T0UR 19:CHRIS WICHTS CAMP-PANAMINT CITY; 4.5 m.
Rough; steep grades.
Road sometimes washed out; inquire at Chris Wichts Camp.
THE Panamint City Road, a continuation of the Surprise Canyon Road, is a side route branching from the Emigrant Canyon, Panamint Valley Road (see Tour 7).
Chris Wichts Camp (R), 0 m. (see Tour 7), is on a small bench above the road.
The NARROWS, is a passage, 10 to 15 feet wide, between sloping walls of gray rock. The short stretch of road here usually disappears during the spring rush of water that issues from the large basin above, through this bottle neck. East of the Narrows the canyon widens somewhat; the road climbs steeply up the west slope of the Panamints.
In the shallow, tilted basin of SURPRISE VALLEY (alt. 7500), 9 in, fallen stone walls, almost submerged in the brush, mark the place where PANAMINT CITY once stood. The tall smokestack of the mill built byJones and Stewart of Nevada is against the south slope. A little farther up the same slope are 15 or 20 red shacks of a later day. The air is thin and sweet; the quiet is hardly broken by the rustle of small desert life or by the fleeting songs of birds. In 1875 a banner of smoke floated continually from the smokestack, and the air resounded with thump of the stamps in the mill and the clatter of sleds dragging ore down from the mines. Long freight teams snorted and stepped over the wagon chain, in their efforts to turn the great wagons in the single street. Miners came
and went on narrow paths carved in the canyon sides, Women with bustles and tilted hats teetered up and down the grade in high-heeled boots. Saloons were roaring pots of laughter, and hurdy-gurdy houses bounced with gaiety. Broad-shouldered William Morris Stewart from Virginia City, with a long, flaming beard, surveyed the hustle and bustle of the town that was to add another million to his wealth.
In 1873 three men had labored up Surprise Canyon, bunting the source of a piece of rich silver float they had picked up in the lower canyon. Where the brushy basin widened they saw gaudy, greenish blue veins of copper-silver ore striping both sides of the cliffs. A fortune hung before their eyes. After they had made several rough assays that showed values as high as $2500 a ton, these three, with several men that had good reason for living in these faraway hills, established the Panamint Mining District. It extended 20 miles along the Panamint Ridge to the center of Death Valley on the east, and to the center of Panamint Valley on the west.
Word of a new strike drifted out of the high Panamints. The Mother Lode and the Comstock were giving forth millions, and each new strike caused a stampede in the hope that it would reveal more riches. But Panamint, difficult of access, was 60 miles from the nearest road in Owens Valley, and those 60 miles were solid, forbidding ranges. At first only a few men trickled in to investigate the rumor.
In 1874 John P. Jones of Virginia City, who had been active in development in Nevada and had entered the U.S. Senate in 1873, became partner of William Morris Stewart, who had had a part in the development of the Comstock Lode and was completing a term in the Senate. The two men bought a group of claims and formed the Surprise Valley Mill and Water Company. Stewart came here in July to see what they had bought, and activiLies began at once. In Austin and Eureka, in Pioche and Pahrump, in San Francisco and on the Mother Lode, in Los Angeles and San Bernardino, men heard that Jones and Stewart owned part of Panamint, and off they started for the new strike, on horseback, on foot, in buggies, and in freight wagons.
Before the end of the year, 700 people puffed and stumbled into the high valley. The town was rough and tough. Many of the citizens were men with notorious pasts. They wore loose guns, and the butchers two- wheeled cart, the only vehicle that had reached town, carried 57 dead to Sour Dough Gulch, most of these having died of lead poisoning. Soon a road was cleared somewhat, and express messengers were urging their mounts up it; stages from Lone Pine, Bakersfield, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles were rocking in, clouded with dust; and freight wagons were crawling up, laden with lumber, machinery, and supplies. They rumbled out with ore.
In those days Wells Fargo carried bullion from most of the mines in the West to the mints, issued drafts against the shipments, and carried on a banking business. But after one careful look at the citizens of Panamint City, they flatly refused to carry out bullion; they were too sure that something would happen to it on the long, lonesome route to civilization Stewart, however, also studied his fellow townsmen, and he shipped out more than a ton of bullion in an open wagon without guards; it had been cast in five huge cannon balls, each one of which weighed 450 pounds.
Panamint City, however, was not destined to be another Virginia City or a Mother Lode. The limestone that enclosed the ore veins was very hard and expensive to work, and the veins did not long continue their promise of wealth. The bank panic of 1875, squeezing water out of mining stocks marked the end for Panamint. The stamps thudded on in the mill, but the boom was over. Down the steep road from Panamint went miners, the girls from Maiden Lane, Chinese, saloon and restaurant keepers, the editor and his press, the butcher and his two-wheeled cart. Many went to the new town of Darwin, but some departed east. One eastbound party, that of lsidore Daunet, started across Death Valley in the full heat of summer (see Eagle Borax Works, Tour 4).
Interest in Panamint flickered again in February, 1876, when some small veins of rich ore were discovered, but in July of that same year, a black cloudburst sent tons of water roaring down Main Street. Flimsy shacks were washed away, stone walls were knocked down, and the mill was wrecked. Later the saloons of Ballarat sang of Panamint:
Her picks are rust,
Her bones are dust;
Its forty years
Since she went bust.
In the years that followed, the jingle of a pack burros bells was heard now and again coming up the rocky road. Small mines bought beans and bacon for many a man, but there was no other strike. Modern mining methods were tried in 1925, when the two tunnels (R) were driven below the old veins. They were good tunnels, but they did not bit & in 1926 Panamint was once more a ghost.
Excerpt from:
DEATH VALLEY a Guide
Written and compiled by the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration of Northern California
Published 1938