The tiny town of Black Diamond, Washington is often no more than a footnote in travel articles and of little interest to anyone but local hiking aficionados.

Watched over by the ever-present pine trees that the state is known for however, Black Diamond wreaths itself not in mundanity, but history. One only has to pause in the shadow of one of the looming spruces to feel the modern world growing distant, and the annals of history reaching up from their dusty graves.

There is one hiking trail in particular in which the veil between past and present is particularly thin. Once a thriving mining town, Franklin, Washington was not unlike Black Diamond in the public’s amicable amnesia of its existence.

Associated with the Oregon Improvement Company Mine at the turn of the twentieth century, Franklin was perhaps the epitome of the frontier town. However, the town’s pioneering spirit was certainly broken when the coal mine suffered a fatal accident in 1894 that killed 37 miners.

Despite the tragedy, Franklin pushed on for another 25 years until the mine itself all but dried up, and the town was left abandoned.

Today, there are no living residents of Franklin, but the spirit of the past is alive and well in the many overgrown structures that populate the area.

Located near the scenic Green River Gorge, Franklin Ghost Town provides an easy walking tour for any intrepid explorers looking to dig up the past. With a scant elevation gain of 200 feet or so near the beginning of the hike, the dirt path is a straight shot into the town’s history.

The first clear indication that this is no ordinary walk in the woods is the rusted coal cart that greets visitors at the first (and only) fork in the road. Standing several feet high, with “Franklin” printed on one end, the ancient monument looks less like a cartoonishly outdated profession, and more like a monolith of the coal industry’s impact on the region.

Taking the handy wood-carved signs into account, (erected by a local Boy Scout troop) one finds that the town contains a few points of interest—including a mine shaft and a cemetery.

Following a narrow, winding path further up the hillside, the first structures that greet hikers are not, in fact, despairing reminders of the town’s tragedy, but rather remnants of its bustling heyday. The numerous pine trees almost mask the tall, spindly metal legs of elevated railroad trestles that look as if they spring up from the ground alongside their arboreal counterparts. The terrain here is relatively even, and it’s possible to venture off the path to get a better look at the trestles.

Though they’re easy to miss, the state of the trestles is actually quite impressive once the hundred or so years of relative abandonment are taken into account. With a few pieces of metal track still strung between them, it’s not so hard to imagine the trestles transporting coal from one place to another.

Dotted along the slightly overgrown path are also several stone formations. Clearly once the foundations of different buildings, their original purposes are all but lost to the casual observer. Despite their mysterious origins, the overgrown structures are quite sturdy and provide excellent climbing and photo opportunities for passersby.

As one walks deeper into Franklin, it becomes easier to picture the town as it must have been in its prime. Here, a cluster of mining buildings. Perhaps the grizzled miners and townsfolk gathered there to discuss business between trips to the mine. There, the railroad trestles where children and travelers alike may have stood and watched as each heaping cartful was delivered out of the depths.

And in the center of it all—an intact mine shaft.

Guarded today by a safety fence and an explanatory plaque, Franklin’s bread and butter is still easily identifiable. In addition to the safety rail, the top of the mine shaft is covered by a strong metal grate to prevent any future mining accidents.

The shaft, which is perhaps ten feet in diameter, is noted by the plaque as being several stories deep. In fact, after staring into its black maw for a few minutes, one becomes grateful they’ve placed the grate—inasmuch because it stops you from falling in as it stops anything from getting out.

For those who don’t want to let the dead rest, however, the mine can provide several minutes of perhaps foolhardy entertainment in the classic sport of throwing rocks down holes.

The path around Franklin is riddled with decent-sized stones that will produce a deeply satisfying echo as they bounce and clang against the mine on their way to oblivion. In the immediate area around the shaft, however, the rocks are conspicuously missing as others before you may have discovered the brash joy of trying to wake the dead.

When throwing the rocks has finally grown boring, and the last reverberating echo has died down, it’s time to make a more somber trek.

Along the ever-narrowing dirt path, and beyond the reach of the pine trees and the grasping bushes, lies what remains of Franklin’s cemetery. The path is hard to find here, and the terrain must be carefully watched to avoid stumbling. As you’re looking down, the first gravestone seems to burst out of the ground in front of you without warning.

The graves here are not the neat, ordered rows of cemeteries today. After a hundred years of Washington rain and the slow creep and shift of nature, most of the gravestones sit crookedly in the ground, as untidy and unrested as their owners were in life. Only a few are visible today, the rest having been more or less consumed by time and the forest.

It is possible to make out some information on the remaining graves, and on reading it’s revealed that most of them belonged to the miners who were killed in the accident. A hundred years later, they still stand at attention, despite the moss and erosion that threatens to erase them.

If one pushes deep enough into the cemetery though, there is an even more tragic secret waiting to be discovered.

In the heart of the graveyard—and almost entirely lost to nature—is an infant cemetery. The graves are close and cramped, and thorny bushes claw at any intruders who would disturb the babes’ slumber. It’s a stark reminder of the hardships of pioneer life, and the power of time to obscure such tragedies.

The world is quiet in this part of Franklin, whether it’s thanks to the thick layer of trees insulating it from the outside world, or a sense of reverence in the face of the constant flow of time.

Leaving the ghost town is like coming up for air after a long-held breath underwater. The birds start chirping again, and the dirt path gives way to gravel that once again crunches under your feet.

And although you haven’t received any souvenirs from your trip (aside from maybe a misplaced rock in your pocket) one may feel a little heavier upon returning to the luxuries of the modern world. It’s not a bad heaviness, however. It’s the weight of visiting and remembering a town that the rest of the world has long forgotten.