Rebuilding The American Hotel Continues, Finally!

Hello, my name is Brent and behind me is the abandoned mining town of Cerro Gordo. For the past two years this ghost town has been my home where I spent my days exploring the mines, hiking, restoring the old buildings and just trying to bring this forgotten town back to life and just two years ago we lost the old

hotel

in a fire and almost every day since I became obsessed with even

rebuilding

this building, you know,

rebuilding

anything here at 8,500 feet at the end. of a seven mile dirt road is very difficult, we have had many obstacles, but I am excited to say that this is back to normal, so in this video we will talk about the American

hotel

and everything that happens, very good.

We are now in Cerro Gordon California and this town was originally established as the mining town in 1865 and grew to become the largest silver mine in California. At its peak, there were 4,000 residents here and about 500 buildings and unfortunately more. Over the past 150 years, most of these buildings have been lost to climate reuse and fires, the most recent of which occurred in June 2020 and that brought the American Hotel here and the American Hotel was originally built in 1871. In many ways, it was the heart of This City and losing it has been one of the most devastating things I've ever gone through.

Building has been so much harder than I could ever imagine, but that's why I'm more excited than ever to say that most of that is behind us. We have the green light to build this, close it up and winterize it so that if it snows we can keep working, that way next year I'll be sitting here and we'll have a hotel ready and maybe ready. You know, that would be a beautiful thing for me, so this video will explain what has been happening here for the last few months and what the plan is for the rest of the year related to the reconstruction of the American hotel. the American Hotel originally built in 1871 and is pretty much everyone's favorite building here on site, it is home to our lounge after a long day of work in the mines, the miners would come to check in there, maybe have a beer here , here's the card room This is the infamous bullet hole in the wall and the blood stain on the floor, so this is an update I've been waiting for for a long time.

I am now sitting in what will become the basement of the American hotel. Here is the edge of a staircase and if you look, there is a block above, there is concrete poured on this block and the next flight goes up shortly. If you've been watching this channel for a while, you'll know that my main goal is above. and beyond any other project that we work on here, any mining exploration, anything, it is the reconstruction of the American hotel, you know, in June of 2020 we tragically lost the hotel in a fire and almost every day since I thought about rebuild it, you know.

At the time, it was the most devastating thing that happened. You know, it was a traumatic experience that drained me emotionally, physically and mentally, and the trauma related to it is something that I still deal with now and I remember right after the fire happened, it was something like that. The turning point for me was that I was standing right above the hotel site and I was looking at the ashes, smoke is still coming out and the former owner came up to me and put it on my shoulder. You know, I didn't know who he was.

He gave me a big hug, you know, I remember him saying, listen, sometimes these things are inevitable, you can't change anything that happened, but what happens from here depends on you, you know, it's more than just some words of comfort, was this call to action. It was what are you going to do about it, you know, no matter how much I hide in my room or just be sad about it, I was going to change the fact that he's gone, but I could change what happens from there, so that my priorities and basically my whole life changed to rebuild this, but then we had the first setback and that was a huge concrete problem.

The foundation required about 80 yards of concrete to be poured and that's about 10 truckloads of concrete and our road to get here is seven miles. steep dirt road with curves and everything, that put me on a path for about six months of banging my head against the wall and trying to get someone to come here and pour concrete, you know, I tried all the local companies. I tried more I was thinking about renting these huge trucks. I even called a helicopter company they quoted me 167,000 a day and that's when a lot of you who watch this channel told me I should contact a guy named Heavy D. or Dave Sparks and a lot of his people said I should come here and you know, I didn't know Dave at all, but I could tell from day one that he's as solid a guy as they are and he came here.

We walked around the site, we had a good time, we looked at some mines and he said what's your biggest problem and I said I need 81 yards of concrete delivered here and he just saw the road and we looked around and he said, okay. I got you, you know, and several weeks later they showed up with an enormous amount of machinery, you know, we're talking about excavators, we're talking about loaders, we're talking about a front-loading cement truck that if you looked at there's no way you'd think that it should Coming this way, we got together with a planet, we're going to mix and pour all the concrete on site, which meant getting these super bags of cement that weigh 3,000 pounds each and hold a yard.

These yellow bags that weigh 3000 pounds, we need 80 of those to get up here and if I think about my favorite days in my two and a half years at Cerro Gordo, the day we poured the bases is probably, if not the best day. the first three, without a doubt, it was this beautiful moment when everyone came together to achieve a common goal and achieve it. You know, I remember even being exhausted as we smiled from ear to ear at what we did because it really felt like history. In manufacturing the next step after the bases were down was to block, so around 4 000 of these or around 60 pallets of blocks were to go up then they would be delivered on unwrapped pallets, at which point it was necessary to remove them with a forklift.

Truck and forklift on something else, we loaded and unloaded them one by one up here, so every one of these blocks behind me that you see has been touched by so many humans, they just brought it up here and then I found a local bricklayer, Shane . so thank Shane and his team and over the course of about a week, Shane and his guys put this whole block down. They did an amazing job and unfortunately around that time we had other setbacks and ran into winter. and the enemy of concrete is cold weather and we definitely have cold weather here at the same time we need to approve some sprinkler plans and different things, but now I'm really excited that all of that is behind us, we have our plans approved. hand and we're rocking and rolling, so before we go up there today and hopefully finish this basement, I want to give you an idea of ​​what we're finishing up on the plans and what this hotel will look like in total when we're done, now this set The blueprint shows you the basement, this is the front, so this is where, if you walk down the path, you'll pass by here and this will be the entrance, but as we look through this, you'll see the foundation that we're building, you will see the staircase in the back, those are the two walls that are very close to each other.

This will be a speakeasy as you go up to the first floor, you will enter through here. There will be the lobby here, this will be a small area here, it says dining room, this will actually be more of a museum. I want to put things up so people learn a little more about cerugordo here as you move over here, we have the bar. the bar that was in the hotel before was built in the '90s by a guy who still lives around here and he's going to rebuild that bar the way it was and then if you go up the stairs there will be six rooms and therefore the six .

These rooms will have views of the Owens Valley on the deck if we go here, so take a quick look at what the hotel looks like from the outside. You know, it's very similar to how it was before, if you remember, when we're done. With all these seven getting a little ahead of themselves to get there, first we need to build a basement, so today we're going to go to the basement. Today we are pouring cement once again, we are pouring the first section of the basement. the cmu or block is already up and now we need to pour all those cells to make it a solid wall.

A great team is coming. The bricklayer comes. Several cement trucks are coming. A cement pump is coming. a group of volunteers here to help with all that. It's gonna be a good day. I'm excited to

finally

see it in motion again. It's really special to me and I hope you like it too. One of Dave's benefits. that it was possible to bring cement here was that it loosened up some of the local companies, so I also gave a big thank you to 711, they are a local company that is always very busy, I know there are easier jobs, I know they are safer jobs, but I think they also care about this place coming back to life, so they were able to get their truck up.

Shane organized a pump to come too and we pumped another 15 meters of concrete into these cells. As you can see today as we move forward, we have the concrete truck up here with the pump here because we have to use a pump to get it to all the different corners, we have some final links that we are doing and so on today. We are pouring all the cells to make it a solid wall. I'm excited, you know, it's

finally

starting to look like the finished basement, which is pretty cool, so we're taking down the scaffolding because we're going to start getting out of the bomb. in this control joint here and then it's going to go in that direction and hopefully we have 15 yards right and in this video something that you will see throughout this construction site is element and element has been sending to cerro gordo these electrode packages for the The last two years I love these things.

I take them with me almost everywhere. Remember the walk on the salt tram where I got into a little trouble? The element is probably the reason I got out of that situation, all construction guys. The site has been using it, it's great, it has no sugar or artificial colors, you know, just electrolytes and this brand has been a great support to the city in this project, so I hope you support them and right now, if you're going to drink Element, drink lmnt. .com brent, they are giving away free eight packs with any purchase, so go check it out.

I love these things that I take with me everywhere and we have been using them a lot in the reconstruction of the American hotel, so on the front wall. side wall, all these back walls are done, we're getting to the end, the game plan, then, would be, you know, let this sit and after this, go up to your next run, inspect it and then pour it so similar. Greg, I'm a fucking electrician, what am I doing here? So we put all of these in the place where they need to be for the next flight or elevator and then it will be ready with the next round of blocks, so hey, I really did it.

It's a good day, so at this point this wall is as solid as it can get and it was very exciting to remember how difficult it was the first time and how simpler it seemed the second time. I think that's the thing with these. big projects you know that when you tackle something big sometimes it just brings out the best in you and it brings out the best in other people you know that they also want to see what they can do you know that they want to participate in these big, lofty goals and I think the American hotel is okay, so Matt, yes, you helped put up the forms.

Now you are watching the basement being built. Yeah, how excited are you to see this come to life? Oh, I'm super excited, I mean. I've already seen a lot of progress in my short time this year, yes, and I mean, if we continue down that path, I think we should finish it soon. I hope to get a zero in the classroom once. You know everything, you know, you know this isn't going to take that long, you might be able to get a regular viewer, hey, there's a chance, yeah, okay guys, so while we're lifting this block, we need more mortar, so that goes between the block, so two pallets were delivered earlier at Keeler, that's the extent to which any of these companies accept supplies.

We also need a little more water to continue the progress, so buckle up because we're getting into the five tons and that's always an adventure. The road to Cerro Gordo is definitely not easy, you know, for the last 150 years. people struggle to get to the town site let alone anything else, the ore deposits here are at 8 500 Feet in the mountains and to get here the miners made a long winding dirt road that goes along cliffs through narrow sections and gains almost a mile in elevation. This road has been notoriously bad since the early days when the cars broke down all the time.but still, despite all that, they managed to build this city for thousands of people on top of the hills, so as construction intensified this month, I once again found myself needing to carry a lot of materials I don't depend on a mule to climb all those materials, you know, a few months ago, Dave Sparks dropped an incredible military truck five times and moved millions of pounds of cement to block the water to hold it all together, this truck handles. not at all, you know, and every downhill run still seems long to me and moving everything from the bottom to the construction site still takes longer than I want, but every time I get frustrated, I try to do it.

Remember that this whole city It is built by mules. You know, if they could do that 150 years ago with the resources they have, we certainly can do it today with this beast of a truck, so while we fill that, this is Keeler. and if you can tell it's a lot cleaner than it used to be and there used to be old trailers here, now there's a new trailer so we're building kind of a composite tray here now that we have this little TV seating area. books, water to sit on and the two most important things here now, washer and dryer, so now instead of having a lonely pine tree, you can do it right here and ta-dah, a shower, so come here, come even and There's a trailer there, so if you have guests now and you don't go up there to this kind of staging area, you can stay here, so in the trailer, come in, I've got a little bit of this over there, it's old, but it'll work.

You know, sometimes I just need a night off. hill and this will be it, this is, uh, instead of getting a hotel room, you know, just come here, hang out, relax, so this is the most interesting place these days, very different from what It was when I first arrived here, but a little paint on the outside in the five tons we returned five tons are safe in Cerro Gordo all the mortars brought there I was thinking that each of these blocks had to be loaded by hand in keel carried in the five tons on a different truck and then placed by hand in a part of the structure that no one will ever see, you know, and there are two thoughts I have when I think about that, you know, it gives me a greater appreciation for everything that they did in the past.

Here you know, when you look at an old photo of Cerro Gordo and there are hundreds of buildings, each part of those buildings you know if it was the floor, the roof, the tiles, the nails, everything had to be lifted and I was a five-ton truck . with mules and this gives you a great appreciation for the determination that they had here so I think sometimes when you think about these projects and you think about the hotel and you think about it in total it can be overwhelming you know it's like we have to get 80 yards of concrete here we have to lay 5,000 blocks here we have to lay all these rebar here we have all this lumber here it can be overwhelming, but if every day you do a little bit of that You know today we rolled 20 bags of mortar and together enough of those days.

You know you link enough of those days. Big projects are done well, guys, so sometimes these things happen. You know that today we are missing a few bricklayers. and the progress on the hotel is very important to me, it's been something that I've been looking forward to so much that I want to come help you, you know, so I'll go over there and see if Shane can show me how to put some in. block and then do it, you know, my mentality is always go after when I can and just bricklaying is not something I've ever learned, but Shane is a licensed bricklayer, that's what he does for a living, so if he could teach. a green guy to at least contribute something, I'm happy to help and, you know, I'd learn something new in the process, which is a win-win, so I offer to jump in and help, and I have to.

Saying that laying blocks involves a lot more than I thought it was difficult and I think making even a small line gave me a greater appreciation for the work these guys were doing. You know, it's that old saying about putting yourself in someone else's shoes. shoes. I try to do that whenever I can. You know, it helps me understand better. I don't think I'll be building a basement anytime soon, but I think now if I need to put up a small retaining wall, at least I know. where to start and I think about all the things I've learned in the last two years, from heavy machinery to framing, forging and now a bit of masonry, and I can only imagine the next two or 20 years will last, you know, it's really exciting . food for thought, so let me give you a little tour of what the basement will be like.

We are in the back right corner right now and outside of this there will be a large wooden platform that overlooks the The whole valley will have beautiful views, but down in the basement will be the place where all the supplies will be brought here and then as we move forward, you know this is going to be the engine room, so imagine the washer dryer pump, something like that that you need. to enter here we will go there this will be the first type of storage area imagine it will have a lot of refrigerators things like that things for the kitchen because right above us will be the kitchen and we are like on the level the first floor will be up here so yeah we jump down here, this second area will be some kind of storage area, these will all be some springs that we will have to pour when we make the next climb, there is a ladder here, so you are looking. inside the staircase that will go up to the first floor as you go up here, this front storage area I would love to turn it into kind of a cool place to hang out, you know, sometimes you talk calmly, kind of vibe, up here, you know, down here, obviously, up.

This will be the card room, but maybe if there's some sort of entrance from above to here and then to there, that would be cool, but you know, standing here right now, obviously, the wall is way above what I can reach. , so it feels. like a real room, you know, having this feeling again here in the American hotel is beautiful, you know, I never knew how much went into the buildings that we walked through every day and that level of appreciation is something that I always try to take advantage of. Here in Cerro Gordo there is the amount of work that goes into everything you know, like when I was refining silver or mining or building anything.

I don't know if anyone will appreciate this hotel more than me when it's finished, but it's definitely a given. It really opens my eyes to what these things entail and so with this basement coming together, it should be done next week, after this next round of blocks are laid, just finished, the fire sprinkler system will come and Obviously, fire sprinklers are very important because the original hotel was lost and here in California you need a system that can run for 60 minutes straight non-stop, if you did the math that puts out about 38,000 gallons of water that we need here at all times to support the sprinkler systems of this hotel and with that we are going to need very large tanks, we are talking about 40,000 gallons of water in tanks that we are going to place right above the hotel site, so there will be some gravity feed and when I was looking at these tanks these tanks can be up to 30 feet long and 10 feet wide so they are huge and that leads to the question of how are they are we going to bring these huge tanks here and that leads me again to someone you all may know, dave sparks, dave and i have been talking the last few weeks and i think now that this is coming up, it's time for me to call dave again. he knows hey, let's rock, it sounds like a logistical nightmare and my mind immediately jumps to Dave's parks and stuff, yeah man, I mean based on that, it's definitely right for us and I'd say we are at 100, yes.

Well man, you know having you in my corner has been one of my biggest reliefs here in Cerro Gordo, so I appreciate it as always and more than anything else, I was just looking for an excuse to bring you back here, so I'm looking. Really looking forward to getting back out there, we've been looking, excuse me, back there too and you know I was up for an adventure so we appreciated the opportunity and like I said let's make it happen sure yeah mate thanks Dave I apreciate it. It's now June 2022 and if we can finish the basement this month, it would be huge, but if that's the case, my real goal, my goal now, beyond all of this, because all the bureaucracy is over, is to frame this building and locked up for the winter and I know when these projects start it's very exciting, but oh, we'll do it in a year.

I was also a victim of that. I thought we'll do it in a year. That has been the case, but now I see. That this thing is going up, that it's coming to life has given me that motivation again, just to keep sitting here now, you know, with the first flight going up, it makes me feel grateful, you know, it makes me feel grateful for each of you. who's watching this, you know? Whether you're here moving blocks or just watching from home, this channel is what makes this hotel possible and I think given how polarizing things online can be sometimes, the fact that everyone leaves all that and just focus on the love of the story is a It's a beautiful thing, so I thank you all so much for watching this as we move forward.

I hope more and more come. I hope that one day they will know that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people can come to this hotel. sit on the porch and just enjoy a drink and enjoy the beauty and the magic that is here every day and all of that will have to be possible because of this channel. Stay tuned for many more updates and until then I hope you all have an amazing week. and we will be back very soon with the next update of the American hotel that