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Panamint Wickiup #2

Panamint Wickiup #2

This site had been in the back of my mind for years and years, but it wasn’t until recently that we finally decided to track it down. What a quiet and neat place. It took a couple of trips and a few hours of hiking, but we finally found

Freiberg Smelter

Freiberg Smelter

Back in 2012, we went on a trip through central Nevada and spent a night in the old mining camp of Freiberg. Discovered in 1865, the area was worked in a small way for silver, but the mines never produced much of anything. We explored the area and only found

Illinois Mine

Illinois Mine

Lead-silver and gold ores were first discovered here in 1874, and the little camp of Lodi was formed. The town had at least 100 residents by 1878. By 1880, the boom was over, and the mine had produced over $400,000. Things were quiet until the mine came to life

Wyler Spring Cabin

Wyler Spring Cabin

In February 2011, my friend Ed and I did a long walk out to the Wyler Spring Cabin. The cabin is in a lesser-visited corner of Eureka Valley in the BLM’s Piper Mountain Wilderness. The area had a minor amount of mining, and I suspect the cabin was built

Eden Creek Ranch

Eden Creek Ranch

Eden Creek Ranch was a small family ranch and the center of the community for the mines up in the hills above it. According to Helen Fallini, Giovanni Fallini employed Abe Arigoni to build a stone ranch house at Eden Creek around 1910. The Fallini family lived there and supplied

Fields Gollab Cabin

Fields Gollab Cabin

I met up with Dan, Bill, and a few friends to see if we could find an old cabin and do some mine exploration just outside of Death Valley in a seldom-visited area. The mines around here are small, and I couldn't find much information on their history.

Millspaugh

Millspaugh

Millspaugh was a small family mining camp settled in the late 1890s. According to the writings of Elizabeth Mecham, the first mill burned in 1902 but was immediately rebuilt with metal siding. Most of the buildings were hauled off in 1914. These days, the site is deep within China Lake