complete and they were doing hydraulic mining at Kentucky Camp. The fall of a camp and engineer One day before a meeting with stockholders in 1905 tragedy befell Stetson. He was killed in a fall from a window at the Santa Rita Hotel in Tucson. His partner's finances and health deteriorated and despite the effort of the other partners to keep the operation going, Kentucky Camp was abandoned by 1912. The town after 1912 The buildings and land were purchased by an attorney for the McAneny family and until the 1960s the lands were used as a cattle ranch. During the 1960s the land was sold to ANAMAX Mining. The Forest Service acquired the land in 1989 and added it to the Coronado National Forest. The Forest Service is currently working with volunteers and others to preserve and interpret Kentucky Camp as a historic site related to mining in the American west. Kentucky Camp today The town was acquired by the U.S. Forest Service in 1989 through a land exchange. Since that time, it has been part of the Coronado National Forest and is being preserved and interpreted for a look at mining camp life. Buildings Today there are five adobe buildings at the town site. They were constructed circa 1904 and the largest building was probably the headquarters for the Santa Rita Water and Mining Company. Later, that same large building became the main ranch house as the land was used for cattle ranching. The small building behind the headquarters building was used to process gold samples, evidenced by liners that came from an assay furnace. Opposite a small house where Stetson may have lived are the remains of a ruined barn and another small adobe house remains at the far end of the site. Preservation Historic preservation has been underway at Kentucky Camp since 1991. The Forest Service has worked to stabilize the remaining buildings, including repairing roofs and walls in hopes of preventing further deterioration. Much of the work has been done by volunteers under the auspices of the Forest Service's Passport In Time program and the Friends of Kentucky Camp. When the USFS acquired the property the buildings were in bad shape. The roofs had to be repaired first to keep water run off from contacting the crumbling adobe walls. The project was made possible by a $10,000 donation from the producers of the 1989-1992 TV