Middle Pass District – Cochise County, Arizona
Easily accessible
High clearance 4WD
Contact us for exact coordinates.

The Dragoon Mine is one of a handful of mines that date back to the 1600s and Spanish Mining Times on China Peak. The Dragoon Mine is cut near the summit of China Peak at 6500'. Very high for the flat state of Arizona. The Dragoon Mine is one part of a variety of gold outcrops which are contained within the Mining Claim. It is a 300' adit with various small drifts and some short raises. The Dragoon mine is cut following a wide vein, from 4-15' wide that runs on a nearly flat plane. The vein starts to split 150' back into the main drift and the offshoots have been noted but not worked in earnest. There were small bits of gold observed by the surveyors. This running in the "dirty" part of the quartz. The dark, oxidized iron is the indicator of the gold and there are also significant black sands present in the drifts. This broken out while the miners were working the site more than 100 years ago. The mine is cut into competent rock throughout and there are no sections of slough or collapse. The air quality inside the mine was consistent and clean. There were no other contaminations or gases detected. The Dragoon Mine was likely part of the San Juan Group of Mines who produced 8000 tons of Gold Ore prior to 1941. The Property is roughly 20 miles northeast of the historical city of Tombstone, Arizona The trail is in excellent repair and in clear, dry conditions could be traversed with a 2WD, high-clearance vehicle. There is a small creek that runs 20' from the front of the mine. It is in an established stream bed but likely is dry by July or August.

The deposits have all been small mantos and chimneys of pyro metasomatic replacement in Paleozoic limestones near the contact with Stronghold Granite or rhyolite dikes. Among the larger mining operations in this district are (I) the Abril mine, 30,000 tons zinc-copper-lead ore; (2) the San Juan mine, just off of China Peak, 8000 tons of gold ore and 15,000 tons of zinc ore; and (3) the Middle March mine, 11,000 tons of copper-zinc ore (Keith, 1973). Total reported production of the Middle Pass mining district, through 1970, amounted to about 76,000 tons (69,000 mr) of ore. Updated values report 837 oz gold, 147,000 oz silver, 4,626 tons (4200 mr) of zinc, 1005 tons (915 mr) of copper, 137 tons (125 mt) of lead 2.5 tons (2.3 mt) scheelite concentrate, and 75 tons (68 mr) of hand sorted barite, with a cumulative value of about $1,725,000 (Keith, 1973).

The Dragoon Mine is nearly 300' of hard rock workings likely cut when an outcropping of gold was noted. There are some other such outcrops that show small flecks of native gold on the claim.

Surveyors noted sections of minor stoping (high grading) throughout the drift. This likely indicating no major mining operations have been present in the mines. Mineralization is easily identifiable against the host rock. A dark vein with quartz, iron and native gold follows a nearly horizontal drift. Surveyors noted black sands in the workings, consistent with high-grade river and placer operations much farther below.

This is a claim that could be viably worked using Casual Use methods, by simply breaking out the vein from inside the mountain and then crushing that ore and then panning the gold out of it. This could be done onsite with a permit, or off site.

The Dragoon Mine could also be worked commercially by a small company willing to sample out the drifts and identify the veins and trends.

Federally Registered Mining Claim ID: AMC 440530