There's always this desire to live a life less ordinary. And so I think Cerro Gordo fit into what I was hoping to find. And once I got up here, it was so much more than I could have ever imagined. I never thought before moving here that you could feel such a connection with your home or land around you. Cerro Gordo is kind of this living, breathing entity that I'm always like grappling with. Cerro Gordo sits at 8,500 ft in elevation. We're in the high desert, so it's very cold in the winters. It can get very hot in the summers. There's no running water here. It's very difficult just to exist here, much less build anything here. And so it's a series of highs and lows, difficulty and struggle. Yeah, I definitely feel like I'm living in a different century. A lot of dreamers came to the American West. It's what brought people out here for the gold rush. It's what brought people out here for Cerro Gordo. This was built by these dreamers that came here and saw Cerro Gordo as more than it currently was. and I'm the most recent addition to that lineage of owners of Cerro Gordo. The more time you spend here, the more the history doesn't feel like something you're reading, but something that you're part of.
Morning look.
I've made over 100 videos at this point, and that's kind of the primary driver of people up to the town. And so that's really helped get that heartbeat going again.
It only feels appropriate to leave this 1 million subscriber plaque down here at the 900 level of Cerro Gordo.
My goal from day one has been to preserve the history here. Look at these treasures though. Look how cool that is.
And to broadcast it for future generations.
All sorts of fun things to put into the museum. Task number one was just clearing out all the stuff that was in there.
This is the lounge so far. Woo. A little bit of silver.
All right, we're ready.
Cerro Gordo was established as a mining town around 1865.
This is it, guys.
900 ft down.
Since it was established, they had tough people here. Miners back then were working 12-hour shifts.
Oh, God. Underground with a candle blowing up rock with black powder and then dynamite. Dang,
there's stories of guys hand digging a tunnel through a mountain for 38 years and not giving up.
Holy cow.
You didn't last long at Cerro Gordo if you weren't tough. And I feel like that kind of mentality still exists today 150 years later.
Cerro Gordo means almost everything to me these days. It's kind of all my hopes, dreams, desires, and ambition wrapped into one property. And we all want to feel like our work matters. And up here, I feel that more than any other job that I've done. And it's a feeling that I didn't think was possible from a dusty old mining town. But it's one that I feel very fortunate to kind of found my way into. And I think that's what built the West and that's kind of what built Cerro Gordo. and that's what's going to preserve Cerro Gordo for another hundred years.
Thank you guys. You're watching this. You're the reason that this place is coming back to life. There's no playbook for rebuilding an abandoned mining town. And because of that, like anything that makes any aspect of life easier up here is very much appreciated. The RANGER is part of keeping the garden alive. It's part of, you know, keeping the maintenance on the buildings up. It's just part of my daily routine these days. We're able to like zip up and down the road in a way that I can't imagine the miners had ever anticipated when they were mining here 150 years ago. For 150 years, people have come up to Cerro Gordo and thought that it could be more than it currently is. And then to me too, you know, I still think that Cerro Gordo could be more than it currently is. And so hopefully after me, another person comes up and says, "Hey, this could be more than it currently is." And continues the trend.
It's like a painting that people can add to the next hundred years. And I'm just the current artist putting my touch on it. And I hope for in the future people take it in whatever direction they see fit.
Look at this. That is freaking awesome. Cerro Gordo pushes you to the brink of wanting to give up many times. And I remember the old owner of Cerro Gordo came up. He looked at me and said, "Listen, Brent, what happens from here is up to you." And that was kind of the marching orders I was looking for. There's a certain grittiness and perseverance that's needed. And I think if anything, it shows that, you know, when things are tough, you don't quit.
