Finding out the location	very easy
Access	easy
Safety	unsafe
Risk of being seen	very high
General condition of the place	very bad
Traces of vandalism	very many
Good place for taking pictures?	bad
Did you see other people?	few

Visit date    November 12 2020 at 1 hr
Visit duration    < 1 hour

The wheel of misfortune resides in an abandoned mine site in the desert. Three kids mine opened in the midst of the mining boom in 1917. They operated until 1962 and primarily produced manganese. All that’s left now are the large concrete mixing pits, a mining site ( said to be toxic) and a lot of trash and graffiti. In fact, when I visited I watched two men paint and film a massive mural. It sat vacant until 2012 when a local breached security and transformed one of the concrete mixing pits into the dubbed “wheel of misfortune”. The original painting was meant to bring awareness to gambling downfalls. The wheel included options of “lose your house”, “lose your family” and all numerical figures read $000 as opposed to winning numbers. The artist behind all this called himself “aware”. With the security breached and a powerful piece, other began to follow suit with the same ideas. Soon, it was full of graffiti all of kinds. It’s a bit dusty and a rocky walk, but once there it is truly amazing to see the relics of past economy. Sadly now it is full of trash, spray paint and homeless camps. Soon, it is said to be turned into something entirely new and tore down.

  Text and photos are by Vyvansetrance. Click here to see Vyvansetrance's profile and other reports.

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