The Geology of the Region
From:
Paul Remeika and Lowell Lindsay.
Geology of Anza-Borrego: Edge of Creation.
San Diego: Sunbelt Publications, 1992
GULF OF CALIFORNIAGeologically speaking, the key to understanding Borrego is to understand Baja and the Gulf of California. Anza-Borrego's mountains are near the northern end of the long Peninsular Ranges. Her basins and badlands echo their parentage as part of the rift basin which is now occupied by the Gulf and Salton Sea. This great rift, almost 1000 miles long and 60 to 150 miles wide, is a supercrack bounded on either side by fault block mountains.
At the close of the Eocene Epoch (about 36 million years ago), the entire Baja Peninsula was fixed to Mexico's west coast. Mature, through-going river systems flowed across a gentle countryside, bringing river sediments westward to the coastal plain. Its rock and structures evolved as a continuation of an ancient geologic system massed along the Sonora and Sinaloa coasts of the westward-moving North American continental plate.
What caused this stretch of coastline to break apart? The mechanism was apparently the same as that which produced the features of western North America's Basin and Range Province. This began during the Miocene epoch about 23 million years ago and continues today. This mechanism is the override of the East Pacific Rise by the westward moving North American continent. This rise is a dynamic sea-floor spreading center, similar to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which marks the diverging boundary and upwelling of magma between two tectonic plates. It marks the centerline of the Gulf of California from which Baja and the Mexican mainland continue to spread.
This complex process of spreading center override and tectonic plate collision broke apart crustal blocks into a new orientation of fracture zones and systems. Plate collision included subduction, the underflow of oceanic material beneath the continent. This resulted in violent seismic, volcanic, and orogenic (mountain building) activity throughout the western continent. The 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State is evidence of remnant subduction activity which began with the breakup of western Mexico in Miocene times.
The expanding series of down dropping basins, bordered by uplifting mountain ranges, is characteristic of the Mojave Desert and Great Basin regions. Earthquakes and volcanic activity here bear witness to buried and consumed tectonic plates and yield footprints of a possible northern extension of the East Pacific Rise coming ashore. The East Pacific Rise may be hard at work, embedded between such heights and depths as the snow-covered Sierra Nevada, Death Valley, and Utah's Wasatch Mountains. Locally, much of the topography of Anza-Borrego owes its tectonic origin to related activity during this time of oblique subduction beneath the continental margin.
The gross effect of plate reorganization resulted in the eastward-moving Pacific block rotating away clockwise, relative to the continental edge. Pressures were great enough that this change in direction initiated the rifting that literally sheared off land from the North American Plate. This included 55,000 square miles that became Baja California and a slice of southwestern California. Incorporated onto the Pacific side, the newly-liberated San Andreas Fault Block, today one of the longest peninsulas in the world, rafted away from mainland Mexico. This severance left in its wake the mouth of the Gulf of California.
Seismic data reveals a narrow, well-defined belt of submarine spreading centers inside the mouth of the Gulf, a young rift basin. Beginning about 7.5 million years ago, spreading widened the mouth of the Gulf by one-quarter inch/year. Cumulative into the early Pliocene Epoch, it was enough to admit a northward marine transgression of ocean water and sediments that reached Anza-Borrego in the form of the Imperial Formation, about 5-6 million years ago.
The East Pacific Rise is a key actor in the continuing drama of the Gulf. This rise cleaves the sea-floor with a series of obliquely parallel ridges, each terminated by a transform (major strike-slip) fault.
Advancing northward, in an unzippered succession of pull-apart features, this remarkably huge wound widened the gulf as it went. It reached the south end of the Salton Trough by 4.5 million years ago. By 4 million years ago, the apex of the gulf embayment had dilated crustal rocks beyond Palm Springs.
The Salton Trough didn't just happen. Its origin is closely linked to the complex extension of the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) into the Californias, Alta and Baja. It is a child of a wild geologic process that began here less than five million years ago, when waters of the Sea of Cortez lapped the shore north of Palm Springs.
This structural depression, including the Coachella Valley, Imperial Valley, and the Anza-Borrego region, extends 120 miles from the Mexican border to San Gorgonio Pass. Within its depth, two immense tectonic (crustal deforming) systems clash, causing a sediment-filled crack in the earth's surface four times deeper than the Grand Canyon.
It is here that the sea-floor spreading centers of the East Pacific Rise march up the Gulf of California. Here these centers meet the notorious San Andreas transform fault zone which runs northwest five hundred miles through San Francisco. Sea-floor spreading centers emit fiery new ocean floor material from the earth's cauldron while the San Andreas is the wrenching slip zone between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The result of this rift and fault meeting produces one of the most active seismic systems in North America.
The Salton Trough, as a classic, fault-bounded, basin continues to stretch, thin, and sink about one inch per year. This conforms to its larger identity as the northernmost extension of the subsiding Gulf. This regional structure is dominated by the San Andreas Fault Zone on the northeast side and the San Jacinto Fault Zone on the southwest, or Anza-Borrego, side.
The 350 square mile Salton Sea divides the long and narrow trough. The northern half, Coachella Valley, is the apex of the total Salton Trough-Gulf of California structural depression. Coachella is Spanish for shell, referring to the delicate, bone-white, fresh-water shells that occur along the flanks of the San Jacinto Mountains. The southern half, Imperial Valley, includes the Salton Sink and is largely below sea level. Before the accidental creation of the Salton Sea in 1905, the area claimed the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere at 274 feet below sea level. With the surface of the Salton Sea at minus 235 feet, Death Valley now rates top (or bottom) score at minus 279 feet. (For comparison, the Dead Sea in Palestine is the world's deepest land trench at minus 1286 feet.)
This is a classic region for studying how the crust of the earth has deformed. There are localities in Nevada that approach it. The eastern side of the Sierra Nevada has parallel scenery; parts of Death Valley compare, but none of these equals it in complexity and current activity. The entire area is alive. The earth is riddled with faults of great magnitude that rupture often and regularly. The scars of faults are everywhere, reshaping the topography and marking an area that is sinking faster than it can be filled with sediments. It is veined with fresh volcanic vents and mineral-laden hot springs where Vulcan continues to stoke his fires.
The larger earthquakes in the trough region are primarily caused by crustal rock structures adjusting to the rifting stresses and strains of continuing continental breakup. Northwest-trending fault systems have propagated in a stair-step fashion up the Gulf and explain the pattern of pull-apart features beneath the alluvium of the Colorado River delta.
Commencing about five million years ago, the Gulf of California unzipped like a horseshoe opening to the south, with the tip at Cabo San Lucas rotating 148 miles away from the Mexican mainland. Driven by plate interactions, the Pacific side rifts apart from the North American side, along the Gulf/Salton Trough axis.
In addition to rifting, the relative motion has obliquely stretched and thinned the crust, which continues to collapse. A result of continental rifting is that Anza-Borrego moves closer to San Francisco by about two inches each year. A result of crustal collapsing is that the Colorado River delta dam, now about 42 feet above sea level, will eventually be breached by Gulf waters. Thus will a marine seaway, floored by oceanic crust in the Salton Trough, be redeveloped. This evokes a fanciful image of Yuma, Palm Springs, and Borrego as northern Gulf seaports rather like Guaymas, Puerto Penasco, and San Felipe today.
Spreading centers are the source of another type of seismic activity known as earthquake swarms. These are rhythmic expansions and contractions, announcing the movement of molten rock underground. They occur frequently in the Imperial Valley and Gulf margins. The only difference between spreading centers in the Gulf and in the Salton Trough is that the latter are buried under a thick accumulation of sediments from the Colorado River.
Young volcanic intrusions of rift-related magma into the sedimentary succession have resulted in the development of numerous geothermal features----dynamic, near-surface links to the underworld of plate tectonics. Here and there, hot springs, fumaroles, mudpots which resemble miniature volcanoes, and occasional puffs of ash and vapor, are surface expressions of internal heat from active spreading centers beneath the desert floor. This provides an ideal arena for geothermal power.
The energy of the system has also given rise to the major uplift of the Peninsular Range mountains to the west. Beginning about two million years ago, the uplift continues. This has resulted in an and change of climate as the rising mountains cast a rain shadow over much of the Colorado Desert. Related deformation has tilted, warped, folded and faulted much of the sedimentary basin fill around the margins of the Salton Trough.
The range-bounded Coachella Valley extends northward a distance of 50 miles from the Salton Sea to San Gorgonio Pass. It is a deep and narrow basin which is the northern apex of the Salton Trough. This is, in turn, the northern extension of the Gulf of California. The Coachella Valley is bordered on the northeastern side by the Little San Bernardino and Cottonwood Mountains, and on the western side by the high San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains. Since Pliocene times (3 million years ago), the ever-widening Coachella Valley has received a vast amount of material from these adjacent highlands. As determined from exploratory wells, it may contain up to 14,000 feet of nonmarine sediments.
At the northwest end of Coachella Valley, San Gorgonio Pass marks the constraining bend in the San Andreas Fault, part of the structural knot of Southern California's Transverse Ranges, which include the San Bernardinos and San Gabriels. This fault borders the northeast side of the Coachella Valley and displaces in a right-lateral sense. (Right lateral refers to the relative motion of an object across the fault line from the observer moving to the right.) The result is that the San Bernardino Mountains slip relatively to the right (southeast), in relation to the San Jacinto Mountains block. This relative slip is evidenced in rocks exposed in the nearby Orocopia Mountains (northeast block) which have their counterparts exposed in the San Gabriel Mountains (southwest block). Total displacement of the San Gabriels to the northwest may exceed 190 miles since the Pliocene Epoch (3 million years ago).
San Gorgonio Pass is guarded on the south by the abrupt, magnificent mountain profile of Mount San Jacinto. The precipitous drop, 9000 feet to the desert floor in less than six miles, is the steepest escarpment in North America after Telescope Peak in Death Valley. At 10,831 feet, this two mile high skyscraper outranks all other aeries of the Peninsular Ranges. Only nearby San Gorgonio, on the north or opposite side of the pass in the San Bernardino Mountains, reaches closer to the Southern California clouds at 11,502 feet.
The mystique that surrounds the infamous San Andreas Fault continues to attract scholarly and popular attention. This great shear zone slices 650 miles of California from Cape Mendocino to the Salton Sea. It visibly proclaims the boundary where Pacific Plate grinds against North American Plate, separating Southwestern and Baja California from the rest of the continent. Relative northwest motion of this area, also known as peninsular California, averages about two inches per year with a horizontal displacement of several hundred miles.
This fault is a complex system of roughly parallel fractures that branch and interlace within a zone. Like other major fault zones, pressure ridges, beheaded or truncated alluvial fans, sags, and fault scarps clearly mark its trace. The zone varies in width from less than one mile at Point Reyes to nearly 40 miles in Southern California. Tectonic plate motion is translated into surface evidence across coastal plains and hills, inland valleys, mountain ranges, and the Mojave and Colorado Deserts.
Much of the problem in Southern California is centered in the Transverse Ranges. The steadily increasing compression at the northern end of the Salton Trough-Gulf of California has created, through time, a structural knot. This knot is the Transverse Ranges, which trend east-west, extending inland from Santa Barbara to the San Bernardino Mountains. The southern half of the San Andreas Block is attempting to get around the corners of this immense obstacle by splaying out into half-a-dozen seemingly unrelated smaller faults. In doing so, interaction on the west has produced a region of overthrusting and crustal shortening, as evidenced by the 1971 San Fernando quake, the 1987 Whittier-Narrows quake, the 1990 Upland quake and the 1991 Sierra Madre quake
From the southeast-end of the San Bernardino Mountains to Cajon Pass, the fault bends abruptly, running east and west. This "big bend" in the fault has been seismically quiet since 1680, and is commonly regarded by earth scientists as being locked. As a result, pent-up strain has become acute.
THE SAN JACINTO FAULT ZONEThe San Jacinto diverges from the San Andreas Fault near Wrightwood, striking southeast from the San Gabriel Mountains through San Bernardino along the west side of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains to Anza-Borrego. Upon entering the desert, the fault splays into a number of subparallel and branching faults of the same strike and character --- Coyote Creek, Buck Ridge, Clark, San Felipe, Superstition Hills and Superstition Mountain. Cumulative right separation is about 15 miles. There is no deceptive absence of earthquake activity along these faults. All are very active and capable of producing large, destructive earthquakes, as evidenced by the recent Arroyo Salado, Borrego Mountain, Coyote Mountain, and Superstition Hills events. In addition there is a great deal of microseismic activity.
Structural details along the San Jacinto are especially well displayed along two separate, major strands of this system, the Clark and Coyote Creek Faults. The most obvious fault in the area is the Clark Fault. It is the more direct extension of the San Jacinto into Anza-Borrego.
This master break can be followed from San Jacinto and Anza Valleys, down along the east side of Table Mountain to Horse Canyon, trending sharply along the west side of Buck Ridge, Rockhouse Canyon and extending across Clark Valley. Beyond Palo Verde Wash, the fault is concealed under intensely deformed sediments of the Borrego Formation in Basin Wash and the San Felipe Hills. To the south, the fault steps to the left, into the Brawley Seismic Zone with its attendant spreading ridge, probably becoming the Imperial Fault. Unknown prior to the 1940 earthquake, the Imperial Fault trends into the Cerro Prieto Fault and its related geothermal field in Baja California.
The position of Coyote Mountain and the Santa Rosa and San Ysidro Mountains is the result of relatively recent movements along major strands of the San Jacinto Fault Zone. Some blocks have been squeezed up a mile or more above sea level, just a bit faster than erosion can tear them down. Others have been fragmented into elongated slices of rock. All move either laterally, vertically, horizontally, or a combination of these.
Counterbalancing this uplift, intervening blocks have sunk where fault lines diverge. Borrego Valley, more correctly called "Borrego Basin," is one of these. Another is Clark Valley.
The Coyote Creek branch serves as a through-going, northwest-trending series of en echelon splays that document many episodes of recent movements, which are characterized by high seismicity, linearity, continuity, and fault-produced topographic features. It can be easily followed from Turkey Track down through Coyote Canyon, where it uses Box Canyon to separate the Pleistocene Ocotillo Formation of the Coyote Badlands (westernmost equivalent of the Borrego Badlands) from the elongated Coyote Ridge block on the east. This block behaves geologically as a single unit, enclosing the northern end of Borrego Valley.
From the Pegleg Smith Monument, the fault trends southeast, folding sediments of "Mammoth Cove" while truncating the entire western edge of the Borrego Badlands. Beyond, the projection of the fault follows the Anza Trail, obscured beneath alluvium along San Felipe Creek. South of Borrego Mountain, the fault steps left, deforming the Ocotillo Badlands, to become the Superstition Hills and Superstition Mountain Faults.
Elevated mountain walls dominate the western edge of the Colorado Desert and Anza-Borrego with precipitous and denuded eastern slopes ascending quickly to serrated mountain crests five to eight thousand feet high. Many of these walls are fault scarps which feature active faulting. Unbroken, save for intermontane passes, these mighty escarpments of monolithic rock are part of a major mountain chain, the Peninsular Ranges.
This long, nearly straight chain is almost 1000 miles in length from the San Jacinto Mountains to the tip of Baja California. Its width varies from 50 to 120 miles, structurally even including some coastal islands anchored off-shore. North of the border, it extends 140 miles to San Gorgonio Pass, sharply truncated by the San Andreas Fault Zone (the Banning Fault), from the San Bernardino Mountains of the Transverse Ranges.
These dynamic mountains, named after the Baja Peninsula, are in the full vigor of their youth and continue to build. While the beginning of the current uplift is quite recent, one to two million years ago, the component rocks are old with some up to 500 million years old. From nubbins to hills to peaks the Peninsular Ranges have climbed skyward five, six, ten thousand feet, cutting off the incoming Pacific rains and drying out the landscape in its eastern shadow. And, with each seismic shudder in its roots, the climb continues.
Beginning in the late Pliocene Epoch (2-3 million years ago), renewed tectonic activity along the western Salton Trough began the unique sequence of events that lifted the Peninsular Ranges mountains into rainshadow prominence. As Baja rotated away from the Mexican mainland, compressive energy uplifted the unbroken profile of the Santa Rosas, culminating at Toro Peak (8,716 feet). Beyond, approaching the structural knot of S an Gorgonio Pass, these same forces raised the San Jacintos even higher. Mt. San Jacinto (10,831 feet) thus has one of the greatest unbroken vertical rises of any mountain mass in North America.
Structurally, this is a great block of granitic rock of the Mesozoic Era, (70-100 million years ago) overlain, in part, with secondary pendants and screens of older and uplifted marine metasediments of the Paleozoic Era (250-500 million years ago). Occasional volcanic rock is encountered too, dating from the Miocene Epoch (15-20 million years ago). Just as an animal's body is supported by its spinal column, the entire Baja Peninsula and much of Southern California is protected and supported by this crustal backbone.
These mountain blocks have been tilted westward, forming
an asymmetric profile. While the eastern slopes are steep, short,
treacherously rugged, and lightly clothed with vegetation, the
long and gentle western flank rolls and pitches on an average
gradient of six percent through pine forests, oak woodlands, and
dense chaparral to the coastal plains. Along the crest, are rich
sub-alpine forests of ponderosa and lodgepole pine (San Jacinto
Wilderness), or broad oak meadowlands and Jeffrey pine (Laguna
- Cuyamaca Mountains). Lower elevations feature impenetrable thickets
of deerbrush, manzanita and scrub oak leading one frustrated geologist
to write, "Where the steepness does not forbid the way, the
chaparral everywhere disputes it!"
A large look at mountain structures, coupled with a detailed look at their component rocks, helps envision the geologic history of this bold terrain. Three distinct types of rocks, based on their origin, are recognized. Sedimentary rocks, the result of aging and death of mountains and life forms, are discussed in the following chapter. This chapter considers igneous (fire-formed) and metamorphic (changed-form) rocks which are generally associated with the birth and growth of mountains. Whether born from molten magma beneath the earth, cooled from volcanic eruptions, or emerged in changed form from intense heat and pressure, these are indeed the "Rocks of Fire."
Near the end of the Jurassic period, about 135 million years ago, the westward moving North American plate and its continental cargo was colliding head-on with the eastward moving Farallon (East Pacific) plate with its oceanic cargo. Compression forces literally bulldozed North America up and over an unyielding heavier oceanic crust, subducting the sea floor with its sedimentary veneer downward and eastward at about a 45 degree angle beneath the continent's edge.
Trapped within the vise of subduction, the oceanic plate penetrated to a depth of 50 miles or more and slowly melted, consumed in defeat. Associated frictional heating, at temperature up to 1000 degrees C, produced large masses of molten magma.
In a series of intrusions, like casting plaster filling a mold, magmatic material slowly congealed into closely packed chambers called plutons, which rose under pressure towards the surface. Pluto, ancient god of the underworld, aptly lends his name to this process. The upward progress of the viscous rock in plutons metamorphosed and shouldered aside most of the older marine sediments of the upper crust.
Caught between converging crustal plates, the once-even bedding of the Julian Schist and earlier metasediments of the dawnrock were now wrinkled and mashed up like crushed newspaper. Where the overlying crust was weak, a battle line of volcanoes erupted on the surface, spurting fountains of red-hot andesitic lava or belching frothy sheet flows and ash along their periphery.
Each pluton, of different composition and age, took from ten to fifteen million years to cool under the crushing pressure of miles of country rock above. These infiltrating pulses or plumes thus chilled, hardened, and crystallized into the solid fabric of granitic rock collectively called batholith or "deep rock."
By late Cretaceous, about 70 million years ago, the North American plate had overrun most of the Farallon plate beneath it. Several thousand miles of oceanic crust had been consumed and reconstituted at depth. This generated enough large granitic melt zones to ultimately coalesce into the underground basement mesh called the Peninsular Batholith, the bedrock of our present Southern California mountain ranges.
While the batholith is the fusion of hundreds of separate plutonic plumes, it is not homogeneous. Each pluton brings its own history to the mix ranging from the dark-colored gabbroic "black granites" of Cuyamaca Peak to the light colored tonalites and granodiorites of Anza-Borrego's mountains. The general term "granitics" is used herein to describe any of these rocks of plutonic origin. Granite itself is one of many kinds of granitics, all of which are classified according to the relative mix of light colored minerals such as quartz and feldspar and dark colored minerals such as biotite mica, hornblende or pyroxene.
Dark-colored granitics represent the older generations of intrusion and are almost entirely confined to the western half of the batholith, on the gentle west slope of the Lagunas. Abundant quartz-rich rocks, saturated with silica through contamination from the insulating continental crust, represent the younger generations and occur in the eastern, or Anza-Borrego, portion of the batholith. Within the parkland, light-colored tonalite (quartzdiorite) and granodiorite are by far the most abundant.
Field evidence, along with geochemical and petrographic characteristics, suggests that each plutonic intrusion occurred nearly nine miles below the earth's surface and each crystallized at different stages during a lengthy cooling history. Date samples of the Peninsular Batholith spread over an appreciable interval of the Cretaceous Period, from 105 to 65 million years ago, and indicate a systematic eastward decrease in ages of deformation and metamorphism. This is exactly what we would expect to find in the rocks if the sea floor had subducted easterly beneath the continent.
The Peninsular Batholith measures hundreds of miles in length, with a volume of rock so vast that it rivals the Sierra Nevada Batholith of central California. Both are contemporary features of the Nevadan Orogeny ("mountain genesis"), a paroxysm of mountain-building that is responsible for the great curvilinear chain of Mesozoic batholiths that contour western North America.
During the final stages of consolidation of the batholith, hot ascending gases and hydrothermal solutions accompanied many of the granitic intrusions. They forcefully infiltrated well-developed preexisting cracks and fissures, resulting in veins and seams of mineralization. The volatile solutions soon crystallized, forming exceptionally granular igneous dikes and pockets, called pegmatites.
Many of these pegmatites occur throughout the Anza-Borrego area, especially in the Box Canyon, Blair Valley and Grapevine Mountain regions of the park. Here, they can be viewed ranging from thin stringers to large dikes of light-colored quartz and feldspar. Many are remarkably persistent and occur as rows of subparallel dikes, while others may be discontinuous in extent. Mineral aggregates include quartz albite, muscovite and lepidolite micas, and tourmaline.
Large-scale mining of the gem-rich hillsides in the Pala, Mesa Grande and Rincon pegmatite districts (all outside of the park boundary), are productive for their mineral wealth. Renowned the world over, gem-quality crystals of quartz, spodumene, garnet, topaz, beryl and vari-colored tourmaline are mined in pegmatite pockets."
Gemstones are not the only precious minerals found here. Metals, including gold, were also emplaced from the depths in veins as the last of the granites cooled. Gold-bearing quartz ledges, discovered by transplanted miners prospecting for a new bonanza, touched off a sudden flurry of searching throughout the Laguna Mountains. This occurred after the Mother Lode rush in Northern California, and by the 1870s the Julian-Banner Mining District was teeming with hard-rock prospectors, all combing the hills and hoping to strike it rich. Valuable mineral deposits were recovered from several areas in metamorphic rock belonging to the Julian Schist. These rocks had been uplifted and exposed along the Elsinore Fault Zone, on the nearby slopes of Chariot and Banner Canyons. Here, lenticular gold-bearing quartz veins proved to be the most important mineral resource of the area before the turn of the century.
Today, although gold mineralization undoubtedly still exists in the hills near Julian, most gold mining operations are short-lived. It is now more profitable to quarry the granitic rock that once contained the gold. In San Diego County, granitic rock is used as dimension stone, crushed decorative gravels, building materials, gravestones and tombstones, and riprap for harbor jetties.
From:
John W. Robinson and Bruce D. Risher.
The San Jacintos. The Mountain Country from Banning to Borrego
Valley.
Big Santa Anita Historical Society. 1993
In the aftermath of the California Gold Rush,. prospectors scurried all over the mountains and deserts of the West, seeking mineral riches. They did not neglect Southern California. Placer gold deposits were discovered on the East Fork of the San Gabriel River in 1854, in Bear Valley in 1855, and in Holcomb Valley in 1860.
Just when gold seekers entered the San Jacinto Mountains is unknown. It is difficult to pin down a date since prospectors, working singly or in pairs, drifted from place to place, receiving little attention unless they made a strike.
The earliest mention of discoveries in the San Jacintos is found in a dispatch to the Los Angeles Star (August 4, 1860) from its San Bernardino correspondent, which stated "Rich diggings have been discovered in the San Jacinto Mountains, twenty-five miles south east of this place." It is very possible the discoveries were in the hills above Garner Valley. Charles Thomas, who located in the mountain valley in 1861, was reportedly told about the place by some miners who had prospected there.
The strike evidently did not pan out, for it was ten years before Los Angeles newspapers again mentioned mineral discoveries in the San Jacintos. A very intriguing article in the Star (July 6, 1870), quoting a San Bernardino newspaper, hinted that secret mines had existed in the mountains for some time:
The Guardian of the 2d brings intelligence of the discovery of new gold and silver mines. Gold was discovered about forty miles in a south-east direction from the city (San Bernardino]. The Old Padre silver mine has also been discovered in the mountains.... A party has been formed to prospect for the mine.... Charlie Clusker struck upon a well-defined trail leading into the mountains, which he followed, and soon came upon a road, well graded and built of large stones, evidently with care, which following, brought him to the Old Jesuit Mine. Here at last was the mystery solved... Years ago, men had been extensively engaged in mining. The remains of an old shaft was found, partly filled in, but showing marks of the pick and gad. The party at once proceeded to clear away the rubbish, and soon obtained quite a lot of the ore, which is rich enough to satisfy the heart of the most repacious miner --- assaying from $600 to $1000 per ton. The mine has been called the Jesuit, and another, close by, the Old Padre. Steps were at once taken to reap the reward of their perserverance and this week a company was formed, the district named the San Jacinto Mining District, a mining code of laws formed, and preliminary steps taken to energetically work the lodes.
Who were the original miners who had worked the Jesuit and Old Padre mines years earlier? Just where in the mountain were they located? Could they be secret mines dating back to mission or rancho days? No one knows. This is the stuff of which legends are made.
The San Bernardino Guardian (July 16, 1870) mentioned these mystery mines and other new discoveries:
In the San Jacinto range, Mr. Stamps has discovered and is working with arrastras a vein that yields from $100 per ton of ore. Also in this range are the famed Jesuit and Old Padre silver veins, that bid fair to enrich every one possessing an interest in them.
Four years later, the Guardian (March 28, 1874) reported, "A number of San Diegans are at present in the Bladen mining district in the San Jacinto mountains." A week later the San Bernardino newspaper (April 6, 1874) quoted the San Diego Union's story on the new discoveries:
From parties who arrived yesterday from the Bladen Mining District... we learn the most sanguine expectations of the miners. On the original discovery Mr. Bladen has sunk a shaft to the depth of forty feet, which discloses a gradually widening vein of ore.... Six specimens of ore, assayed in San Francisco, show from $80 to $100 per ton. The ledge has been distinctly traced for seven miles.... A large number of people are on the ground and considerable excitement prevails.... It is the general opinion that an exceedingly rich and extensive mineral district is being opened in the San Jacinto mountains.
The Bladen gold mines were discovered and worked by Andrew Bladen, a former farmer and blacksmith from Tennessee, from 1874 into the 1890s. They were located on the western slope of Cahuilla Mountain, above today's community of Sage. The mines were only a marginal success, and were abandoned after Bladen died.(1)
Most of the gold mining activity in the San Jacintos since the 1870s has taken place along a low-grade auriferous belt that runs along the southeastern edge of Garner Valley from Quinn Flat to Bull Canyon. The year mining began in these rocky foothills is not known --- possibly as early as 1860. The earliest name associated with mining in the area is a Mr. Stamps who, as previously mentioned, was prospecting in the San Jacintos as early as 1870. Stamps' name is mentioned several times during the 1870s, but nowhere is there any indication of the precise location of his mining activities. The Los Angeles Herald (November 23, 1879) states that "Messrs. Stamps and Geiger, who have been prospecting near the San Jacinto mountains, returned yesterday. They report the discovery of a sixteen-inch lode twenty-four feet below the surface. Gold in paying quantities is in sight." Seven years later we are at last given a location for Stamps' activities. In the San Diego County Recorders Office, Mining Claims, Book 1, there is a filing for the "Hemet Lode" by C. F Stamps Jr., P. N. Stamps, Theodore Slatey, and T. A. Darling, dated December 8, 1886. The Hemet Lode's location was in the hills above Quinn Flat.
Pacific Nestor Stamps and Charles Fox Stamps Jr. were apparently brothers, the sons of a raisin grape grower from the town of Orange. Both were printers by trade but seem to have spent a good deal of time prospecting in the San Jacintos. Truman A. Darling had been Anaheim's Southern Pacific agent at one time, and was also involved in various mining ventures throughout the Santa Ana Mountains. The identity of Theodore Slatey remains unclear. The Stamps and their associates must be given credit for the earliest known gold discoveries in the Garner Valley area. (2)
The activity at the Stamps' Hemet Lode mine brought in other prospectors to the area. John Quinn was working a mine as early as 1887, possibly before that. Quinn Flat honors his name today.
Here, in the boulder strewn hills that border the southern half of the Garner Valley, occurred one of the greatest frauds ever to take place in a Southern California mining region. Associated with this colossal fraud were the names Eames Chilson and Lewis Hansen.
Richard W Chilson and his son Eames Emil Chilson started the development of their Hemet Belle Mine in 1887. The Chilsons' gold prospect was located on the south ridge of Butterfly Mountain, some 200 feet above Pipe Creek. The Chilsons put in a pipeline from a nearby spring (hence the name Pipe Creek) to run a 5-stamp mill and proceeded to excavate several tunnels. By 1890 Eames Chilson, who seems to have taken over the active operation of the mine from his father, was apparently enjoying some success. An old story, probably apocryphal, goes that "When he went to San Jacinto he lit cigars with $10 bills." The San Jacinto Register (May 25, 1893) optimistically reported, "The mine is valued by its present owners at $85,000. There is over three hundred tons of ore in the 'dump' that will average $25 of free gold to the ton.... The outlook for the 'Hemet Belle' is very promising and the prospects are that it will bring double in a few years what is asked for it now."
The apparent success of Chilson's Hemet Belle encouraged others to check out gold prospects in the Garner Valley area. Three who came in 1895 were Lewis Hansen, Ira Harmon and William Vaughn, who laid claim to their "Litte Lily" Mine just north of the Hemet Belle. Hanson bought out his partners in 1896 and became sole owner. He had an assay done which he claimed showed rich gold deposits averaging more than $100 per ton.
Little is known of Lewis Hansen other than the information he wrote on his voter registration form in the Strawberry precinct on July 7, 1896: He gave his age as 39, his occupation miner, height 5'8", place of birth Denmark, naturalized October 24, 1885 in Oakland, and post office address San Jacinto.(3) How he happened to venture into the San Jacinto Mountains and later be involved in a swindle that would relieve an English investor of his fortune are unknown. There is also a question as to why he gave his address on legal papers as Pasadena, Los Angeles or San Francisco when he was in truth living all that time in the town of San Jacinto or at Kenworthy
The year 1896 saw many hopeful prospectors arrive. The Hemet Mining District, also called the Tahquitz Mining District, was organized. The Riverside Press (August 8, 1896) reported, "There are about 50 men in the camp.... Every ledge so far uncovered is rich in free gold and sulphurets. Assays recently made indicate that the ore is exceptionally high grade."
Lewis Hansen was busy expanding his holdings. He laid claim to 100 inches of water "for mining and milling purposes" and filed on several new mining claims, including what he called the Adventure and the Minnehaha mines.
On December 10, 1896 Hansen made his big move. He sold all his claims, which had cost him next to nothing, to the newly formed Corona Mining and Milling Company, "a copartnership, principal place of business, Pasadena," for $120,000.(4) Two days later, on December 12, 1896, a Certificate of Copartnership was signed and notorized, giving the location as "Kenworthy in the County of Riverside" and listing the partners as Lewis Hansen, San Francisco; Harold Kenworthy, San Gabriel; George Coffin, Pasadena; Edwin Stearns, Pasadena; and Robert Furlong, Pasadena. Kenworthy, as it later turned out, was the major shareholder and thus had the mining camp named for him.(5)
The Riverside Press (December 29, 1896) took notice of this unusual business deal, saying "the consideration" [$120,000] in the transfer of the mining properties from Hansen to the Corona Mining and Milling Company "is the biggest price ever paid in this county"
Harold Kenworthy was a wealthy Englishman, born in London, whose annual income was said to be in the neighborhood of 50,000 English pounds --- a considerable sum in those days. He and his wife Cara had come to America several years earlier and were living in San Gabriel when, for reasons known only to Kenworthy, he decided, or was persuaded, to invest in mining properties. The story goes that he was brought to the Tahquitz Mining District and shown the extremely high assay reports on mines owned by Eames Chilson and Lewis Hansen. The assays, performed at the mining camp, were apparently fully accepted by Kenworthy, whereas a more prudent investor would have demanded additional proof of the mines' value.
Lewis Hansen was named general manager of the Corona Mining and Milling company and began spending generous sums --- mainly Kenworthy's money --- on new equipment and building materials. Expensive machinery was purchased and hauled to the mining camp, including all the parts for an electric cyanide plant with a capacity for processing 100 tons of ore per day, and a portable sawmill powered by a gasoline engine. Redwood lumber from northern California was brought in to build the town of Kenworthy. The company intended to spend $45,000 on improvements and had 22 men at work early in 1897.(6)
In March 1897, two of the original five partners, George Coffin and Edwin Stearns, apparently uneasy over the vast sums being spent by the company and the paltry amounts of gold being recovered, backed out of the partnership, selling their. combined one-sixth interest to Lewis Hansen for $20,000, exactly what they invested in the first place. Hansen then sold another one-twelfth interest to Kenworthy, which meant he only gave the two ex-partners $10,000 of his own funds. Kenworthy had now spent more than $50,000 --- perhaps as high as $80,000 --and was soon to spend even more.(7)
The town of Kenworthy sprang up almost overnight, financed largely by Harold Kenworthy's generosity. The centerpiece was the two-story Corona Hotel, with accommodations for more than sixty persons. Cabins were built for miners and their families. Charles Lockwood put in a general store. Just above town were an assay office, a sawmill, a stamp mill, and the foundations for the cyanide reduction plant, the latest in milling technology . 10,000 feet of 2-inch pipe brought water from what became known as Pipe Creek into the town.
The San Jacinto Register (May 13, 1897) announced that "Mr. Harold Kenworthy, a wealthy Englishman who has great, interest in the mines, was at the Lockwood hotel last week, with his wife and three servants and a string of valuable horses. Mr. Kenworthy has an income, we understand, of $60,000 per annum and consequently can afford to spend a few thousand in the development of these rich ledges and we feel confident that he and his associates will reap a rich reward. The prospects are that the Tahquitz Mining District will be one of the most prosperous in the state."
In the summer of 1897 a still-optimistic Harold Kenworthy built a house in his mining town, into which he and his wife Cara moved. He also built stables for his horses. He continued buying mining claims throughout 1897, apparently spending large sums on "mines" such as the "Little German," "Little Lily," "Lucky Boy," "Little Girl," "Golden Belle," "C.C.," and "Lily Quartz" --- claims that later proved worthless. Money seemed to be no barrier to his dreams of becoming a mining magnate. He also took out an option to buy the nearby Thomas Ranch for $34,000.(8)
A leading citizen of the new mining community was Charles W Lockwood, proprietor of the C. W Lockwood General Merchandise Store. He had come to the town of San Jacinto in 1885, where his parents, Thomas and Lorinda Fay Lockwood, owned the Lockwood Hotel. Charles was attracted by the promise of the Tahquitz mines and filed two mining claims in 1896. The following year he moved, with his wife Emma and young daughter Lela, to Kenworthy, where they lived for a while in a large tent. His widowed mother Lorinda Fay advanced him funds to build his general store. The Lockwood store dealt primarily in staple items such as flour, bacon, coffee and dairy products bought from Thomas Ranch.(9)
Enough people were living in and around Kenworthy by the summer of 1897 for a post office to be established in the store, and Charles Lockwood was appointed the first --- and only --- postmaster. In 1899 the Kenworthy School was established. Charles Lockwood was appointed school trustee by Riverside County Superintendent Edward Hyatt. Hyatt informed Lockwood that the school would receive $400 to handle expenses the first year, with $300 of that going for the teacher's salary. Hyatt wrote that "$25 would buy all the books, paper, pencils, chalk, etc., for the year, probably."(10) Since there were only eight students that first term, the paltry appropriation was apparently sufficient.
Meantime, Lorinda Fay Lockwood, Charles' mother, was bitten with "the gold bug." She began buying mining claims and an interest in the Corona Mining and Milling Company, and spent much of her time in Kenworthy with her son and his family.
Lela Lockwood Noble remembered the good times she experienced as a child in Kenworthy. The noise and excitement of the mines, the pounding stamps at the mill, the high-pitched whine of the sawmill, the scores of people shuffling through town and into her father's store, all of this was heady stuff for a young girl. She fondly remembered the children she played with, particularly the Arnaiz youngsters. Most fun of all, "The Kenworthys had horses and on Sundays there were races and fancy riding."(11)
Fanny Arnaiz Contreras, who also lived there as a child, recalled the friendliness and generosity of Harold and Cara Kenworthy, how they sent gifts of fruit to the Arnaiz family, how they put on special entertainments on weekends --- horse races, greased pig contests, a "fox hunt" where a single rider --- the "fox" --- would ride ahead of the "hunters," who were children, dropping bits of paper to mark his trail.(12)
Despite the happy scenes in town and the rosy predictions in the newspapers, all was not well with the Corona Mining and Milling Company. The Tahquitz mines were producing only a fraction of the gold the early assays had foretold, and some of the claims the company paid dearly for were producing no gold at all. Expenses were far surpassing income. Wages went unpaid and work stopped at the new cyanide reducing plant. General manager Hansen was obliged to borrow $2,000 from Kenworthy as early as March 1897. The shrewd Hansen soon realized --or maybe knew all along --- that there were only piddling amounts of gold in the hills and quietly dumped all or most of his shares in the company. In January 1898 he sold his five-twelfth interest to Lorinda Fay Lockwood. When original copartner Robert Furlong sold his one-sixth interest to an apparently unworried Harold Kenworthy in February 1898, the collapsing Corona Mining and Milling Company was totally in the hands of Kenworthy and the aged Mrs. Lockwood.
The questions arise as to how Harold Kenworthy, about to lose a fortune, could have been so gullible and unaware of what was happening, and how he got "suckered" in the first place. He was obviously far too trusting of the inflated claims of owners anxious to sell. He was totally unaware of the "tricks" often played in the mining business. A recurrent story told down through the years was that the Tahquitz mines were "salted," resulting in the high assays that fooled Kenworthy and other investors. Long-time mountain resident Lincoln Hamilton recalled years later that salting mines was a regular procedure. "All you did was load up a shotgun with gold dust, fire it into the rock, and you had a mine for sale."(13) Lela Lockwood Noble insisted it was common knowledge that the mines were salted to fool investors. "How a mine could be salted
and the deception covered for so long is hard to understand," she mused.(14) That these mining claims could be assayed so high and produce next to nothing makes it almost certain, to these writers, that the ore was altered.
Some have blamed Emil Chilson for salting the several claims he sold to Kenworthy, but recent scholarship on the part of Riverside County historian Jane Davies Gunther fingers Lewis Hansen as the main culprit.(15) Hansen was the only partner in the Corona Mining and Milling Company who came out ahead. He sold his original, highly inflated, mining claims to the newly-formed company for the huge sum of $120,000. Then, as a co-partner, he sold a one-twelfth interest to Kenworthy for $10,000 and later assigned his remaining five-twelfth share to the elderly Mrs. Lockwood for an undisclosed sum. Even allowing for up to $50,000 Hansen may have paid for his original shares, he came out with a tidy profit --- probably squirreled away in some Los Angeles or San Francisco bank.
After the Corona Company's collapse, Lewis Hansen continued his dubious mining career, filing claims on several other mines in the area, but "never found another Harold Kenworthy to sell them to."(16)
Harold Kenworthy must have been devastated when he discovered, early in 1898, that he had been massively swindled. On May 28, 1898 he sold to one J. R. Newberry for TEN DOLLARS all his rights, title and interest in the now defunct Corona Mining and Milling Company, including "the mill, assay office and store room, bunk house, powder magazine, cook house, barn and carriage shed, blacksmith shop, hotel, sawmill, water works, cottage, barn and corral, pipe lines situate and being erected," along with an inventory listing every single item, no matter how small, in every building.(17)
Harold and Cara Kenworthy then quietly left, hopefully wiser from their experience. They were last heard from in British Columbia, when Harold deeded his unfulfilled option on the Thomas Ranch back to the Thomases for the sum of five dollars on November 20, 1900.(18)
The abandoned Corona company property and Kenworthy townsite went through several years in litigation involving Lorinda Fay Lockwood and several litigants, one as far away as Paris, France. In the end, Mrs. Lockwood paid $175 for the hotel property, and $1,500 for all the mines and equipment. The case was closed as of May 1, 1901.(19) The hotel was torn down by Charles Lockwood and the lumber was sold to Keen Camp resort a few miles away.
The town of Kenworthy did not completely disappear. Several families, including the Arnaizs and Joe Hamilton, continued to live there. The one-room Kenworthy School continued to educate children from all over Garner Valley for a decade. Nothing remains at the Kenworthy site today; the present Kenworthy Ranger Station is about a mile northwest of the abandoned ghost town.
Despite the Kenworthy fraud, a number of gold mines continued to be worked in the Garner Valley area. Emil Chilson worked his Hemet Belle Mine until about 1912. Later that year, Irving Carl and a man named Hernandez leased the Hemet Belle and filed on several other claims about a mile east of Kenworthy. They organized the Gold Beauty Mining and Milling Company and put in a 5-stamp mill. The Hemet News (September 13, 1912) reported, "Of the many claims which have been developed, the old Hemet Belle mine is the richest, the ore averaging at least $20 in gold to the ton.... An aerial tramway over 2,000 feet in length carries the ore from the shaft to the stamp mill, located in the valley below. Here the ore is crushed to a pulp and is then transferred through the washing process, and the gold is finally scraped off into bags." Next month, the newspaper (October 4, 1912) stated that Carl and Hernandez were planning to install a cyanide plant at their mines. "Mr. Carl has with him a chunk of gold, the product of 24 hours run, which would easily make five 20-dollar gold pieces.... He believes that even better ore exists and that the company will be milling ore which will run over $300 to the ton." Such was not to be. The Hemet Belle, never more than a marginal success, was not mentioned again for two years. The Hemet News (January 16, 1914) reported that Thomas Post and Hugh Goff were starting work on the Hemet Belle, and then stated the stark truth: "There are a number of gold mines in the mountains, but very few have ore which will justify development." Nevertheless, prospectors have continued intermittently to work the old Hemet Belle, the last one being D. C. Mayne in the 1960s.
In Bull Canyon, near the southern end of the San Jacintos, was the El Toro Mine, first filed upon by José Antonio Estudillo and Manuel Arnaiz in 1893. There was never much ore found there, although it was worked from time to time for several years. Bull Canyon takes its name from the El Toro (the Bull) claim.
William and Rebecca Penrod filed on the Golden Belle Mine in 1896, located in the canyon immediately west of Bull Canyon. They built a cabin and were still living there in 1910 when U.S. Deputy Surveyor George Pearson noted their presence and gave their name to the canyon.
Near the head of Penrod Canyon and extending to the next gully west was the Gold Shot Mine, filed on by Carl and Albert Christiansen in 1918. They dug a 70-foot tunnel and erected a 15-stamp mill near the mouth of Penrod Canyon. The next small gully to the northwest is now named Gold Shot Creek.
There have been hundreds of other mining claims filed in the region, none of them amounting to anything. It has taken years of hard work and thousands of dollars to prove that gold is simply not present in paying quantities in the San Jacinto Mountains.
Although gold recovery in the San Jacintos has been pretty much a bust, other minerals have been successfully mined.
The Garnet Queen Mine on the northwest slope of Santa Rosa Mountain was discovered and developed by Ellsworth Patrick Steward in 1897. Despite the name which suggests gemstones, the Garnet Queen was a tungsten mine. The tungsten ore was recovered from two long open cuts on the mountainside. The mine changed hands over the years and met with varying success. The California Journal of Mines and Geology for October 1941 reported a small concentration plant had been installed with an operating capacity of ten tons per day Other patented tungsten mines in the Santa Rosas were the Indian, the Phoenix, the Pigeon Creek, the Burnt Cow and the Ribbonwood, none of them profitable.(20)
Asbestos, a fire-resistant mineral, was in great demand by industry during the latter part of the 19th century The world's first commercial asbestos mine had been opened in Quebec only in 1878, so when the black material was discovered on the north side of Pinyon Flat, above Palm Canyon in 1880, excitement ensued. By 1888, the John D. Hoff Asbestos Company of San Diego was actively recovering the mineral and transporting it down the mountain by burro-back.(21) This method of moving the ore out proved inadequate, so after the mines changed ownership in the early 1890s, a wagon road was built. The Riverside Press (December 7, 1896) reported that one F. M. Casner "had completed the building of a road, eight miles in length, to the great asbestos mines of that section [Pinyon Flat] which is the property of the Pacific Asbestos Company of Los Angeles. Mr. Casner has the contract of mining and hauling to the San Jacinto depot, a distance of 40 miles, 80 tons per year. He formerly used burros, but by the new road he can drive [wagons] right to the mines." The "Asbestos Road" went from Pinyon Flat westward to the southern edge of Garner Valley, then down "Nigger Jim Grade" to Cahuilla Valley, thence northwest down Bautista Canyon to the railroad depot in San Jacinto. The railroad then shipped the material to Los Angeles, where it was used in the manufacture of boilers and cooking utensils. The asbestos mines continued in operation for many years. The California Journal of Mines and Geology (July 1945) reported that 800 tons of the material were being mined and shipped to Los Angeles, where the asbestos was used in the manufacture of automobile batteries, by 1930. The Journal listed two asbestos mines north of Pinyon Flat --- the Dunn Mine owned by Elmer E. Dunn, and the Percival Mine, owned by Jim Wellman and Jack Harris. Today, Asbestos Mountain and Asbestos Spring commemorate this industrial mining venture.
Asbestos Spring, below the west slope of Asbestos Mountain, was used by the early miners for drinking water. The Riverside Press (November 24, 1894) commented on the toxic effects of drinking from "the arsenic spring known to all the ranchers of the mountains in that region. Its use generally blanches the faces of the workmen to a ghastly pallor, and produces peculiar effects in other ways upon the human frame." The long-term deadly effects of asbestos on humans was, of course, unknown at that time. One wonders how many of the asbestos miners later died from lung disease.
Semi-precious gems in the form of tourmaline were also mined in the San Jacintos. "Uncle Jim" Hamilton discovered tourmaline on the south end of Thomas Mountain in 1872. He picked up a few gems and showed them around but it was not until 1893 that serious mining efforts were made. In that year, both the Columbia Gem Mine and the San Jacinto Gem Mine were opened on Thomas Mountain, and some of the finest tourmaline crystals in the world were recovered. It was reported that more than a bushel of fine gems was recovered that first year, including a beautiful red and green crystal eight inches long that was purchased by Harvard University. Another fine specimen was bought by the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The tourmaline excitement drew quite a number of prospectors to the Thomas Mountain region. The Riverside Press (January 12, 1897) reported that a tourmaline mine owned by "Messrs. Jackson and Whiting in the Tahquitz district" was recovering some valuable gems. "Two specimens just taken out measured 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches each and are valued at about $400 each, as they are very valuable for ring settings, pins, etc. The color of these stones varies from a dark green to a deep amethyst. This is the only mine in the United States outside of Maine.... The largest tourmaline stone ever found in the world was taken out of this mine by Mr. Chilson and placed on exhibition at the World's Fair, where it took the premium. It was afterwards sold to an Englishman for $500."
In 1902 more tourmaline gems were discovered on Cahuilla Mountain by Bert Simmons. His Fano Gem Mine became notable for the sparkling blue, aquamarine and green tourmaline crystals it produced.(22)
So it was the unlikely combination of tourmaline and asbestos that highlighted mining in the San Jacinto Mountains and made small contributions to the region's economy Gold was never a real factor here, although it certainly produced a colossal story of fraud.
NOTES1. Jane Davies Gunther, Riverside County, California, Place Names: Their Origins and Their Stories (Riverside, 1984), p. 57; Charles Van Fleet interview, San Jacinto, 1971.
2. Information on Pacific Nester Stamps, Charles Fox Stamps Jr., and Truman A. Darling comes from Orange County historians Phil Brigandi and Jim Sleeper.
4. Ibid., p. 263. Gunther searched through Riverside County records to root out the details on this complicated mining enterprise.
6. John B. Brumgardt, "Tea, Crumpets, and San Jacinto Gold: The Short-Lived Town of Kenworthy, California, 1897-1900,
Pacific Historian, Fall 1976, p. 279.
9. Lela Lockwood Noble interview, San Jacinto, March 10, 1973.
12. Fanny Arnaiz Contreras, quoted in Brumgardt, p. 283.
13. Idyllwild Town Crier, April 12, 1963,
20. The Reports of The State Mineralogist, later the California Journal of Mines and Geology, and still more recently California Geology, contain a wealth of information on state mining activities. See the annual Reports for 1917 and 1932, and the Journals of October 1941 and July 1945 for mining in Riverside County.
22. Report of The State Mineralogist, 1917, p. 574; California Journal of Mines and Geology, July 1945, p. 165.
Anza, the Place