This story starts with a lost mine, a traditional premise for a desert tale. In 1849, a large party led by Captain Jefferson Hunt was traveling to California by wagon train. With winter approaching, and afraid of being trapped like the Donners on the wrong side of the Sierra Nevada, some of the settlers were convinced to leave the known trail and take a shortcut through unexplored territory. Further disagreements over the route led to additional fragmentation of the group. Of these fragments, the Bennett-Arcan Party is best known to history for their stranding, subsequent rescue, and for giving Death Valley its name.
Another party, the Jayhawkers, lost several men to thirst and exhaustion in the same area. A third group, who called themselves the “Bugstompers” is less known but are the most important to our story. Led by one Jim Martin, they were soon forced to abandon their wagons and proceed on foot. Crossing the Panamint Mountains on the west side of the valley, Martin’s party found a rich silver vein. Martin pocketed a piece of the ore, though his companions decided it was a heavy encumbrance on a life-threatening journey. After eventually escaping the desert and arriving at the mines near Yosemite, Martin had his sample assayed.
It was 97 percent silver. Having lost the gunsight of his rifle during the journey, he had a gunsmith fashion a new sight with the silver. The remainder of Captain Hunt’s original party had arrived in California weeks earlier after an uneventful journey. Despite many later efforts, Martin was unable to relocate the place where he had found the silver. Many prospectors scoured Death Valley, but their search was also in vain. The legend of the Lost Gunsight Mine was born. Skipping ahead a quarter century, the main gold mining excitement in the western Sierra had faded, and the Comstock silver strike in Nevada was booming.
Three young men on the run after robbing a Wells Fargo stage of $12,000 were hiding out in a lonely canyon in the western Panamints. With nothing much to do their talk turned to easy money, and the men decided to search the canyon for the Lost Gunsight lode. Logic would dictate that this was a waste of time and effort. Jim Martin had never passed this way. Concerned with his very survival, he would not have crossed the mountains here, in their highest and most rugged section. Nor, wherever he crossed, would he have doubled back into this rugged canyon.
But the three robbers were not much burdened by logic, nor, in this instance, were they hampered by its lack. Luck they did have, and they located some very promising silver claims in the upper part of what was eventually named Surprise Canyon. So how does one file a mining claim, a legal document, when one has a price on his head? The answer to this question will not surprise modern readers. The trio travelled to Nevada and met with John P. Jones and William M. Stewart, wealthy mine investors and promoters who were also the US senators representing that state.
After verifying the men’s story, the Honorable Jones and Stewart agreed to purchase the claims and, using the services of a compliant judge, drop all charges with the understanding that $12,000 of the purchase price be used to reimburse Wells, Fargo & Co. for their losses. The Panamint Mining District was soon formed, and the town grew quickly as prospectors and investors rushed to file claims. Panamint City quickly grew to a population of about 2000, complete with stamp mill, newspaper, brewery, and many of the other accouterments of a 19th century mining town.
Like Bodie, it was considered a rough town, and there were many killings and robberies. Wells Fargo would not set up a stage office there because the known stage robbers had not been prosecuted, so the Panamint Mining Company (that is, Senators James and Stewart) had to arrange their own shipments of bullion. They came up with the ingenious solution of casting the silver into 400 pound spheres instead of into smaller ingots. Since a horseman could not carry a heavy sphere, their shipment was never stolen. For all the work put into its establishment, the boom at Panamint City only lasted a couple of years.
The ore deposits, though rich and widespread, were shallow and most of the mines “played out” relatively quickly. By 1875, the diminishing returns combined with problems at the Comstock Mines in Nevada led to reduced investor interest in silver mining operations. Most of the miners. other workers, and camp followers left Panamint City. The following year a flash flood in Surprise Canyon washed away most of the town. Work on the mines did not completely stop though, and Panamint City had residents off and on for the next several decades.
By the 1930s the cyanide process was allowing mill tailings and lower grade ores to be profitably processed. Mining and refining were performed in Panamint City at least into the 1970s. The road remained open until the 1980s when another flash flood in Surprise Canyon tore it out down to bedrock. Four-wheel drive enthusiasts could still get in by winching their vehicles up the stream bed after cutting any trees in the way. But this was a destructive process to the riparian habitat, and the BLM put a stop to it in 2001. Today the lower canyon is a part of BLM’s Surprise Canyon Wilderness.
The mines and town site were added to Death Valley National Park in 1994. The hike into Panamint City is short but strenuous. It is less than six miles with about 3,600 feet of elevation gain, but it feels longer. A full day should be allowed for the hike, or plans made to camp before reaching the town. Surprise Canyon Road ends at Chris Wicht Camp, named for a former bartender at Ballarat. The trail beyond is easy to follow at first but quickly runs into obstacles. The route, at least in the larger sense, is never in question.
It follows the main canyon upstream until arriving at the town site. Much of the way follows a stream, fed by springs in the canyon. Availability of drinking water is not a problem, though obviously it must be purified. To reach the town ourselves we start up the trail, weaving under and around trees as we pass ruins of mining ventures past. After a few hundred yards, we come to our first obstacle: a steep cascade. The first part looks easy but involves a long step on surprisingly slippery rock. The second part of the cascade looks more difficult. We have to climb directly up the stream.
The rocks here are not as slippery as they appear, however, and the cascade is soon passed. We are now in a maze of willows, horsetails, and other riparian vegetation complicated by a braided stream. The route is usually obvious, but there are a number of forks in the trail, and some choices lead to dead ends that require us to backtrack. The best advice is to stay near the stream and avoid climbing the canyon walls. Fairly abruptly, we emerge from the willow jungle and walk on rocky tread surrounded by desert vegetation. The canyon is dry here. There are three springs between trailhead and town site.
We have just passed Limekiln Spring. Brewery Spring (where the brewery was) is the better part of a mile ahead. It and a smaller spring just past it each have their own vegetation to push through, though neither is as long or as wet as the transit of Limekiln. The wet sections of the canyon are lush and seem incongruous in the desert. In the dry parts we are treated to jagged and striped rock walls, cliff-side gardens of barrel cactus, and long views up and down canyon. We fill our canteens at Brewery Spring and reflect that we are only halfway there.
The upper canyon is dry and shade-less, and we miss the refreshing sound of running water. There are compensations. We are now high enough to catch a bit of breeze, and we can follow the grade of the old road most of the way into town. The grade is steep but consistent. It is surprising sometimes to look back and see how much we’ve climbed. We begin seeing stone walls and some roofless stone buildings, a few mining adits and abandoned equipment and vehicles. Finally, the brick smokestack of the 1870s era smelter comes into view. There is still a ways to go, but we have made it.
