brought a constant stream of nosey, bothersome college students.  The kids were told to stay put while he called the police.  So they did.  They waited, and waited.  Finally, they went over to the owner and he asked what they were still doing there.  We think the police threat was just to get them to leave faster, he didn't really expect them to stick around.

I understand the owner's frustration with private property being trampled, especially after hearing from the kids about the terror stories they have heard at school about the place and he probably has concerns about liability problems since the buildings aren't necessarily safe.  However, there are three websites that we found detailed directions on and none of them list anything about trespassing or private property.  Also, the Post Register Recreation Summer Guide for 2013 has the Herbert Ghost Town listed as number 45 on their list of things to do, with directions.  One of these days I want to go on a picnic date with LeRoy out to Herbert and have my Recreation Summer Guide with me and a Thank You basket for the owner for his part in preserving part of history.