Nichols Florida Bone Valley Founded in 1905 and named for the Fort that sat in it's original location called Fort Nichols. It was used for many years in the Seminole Wars as a fort. At this time, a man by the name of C.J Memminger appointed Paul Hamilton Fuller as his general manager of operations. He was employed to create a mining community and mine in Nichols, FL. The Amie Chapel Missionary Church is one of two buildings standing in the town, and a stone marker reads " Church Organized in 1904 and rebuilt in 1952". The post office continues to be open although the town and community was phased out in late 1950's. Nichols was once home to four hundred people, and only two other mining towns in Florida had more residents, Brewster and Pierce. In 1895 there were over v400 mining companies in Florida. In 1900 that number dropped to 81 and in 1911 about 30 operations remained, 17 of which were operated in Central, Fl. In the beginning the mining was done by hand. These companies were consolidated and sold to larger companies by late 1930's only three companies were left mining the hard rock district around Marion County and six were operating in the Pebble District of Central Florida. Check out the Gallery below before reading further! This adventure starts some five years ago after seeing a flikr account that had included photographs of this mine. I tried for quite some time to track this place down, scanning google earth you name it, I searched it. Not until some years later while exploring the ghost town of Brewster, Florida did we make this awesome discovery. To say my mind was blown is really putting it lightly. We knew we would have to put some planning into this explore and that we would have to return another time.
We chose memorial day to hit two locations across Florida. One being Carlstrom Field a historic airfield in Southwest Florida that turned into a mental facility after the war efforts. This location later became known as G Pierce Woods Hospital... but just you wait, with the murder, mayhem and insanity that occurred there, that is another blog post in itself. I promise I will soon tell you all about the horrific things that happened there, all at the hands of Dr. Walter Freeman the "Ice Pick Lobotomist". Armed with our knowledge and our desire for exploration, we headed out from Fort Myers, Fl and headed north traveling past so many of the sites of our previous explorations. On our way we passed through what was known as Brewster, we even took the "Old" highway which was pretty rough on the shocks. All that's left in Brewster is a tall stack and this old road. Crossing the train tracks we came to a Post Office which had seemed to be the only building in existence. Up the road we stashed the vehicle and hiked in, we first arrived to the guard shack which reminded us of something out of "The Walking Dead". The gates are definitely locked but with a little maneuvering we were able to hike are way in. A good 3/4 mile walk to the old intersection of the town, you can clearly see the four way stop and in my mind I can imagine the bustling Mining community that boomed here. Off to our right we could see a power plant building that oddly enough while scouting around this building my gut told me to stay away. It was obvious this building still had power was maybe used for storage and was possibly alarmed. A storm which seemed to come out of nowhere culminated and hung over the top of this god forsaken wasteland, as if to keep us from proceeding, as we had read it had to many explorers/photographers prior. We headed over to what looked like a processing plant on the train tracks which had chutes and conveyors for bringing phosphate to the rail cars. Out of no where it seemed as if the temperature dropped and that clouds were rumbling over head. It was beginning to look like we needed to seek shelter in the very building we were about to explore. High winds pelted the sides of the building while we were there, making us feel as if it the building came alive. Metal siding banging and moving all around, but never was there a drop of rain. We found a side entrance and walked right in, we found old file cabinets filled with old banking info. Even though the cat walks were in sketchy shape we ventured up to the highest level to the control room. One of the coolest rooms I have been in as a explorer, it reminds me of something from the atomic age. Then came the wasps, seems we weren't actually alone after all after getting the pictures we wanted we took the hell out of there as fast as we could! Panda led us through the main massive building on the property some type of drying area or dry bin building I would imagine after all of my research into the subject this building resembles a lot like the Old Prairie Dry Bin. Time felt like it didn't even exist we thought it would be a good idea to split up, hmm never is that a good idea when there is only two in your party. Only after about 20 minutes I heard Amanda calling for me. I ran out to what was the old road near the intersection and I see her way off in the woods in what looks like a modern building, which we will call the Admin building. She had one of those I just seen a ghost looks on her face, I asked "what was up??". Amanda said "This place is creepy come check it out". Instantly we walked up to the metal framed doors where all the glass was shattered out onto the ground. You could feel a blast of chilled air coming out of the building like a cooler and in Central Florida its hot and humid 24/7. We had walked into the belly of the beast, finding the damn blue prints to the factory on the floor rolled up and left to rot. This was obvious, we had stumbled onto the offices for the mining facility all of the furniture was tossed into the individual offices blocking there entrances. We found a storage closet with a safe in it, so awesome but no sadly we could not get it open. All my treasure hunters out there are probably saying what if and you should of done this, but no thanks we were over our heads being here in the first place. Last thing I want to do is steal from a site. I highly doubt there was anything left of value in the safe regardless. Left the safe and headed down the hallway not knowing what was around each corner this building had a vibe unlike any other building on the property or even any building we have been into. We rounded the corner to find one chair on it's own facing us like someone was sitting there. Even though no one was sitting there something told us to get the hell out of there. We took off out of there the most modern building on the property go figure and headed out into the tall grass where we came across a research laboratory overgrown by weeds. Zigzagging back through the grass we came to huge hangar type building where we found a old welding rod storage cabinet. A old rigid lathe, and signs of people still coming here possibly mowing the fields and this being the storage place or place to work on tractors maybe? Amanda found me outside in the winds filming and told me "Do you realize how long we have been here?" It had been three hours I was in a whirl wind of fascination and didn't want to leave anytime soon. That's the scary part I knew it was time to get out of there. We flanked our original way into the facility so we weren't so obvious if someone was watching, there was a lot of open area. At one point I had to leave Amanda for the car so I could come back and grab her. We got back to her position and she came running to the vehicle yelling " GO, GO GO, GO ". She saw a security office with his vehicle on the train track set up with binoculars scanning the old mining site. I quickly got the car to the main intersection of this literal ghost town, and I had arrived at the three way stop with the security vehicle. I waved him by first and he did not acknowledge me. I made my turn right to head south and he pulled a fast U-turn behind us and kept his distance. In this instance we had no cellular service, no maps I had missed my turn onto that "Old" rough highway we took. Miles down the road I had got signal back and I decided to pull off, when doing so I see behind me like a half mile back the white truck had pulled over too keeping his distance. I immediately found the nearest road on the map and popped the clutch in the old 99 Mazda Miata and buzzed out of there faster than that car has ever gone. Lost the truck in the distance not knowing if he had our plate number or what. This adventure was kept secret from our friends and family for quite sometime. Months later I had posted a anonymous picture on Facebook and it got many replies. Everyone of course wanting to know where. One man knew and sent me a private message. He had told me he was into photography and that he had been to this site years before. He said it was one of the grandest places he had visited and after spending a couple hours there he said a helicopter had landed in the nearby field and armed men in military fatigues detained him for what he said was hours it seemed. They went back and forth with what to do with him and he had said they were armed with small machine guns. He was eventually was let go and told me he would never go back to this place and gave me a warning that I should be careful in doing what we do. What is this place being used for? Some secret military training facility now? Were we possibly caught on trail camera's? I will always wonder and most likely sadly won't be returning. Tread lightly and carefully and remember hike don't walk. Be safe friends. -Mike #nichols #mine #phosphate #bonevalley #florida #ghosttown #usa #blogger #historyrules #historicarchaeology #mikethehikingguide
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