Death Valley Historic Resource Study A History of Mining

F. Summation

These were the principal mining towns and districts of the Owens and Panamint valley regions in the 1800s, none of which had any more exciting and robust a growth than Panamint City. A multitude of books and articles, many listed in the bibliography of this report, have exposed the hardships, dreams, and disappointments experienced by miners and promoters alike in this rip-roaring camp at the head of narrow Surprise Canyon, and it is not the writer's intention to rehash any of this. A brief narrative on the town, however, and the resultant Panamint Mining District, and especially a history of some of its principal mines, many of which bore names similar to later claims in Death Valley, may help clear up some confusion created by this duplication, as well as help determine which properties were located outside the monument boundaries and which were within. (Note: The Panamint Mining District also included the Gold Hill area, immediately northeast of Butte Valley. The history and sites of this region will be treated separately, however, since they are of major importance to this study.)

Illustration 5. "Map of Inyo County Cal." (Segment.) (San Francisco: C.F. Weber & Co., 1914). Courtesy of Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)