Death Valley Historic Resource Study A History of Mining

B. Emigrant Wash and Wildrose Canyon (continued)

2. Wild Rose Mining District (continued)

i) Sites (continued)

(22) Junietta Blizzard and Virgin Mines

These properties in the Wild Rose District were also located by W.L. Hunter of Lone Pine around 1877. [316] Interests in them were acquired by W.K. Miller and N.J. Medbury, and the three pursued a course of strenuous development work:

The Junietta has a six-foot ledge which gives an average assay of $50 per ton. There are 100 tons of assorted ore now on the dump that will yield $100 per ton. The Argonaut [Uncle Sam?] joins the Junietta on the south. . . The Blue Belle [Garibaldi] is situated about six miles distant from the two former mines. The Blizzard and Virgin are close to the Blue Belle. The former claim has a four-foot ledge of fine horn silver ore. [317]

The 1884 Report of the Director of the Mint mentions the Virgin as carrying high-grade ores, and states that the Genette [sic], "the best developed of the group, has a shaft 100 feet deep, with a 4-foot vein of free-milling chloride of silver ore . . . and assays from 50 to 100 ounces per ton of silver." [318] In this year Medbury and Miller transferred to J.M. Keeler a one-half interest in the Blizzard and Jeanette mines. [319] No more information was found on these properties, primarily because there was no time for a strenuous search of county records pertaining to them. It can be assumed, however, that Milo Page's assessment of their lives is accurate:

At Emigrant Springs there was also a group of silver mines, yielding ore of high grade, owned by Wm. L. Hunter and J.L. Porter, of Cerro Gordo fame. These, like the Garibaldi claims, received the usual amount, or scarcity, of "development." [320]