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May
2000
The Virginia Dale mining district was an early favorite area to explore.
Located East and South of Twentynine Palms, in the California desert,
it still had  bits
and pieces of abandoned mining equipment, and a tottering head frame or
two. There was lots to see. This month we are going to visit the Brooklyn
mine and the Los Angeles mine, two mines that shared the same ore vein
and the same mill. The San Bernardino county line/Riverside county line
runs between them.
It is very early morning, icy cold out, a day in January 1970. Long
before the rest of the inhabitants of the sleepy little wide places in
the road we are on, have stirred. Places like Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley,
Joshua Tree, and Twentynine Palms. Our road is an asphalt two lane  road.
That time of day when the brightening sky heralds the giant orange ball
of the sun is still filled with the scents of cold night and the various
vegetation.
My faithful 1967 Ford F-250 ¾ ton pickup rolls nicely along, towing
my buddy’s dune buggy on it’s rear wheels with a home made T-bar hitch
to my truck’s rear bumper.
About four miles East of Twentynine Palms, we watched for the Gold
Crown Road and  turned
off the asphalt road onto a well maintained hard-dirt road. Over to one
side we saw the "bed of nails" road-restoring device the county
uses to maintain this dirt road. Its a big square wooden frame with lots
of spikes that rake and breakdown the teeth-jaring washboard ridges for
a while.
With a rooster tail of dust rising behind us and hanging in the air,
we continued until we came to a group of mining equipment: cyanide leeching
tanks, air classifiers, and broken-down machinery. This was what was left
of the thriving "city" of "New Dale". "Old Dale"
was located back at the road junction.
Finding a flat spot, we set up camp. My truck camper was pretty primitive
then. A tarp across the bare metal truck bed, air mattresses, sleeping
bags, and more blankets, and to top it off, another layer of canvas. I
also added a framework of painted boards from which still another sheet
of canvas could be hung to shut off the wind at night.
We next unhitched the dune buggy, removed the tow-bar and set about
tying on all the necessities that we might need. This included water,
food, tools, map tube, air pump, tire repair equipment, and all the things
we learned not to leave back at base camp. Larry had fitted his dune bugg y
with a VW Bus gas tank, so we had several hundred miles range and didn’t
have to worry about gas. I mention all this so the reader doesn’t assume
that we just hopped out of the truck, pressed the starter button on the
dune buggy and off we went.
At last we were ready. The dirt road weaves away from the Virginia
Dale and passes through and around some smaller hills as it heads now
South. It seemed as if every hill had it’s own prospect tunnel or shaft.
Now we were clear of the edges of the Pinto Mountains and into the Pinto
Basin. Time for a good look at the topographic maps and decide on our
route. We had several choices. The dirt road running North along the very
edge of this part of the Pinto Mountain looked the best, and off we went.
Some four miles later we arrived at a fork in the ro ad
and to our surprise, a three-stamp mill some 100 feet to the left of us.
We could see on our left, the foundation slabs of the Los Angeles Mill
and beyond, the location of the Los Angeles mine. Straight ahead of us
our dirt road pitched down to the Brooklyn Mine and it’s miner’s barracks
by the road. We drove down the smoothly graded road to the bottom of the
canyon, parked and looked around. The usual large round cyanide leeching
tanks were still in place.
Two stone buildings were still standing.
Discovered in 1893, it wasn’t worked until 1901 thru 1916 and then
intermittently until the 1930s when both it and the adjoining Los Angeles
Mine were in operation. The mill on the sit e
included a stamp mill with three 750 pound stamps and a 30 ton rod mill.
At the time of our visit, only the stamp mill was left. As can be seen
in the pictures, time and the elements have not treated the stamp mill
very well. An even later trip showed some vandalism had occurred. Both
mines were gold mines although some silver and copper minerals resulted
from the milling process.
The final picture is of the miner’s barracks taken from the Gold Standard
mine across the valley. If you look sharp you can see the partly green
roof of the building.
Our ride back to the Virginia Dale camp was uneventful and once there,
we enjoyed a nice sunset with
Jerome
W. Anderson
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