Page 161 - blm_stickelweinmanroberts1980

MORONGO VALLEY MINING ,

The mining history of the Morongo Valley received some of its first
documentation in the San Bernardino Guardian during August of 1870 when it
headlined an article, "Charley Clusker Strikes Again." The report was
about the discovery of an old Jesuit Mine about forty miles east of San
Bernardino somewhere in the Morongo Valley area. Some reports say it was
found in the 1930s on Cottonwood Creek, three miles west of Oasis Ranch
and thirty-eight miles from Big Pines. Even though no important mines were
in operation in the 1870s, miners were out there looking.

A prospector named Tim Lee, famous for having located the famous
Waterman Mine north of Bars tow, filed a location notice for a mine he called
"White Lead" some twelve miles northeast of Baldwin Lake. No one has ever
found it. An article in the Havilah Miner of April 19, 1873, complained
about the Desert Station facilities at Kane Springs (site 54) , a place where .
The earliest mention of a
miners went for supplies then and in the 1890s .
notable mine is that of the Rose Mine (site 51) in the Morongo Mining Dis-
trict. Word of mouth has it that it operated during the Spanish days and
worked in the 1860s. It was a heavy producer in the 1890s and up through
1903, shown on maps during the 1904-08, and may still appear on some. The
Morongo District was at its production peak in the 1890s. One of the mines,
the Morongo King, was often reported upon in the newspapers. Judge Campbell
was president of the Morongo King Company. It had a ten-stamp mill in May
of 1894 and a large force of men running it day and night. The day it
started up it took out $400 in gold. The company invested heavily in the
mine and classed it as a steady business enterprise. The Lava Beds Mining
District lies just south of Lavic Siding in the Lava Bed Mountains, north
of Sunshine Peak. It came into prominence in 1891 when a silver vein one
hundred feet deep was discovered. The district included a number of claims:
the Tip Top Mine, Meteor, Mammoth Chief, Desert Queen (Queen of the Desert)
Sunshine Mine and Mill, the Imperial Lode Mine, the Rising Sun Mine, and
According to geologists , no good silver ore is found without copper
others .
in some form. The Lava Bed District demonstrated this when silver mining
turned to copper in the mid 1890s (e.g. the Tintop Mine) . The Lava Beds
have been pointed out by desert buffs as sites where caches have been
left, even Spanish treasure, so this area may be of interest to tourists on
that count. Rattlesnake Canyon (site 56) , known for its mining activity in
the past, is now best known for its scenic deposits of quartz on
Larry Vredenburgh suggests that several sites worthy of
the mountainsides .
fieldwork are on the Emerson Lake Quadrangle. One, the Green Hornet Mill
site, was probably the mill for the Los Padres Mine. It lay in the Dry Lake
Mining District north of Emerson Lake and presently has an extra sensitive
seismograph installed by Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in Palo Alto.
North and east of the Green Hornet Mill site is the Emerson Mill (site 37)
where there are apparently stone ruins and the remains of a mill that Mr.
Emerson used to refine his gold ore in the 1920s to the 1940s. The Fry
Mountains were mined heavily in the early twentieth century, and mines there
included the Cumberland or High Hope Mine, the Elsie Mine, Gold Peak Mine,
Johnson Mine, Red Hills Mine, and the Copper Strand.

Following the gold and silver boom of the late nineteenth century
tungsten was found in this zone. The Shooting Star Mine near Rattlesnake
Canyon produced marginal tungsten ore in 1916-18. It was reopened in 1949 and

150