Exploring The Abandoned Crystal Palace Mine

As I was struggling to explain in the video during my graceful, acrobatic leap off of the quartz ledge, a local historian advised us that during World War II, this abandoned mine was worked not for gold (which is what was originally mined here), but for its crystals that were used in radios. Google “crystal oscillator" if you’re curious how that works… During World War II, many American mines that extracted minerals such as gold and silver that were not considered essential to the war effort were ordered closed by the U.S. government. By contrast, mines that pursued tungsten or other such minerals (or crystals) were aggressively supported.

Going farther back, there is a story the old-timers told in the past (unfortunately, these old hands are no longer with us) about a large group of Mexican miners that used to work an unknown section of the canyon where this mine is located. The story from the old-timers is that when the Mexican Revolution (which started in 1910) really started getting serious, that the Mexicans were compelled to return home. So, one day, an incredibly long mule train, loaded down with ore and equipment wound its way up and out of the canyon on the long trail back to Mexico. These Mexican miners never returned.

I don’t know if that story is true (but it came from reliable sources) and I don’t know if the Mexican miners were working the quartz veins shown in this video. However, there are only four mines in this canyon and I KNOW it wasn’t two of those four. Therefore, it is a distinct possibility and it is worth mentioning, I believe.

We were quite impressed by how extensively this quartz zone had been worked on both the surface and underground. Whether it was Mexican miners or someone else, they really worked this canyon thoroughly! I would love to see pictures of how it looked then. Early written descriptions of this mine indicate that a simple stamp mill was sufficient for milling the ore since the quartz veins harbor almost no sulfide.

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You can click here for the full playlist of abandoned mines: https://goo.gl/TEKq9L

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Growing up in California’s “Gold Rush Country” made it easy to take all of the history around us for granted. However, abandoned mine sites have a lot working against them – nature, vandals, scrappers and various government agencies… The old prospectors and miners that used to roam our lonely mountains and toil away deep underground are disappearing quickly as well.

These losses finally caught our attention and we felt compelled to make an effort to document as many of the ghost towns and abandoned mines that we could before that niche of our history is gone forever. But, you know what? We enjoy doing it! This is exploring history firsthand – bushwhacking down steep canyons and over rough mountains, figuring out the techniques the miners used and the equipment they worked with, seeing the innovations they came up with, discovering lost mines that no one has been in for a century, wandering through ghost towns where the only sound is the wind... These journeys allow a feeling of connection to a time when the world was a very different place. And I’d love to think that in some small way we are paying tribute to those hardy miners that worked these mines before we were even born.

So, yes, in short, we are adit addicts… I hope you’ll join us on these adventures!

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Видео Exploring The Abandoned Crystal Palace Mine канала TVR Exploring