I know this thread is a year old, and not sure if you guys did the trip to the Vanderbilt site or not. The old Railroad(s) and traction road and the El Dorado trail through this area has always been an interest to me and I have explored and researched them some.
I have this little story about the California Mine near Vontrigger. I put this write-up together for some desert friends a few months back, and it’s just sitting on my hard drive, unlike the other writings for this area which are on a CD in storage. This is more about $$ money stuff at the turn of the century than 4x4 exploring.
I was out in the east Mojave Desert a few miles North of Goffs at the California Mine (CM) in the Vontrigger Hills.
IMO the CM is an interesting back drop of our current times. The CM was formed in 1906 and had a few dozen employees, machines, and shafts when the Panic of 1907 hit, which killed mine operations all around the country, and hit the Mojave very hard. As you may recall the Panic of 07 (aka Depression of 07) was because* the Knickerbocker Trust failed during a leveraged loan deal to corner the copper market (think AIG and defult swaps) which fell apart and started a run on the banks, and cutting the stock market value in half.
All throught this depression the CM was kept running and grew the operation. The mine was mainly a gold mine but went thru the trouble to pull out the copper at the same time. I find it interesrting about the copper, one thing it was the prize that increased* the panic of 07, and was the reason other mining operation by-passed the CM area, and I suspect partly the reason why the mine profited while other gold mines in the Mojave went belly-up.
*As any student of history knows a deperession seldom have one ‘cause’, but many things come together. The Panic of 07 was set in montion by the SF earthquake of 06, then interest rates in England, and then the failure of the Trust’s.
Hope you enjoyed this.