Later Mining
History
of the Mescal Range, Ivanpah Mountains and south Clark Mountain.
Larry M.
Vredenburgh
1996
ABSTRACT
Except for the Mescal and Bullion mines,
discussed in a separate paper in this volume, there is no other
recorded mining in the Mescal Range and Ivanpah Mountain until the
mid-1890s. A new era of
opportunity was ushered in with the January, 1905 completion of the San
Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt
Lake Railroad, (now the Union Pacific). The completion of the railroad,
which runs just south of the
Ivanpah Mountains, and establishment of Cima as a station, provided
cheaper supplies and
transportation of ores. Completion of the railroad coincided with a
surge of mining interest throughout the
desert. In addition, the copper mines of the district probably
benefitted from a spill-over effect from the
1906 Greenwater frenzy. The numerous base metal deposits were mined
during the World Wars. The
Morning Star mine, active between 1927 and 1942, was a significant gold
producer between 1988 and
1993.
KOKOWEEF CAVES
Paul Patchick in 1961 summed up the
history of the Kokoweef Caves. His description is reproduced here
in full:
In the 1920s a miner
named E. P. Dorr explored a cave high-up the side of Kokoweef
Peak. Later, in a sworn affidavit, Dorr reported an amazing discovery -
and a lost mine
legend was born. Deep under Kokoweef Peak, he said he found a swiftly
flowing
subterranean river; lining its banks were sands rich in gold.
The legend grew.
"Facts" became scarce. The cave entrance was dynamited shut...there
were stories of Dorr going insane, of murdered men, of men buried
alive, of rich assay
sheets.
Some sources say the
main cave chamber has several entrances on the flanks of the peak. In
his book, Adventure is Underground William R. Halliday
reports that the Crystal Cave Mining
Corporation now owns the property. Would-be lost mine hunters are not
welcome. Besides, the
danger to all but the best trained and equipped cave-explorer is
extreme. Two persons lost their
lives here in 1959.
In 1988 Bob Ausmus wrote a less cynical,
updated history which appeared in The Friends of the Mojave
Road, Guide to the East Mojave Heritage Trail, Ivanpah to Rocky
Ridge. Although the Kokoweef Caves
have not yielded the much advertized river of gold, a paleontological
treasure has been uncovered. Bob
Reynolds of the San Bernardino County Museum during the 1970s excavated
remains of Pleistocene
age animals including brush ox, dire wolf, large and small camels,
horses, marmots, bats, shrews and
birds.
STANDARD CAMP
In 1896 the California Mining Bureau reported that the Ivanpah
Mountains were the scene of active
prospecting for gold-copper ore. During this revival, the Excelsior
Mine was located by Joseph Nelson
and Gus Moore of Manvel, and eventually a 124-foot deep incline shaft
was sunk. A mine camp known
as Copper Camp was established here.
Nine years later in the summer of 1905 the mine was leased from Nelson for a 10-year period by the Standard Mines Company of Los Angeles. The mine from then on was known as the Standard Number 1 or the Standard and work soon began here and on the nearby Standard Number 2.
The company spent $25,000 sinking a
two-compartment shaft and constructing a camp consisting of a
bunk house and boarding house sufficient to house 100. The camp had a
store and even telephone
service. Wagons pulled by 16-horse teams hauled ore ten miles to the
railroad at Cima, then the Salt
Lake Railroad shipped it to smelters at Salt Lake City. The mine was
productive 18 months, yielding 60
railroad car loads of ore, worth a total of $68,000, that averaged 9.2
percent copper and about $4 in gold
and silver. By December 1906, the mine was tied up in litigation. The
August 1907 American Mining
Review reported, "The mine has been stripped of practically all ore
that was developed, and is now
closed down owing to exceptionally bad management."
Despite this bleak assessment, in
September 1907 two shifts were again working the mine which
continued to produce sporadically until 1919 when it was abandoned.
EVENING STAR MINE
The Evening Star Mine, located 1 1/2
miles south of the Standard No. 1 began life in 1935 as a copper
prospect by J. Riley Bembry. Within a year he sold the property to
Trigg L. Button and Clarence
Hammett of Santa Ana who began sinking the No. 1 shaft. In 1940 Vaughn
Maynard of Santa Ana
purchased the claims, and in 1941 the Tin Corporation of America leased
the property. This company
continued sinking the shaft, and shipped 25 tons in June 1942 to the
Tin Processing Corporation in
Texas City, Texas. In 1943 the mine was leased by Carl F. Wendrick,
Jr., owner of the Steel Sales and
Service Company of Chicago, Illinois. Wendrick secured a government
loan, employed eight men, built
a larger headframe, and constructed a mill at Valley wells. Over 400
tons of ore were processed. Several tons of tin concentrates were sold
to the government stockpile in Jean, Nevada which contained
35.96 percent tin.
The claims just west of the Evening Star
Mine were leased from 1939 to 1940 to W. W. Hartman of Los
Angeles. Hartman shipped about 1,000 tons of tungsten ore to the mill
at Valley View gold mine at Hart.
SEXTETTE MINE CAMP
The Sextette mine, also known as the
Standard Number 2, consisted of eight claims. The mine, situated
north of the Copper King, shares similar geology and was developed for
copper. The claims were
located by Richard Bayley Gill and W. M. Fee. They bonded the mine to
the Johnnie Consolidated Gold
Mining Company of Nevada. By January 1906 the Johnnie Company had sunk
a 256 food deep shaft,
as well as other shafts and tunnels, and installed a new hoist. They
shipped a total of four rail car loads
of high-grade (22%) copper ore in 1906, each 40-ton car load returned
$1,105. But apparently the mine
did not pay, for in August 1907 Gill and Fee bonded the mine to a new
concern.
TOEGEL CITY
Like the nearby Standard Mine, the
Teutonia Mine situated on Teutonia Peak two miles northwest of
Kessler Springs was first worked in 1896. One 50 foot deep shaft was
sunk but was shortly abandoned
due to lack of transportation. On May 14, 1906, Charles Toegel
discovered the old mine, interested
some investors and formed the King Thebaw Mining and Development
Company. The company set to
work building roads and erecting a small camp known as Toegel City. The
camp consisted of
residences, a general store and blacksmith shop. From the fall of 1907
until at least 1909, about 100
tons of ore running up to 150 ounces per ton silver was shipped from
the mine. By the 1920s the shaft
had caved in and filled with water.
KEWANEE AND SUNNYSIDE CAMPS
During the summer of 1907, the east side
of the Ivanpah Mountains were alive with mining activity. Perhaps a
dozen mines were being worked, and two small camps sprang up. At the
Casa Grande Mine,
a place called Meadsville was established after the discoverers Dr.
J.S. Mead and his son. Then, Robert
Williams discovered gold-silver-lead ore north and slightly west of the
Casa Grande mine, and about
one-half mile west of the Morning Star (at that time known as the
Clansman). William's named his
discovery the Sunnyside mine, and Sunnyside Camp was soon established.
A correspondent for the
newly established Barstow Printer reported the comings and goings of
the families.
By summer 1908, the Meads' discovery had
been renamed the Kewanee Mine, and the camp, Kewanee
Camp. Between 1907 and 1911, Dr. Mead and the Kewanee Gold Mining
Company ambitiously
developed the property, hiring 50 miners, and installing a mill. The
small quartz veins were richly
mineralized with gold. An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1952 to
reopen the mine.
The Sunnyside Mine was intermittently
active until 1912 when the Los Angeles based Palm Hill Mining
Company sank a shaft, installed a hoist, and constructed new buildings.
In 1913 a mill was planned. But
apparently never constructed.
MORNING STAR MINE
The Morning Star mine situated on the
east slope of the Ivanpah Mountains, north of Kewanee camp was
first active in 1907, at which time it appears to have been known as
the Clansman mine. Between 1927
and 1933 the deposit was extensively explored. In 1931 two men were
employed at the mine. Between
1937 and 1938 Richard W. Malik of Los Angeles optioned the property
from the claim owners, J. B.
Mighton and H. T. Brown. During Malik's operations 17,000 feet of
crosscut drifts were driven and winzes
were sunk on the tunnel level. In April, 1939, E. P. Halliburton, owner
of the Halliburton oil service
company, began operations. Halliburton employed ten men until the
property was shut down in 1942 by
War Production Board's Order L-208, closing gold mines.
The Vanderbilt Gold Corporation acquired
the property in 1964, the company drilled and sampled the
property. In late 1979 they had raised sufficient capital to begin
development. In the early 1980s the
Morning Star was reactivated as an underground mine using trackless
mining equipment. Ore was
processed at Vanderbilt's mill at the site of the 1890s townsite of
Vanderbilt, seventeen miles away. The
ore was processed by flotation with concentrates shipped for smelting.
With the drop in the price of gold,
mining ceased in 1982, but exploration by underground long-hole
drilling continued. In 1983 the mill
circuit was converted to cyanide carbon-in-leach. This allowed
doré bullion to be produced at the mill,
eliminating the expense of having concentrates smelted. Drilling during
this period established an 8
million ton ore reserve averaging .062 ounces of gold. In the fall of
1984 one million tons of overburden
were moved and a $500,000 heap leach facility was constructed.
Full-scale leaching began October
1987, and by year end 10,000 ounces of gold and 15,000 ounces of silver
had been recovered.
Production of ore was 75,000 tons per month. The operation was
initially plagued by inadequate water
supply, and lower than expected recoveries. This dilemma was solved by
abandoning the spray leaching
to drip - this doubled the amount of solution leaching through the
heap, by using less water. Two heaps
were ultimately constructed. The operation suffered from environmental
violations including bird and
animal deaths in the cyanide ponds, and cyanide solution leaking from
the heaps into the adjacent
drainage. Mining had ceased by 1993, however the company has submitted
a new Plan of Operation to
the U. S. Park Service which is under review.
MOHAWK MINE
The Mohawk Mine, owned by the Ivanpah
Smelting Company, was probably first worked in conjunction
with the Copper World Mine. In 1900 the mine was surveyed for patent,
at which time there were several
hundred feet of underground workings. L. D. Godshall and the Cocopah
Mining Company owned the
mine by 1908. The company operated it during World War I, until at
least 1921. In 1918 the claims were
resurveyed and patented as was the Rosalie millsite. During this period
2,893 tons of lead-copper-silver-zinc ore was produced which had a
value of $70,000. The ore was hauled to the railroad at Cima. Only
ore which ran over 16 percent lead was shipped. The mine remained idle
until 1942 when the property
was leased from Godshall by Emerson Ray and S.D. Greenwood. The mine
produced continuously
between 1944 and 1952.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Aubury, L.E., 1908, The Copper Resources
of California: California Mining Bureau Bulletin 50.
Casebier, D.G., 1988, Guide to the East
Mojave Heritage Trail, Ivanpah to Rocky Ridge (Tales of the
Mojave Road Publishing Co.: Norco, CA.) 304 pp.
Cloudman, H.E., Huguenin, E., Merrill,
F.J.H, 1919, San Bernardino County: California Mining Bureau
Report 15.
Hewett, D. F., 1956, Geology of the
Ivanpah Quadrangle, California and Nevada: U.S. Geological
Survey, Professional Paper 275.
Mendenhall, W. C., 1909, Some Desert
Watering Places in Southeastern California and southwestern
Nevada: U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 224. p. 56;
Patchick, P. F., 1959, Economic geology
of the Bullion Mining District, San Bernardino County,
California: University of Southern California, unpublished M.S. thesis,
p. 172;
Patchick, P., 1961, "A geologist's notes
on the Ivanpah Mountains," Desert Vol. 24, No. 5, p. 8-11.
Tucker, W. B., 1921, Los Angeles Field
Division, San Bernardino County: California Division of Mines
Report 17.
Tucker, W. B., 1931, Los Angeles Field
Division, San Bernardino County: California Division of Mines
Vol. 27, No. 3.
Tucker, W. B., 1943, Los Angeles Field
Division, Mineral Resources of San Bernardino County:
California Division of Mines Vol. 39, No. 4.
Wright, L. A., Stewart, R. M., Gay, T.
E. Jr., Hazenbush, G. C., 1953, Mines and mineral deposits of San
Bernardino County, California: California Division of Mines Vol. 49,
Nos. 1 & 2.
Vredenburgh, L.M., Shumway, G.L.,
Hartill, R.D., 1981, Desert Fever, an overview of mining in the
California Desert (living West Press: Canoga Park, CA).
KOKOWEEF CAVES
Casebier, 1988, p. 239 - 244.
Hillinger, Charles, Legendary River of
Gold Not Forgotten Section II, Los Angeles Times Dec. 5, 1976;
Halliday, William R., 1959, The Cave of Gold in Adventure is
Underground (New York: Harper and Row)
p 27-35.
Patchick, 1961, p. 8;
STANDARD MINE
Engineering and Mining Journal: Jul. 16, 1898, Jun. 2, 1900;
Los Angeles Mining Review: Nov. 18, 1899; Oct. 10, 1904; Jan. 20, Feb. 24, Dec. 1, 1906; Jul. 27, Aug 3, Aug. 17, Sept. 21, 1907;
Mining and Scientific Press: Apr. 9, 1904, Aug. 5, 1905;
Pacific Miner: Apr. 1908;
Redlands Citrograph: Jun. 9,
1906, Oct. 5, 1907;
The Mining World: Dec. 2, 1905; Jul. 28,
Nov. 3, 1906; Jun. 1, 1907
EVENING STAR MINE
Thompson, D. F., 1978, The geology of
the evening star tin mine and surrounding region, San
Bernardino County, California, unpublished MS thesis University of
Missouri, Rolla. p.59. Tucker, 1943,
p. 498
SUNNYSIDE CAMP
Barstow Printer: Aug. 5, Aug.
12, 1910; Aug. 26, Nov. 11, Nov. 18, Nov. 25, 1910; Jan. 27, Jun. 16,
Aug.
11, Dec. 8, 1911; Jan 26, Apr. 12, May 3, 1912; Sep. 19, Nov. 28, 1913
KEWANEE MINE / MEADSVILLE
American Mining Review: Sep. 21, Oct. 26, 1907; Mar. 28, May 30, Sep. 4, 1908.
Barstow Printer: Jul. 15, Aug.
5, Nov. 25, 1910; Jan 16, Jan. 27, Apr. 21, Dec. 15, 1911; Mar. 1,
1912;
Mining and Scientific Press: Apr. 3, 1908;
Salt Lake Mining Review: Jul. 15, 1908;
Yale, C., 1908, California in Mineral
Resources of the U.S., Calendar Year 1907: U.S. Geological Survey p.
221.
SUNNYSIDE CAMP
Barstow Printer: Aug. 5, Aug. 12, Aug.
26, Nov. 11, Nov. 18, Nov. 25, 1910; Jan. 27, Jun. 16, Aug. 11,
Dec. 8, 1911; Jan 26, Apr. 12, May 3, 1912; Sep. 19, Nov. 28, 1913.
MORNING STAR MINE
Britton, Vickie, "Bright Future Projected for Vanderbilt's Morning Star Mine," California Mining Journal, March 1987, p. 4-6;
Patchick, 1957, p. 168.
Tucker, 1931, p. 304;
Tucker, 1940, 71;
Tucker, 1943, p. 456;
Wright, 1953, p. 49;
Mining Engineering:Nov. 1984, p. 1509,
MOHAWK MINE
Aubury, 1908, p. 328;
Tucker, 1921, p.
363;
Tucker, 1943 p. 485;
Wiebelt, F. J., 1949, Investigation of the Mohawk lead-zinc mine, San Bernardino County, California: U. S. Bureau of Mines Rept. Inv. 4478, 7 pp.
United States Mineral Survey 3794, 5372A and B.
Wright, 1953, p. 110;
This paper was published as:
Vredenburgh, Larry M., 1996, Later
Mining History in the Mescal Range, Ivanpah Mountains and South
Clark Mountain, in Robert E. Reynolds and Jennifer Reynolds eds.
Punctuated Chaos, in the
Northeastern Mojave Desert, San Bernardino County Museum Association
Quarterly Vol. 43 nos. 1 and
2, pp. 73-76,