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)

(25) McLean Spring

A brief mention should be made of the McLean Spring site, slightly over seven miles east of the Stovepipe Wells Hotel and adjacent to Burned Wagons Point. According to one writer who visited the scene, a faint trail could be discerned passing south of the spring, and also in the vicinity were three wooden footbridges, indicating semi-permanent occupation or at the very least fairly heavy travel through the area. This same source states without hesitation that a "trading post" existed here in the early 1900s to cater to prospectors, presumably crossing over into the Panamint Range or merely passing between the northern and southern sections of the main valley. [330] Wooden bridges would certainly be necessary if people were attempting to carry on business over any extended period of time on this sandy plain that can become quite sticky and intractable, especially during rainstorms. Burr Belden also asserts that historically a trail led south from old Stovepipe Wells to Salt Creek and McLean's Well, and from there a path ascended the Panamints via Blackwater Canyon. [331] No mining camp paper or other source found by this writer mentions a supply point at McLean Spring, but some operation of more than temporary status appears to have existed here as evidenced by the wooden bridge remains. They should be left to benign neglect.

Illustration 211. Bridge to trading post (?) standing at McLean Spring around 1902. Photo courtesy of G. William Fiero, UNLV.