Tibbetts Mining District, Inyo County, California, USA.

The Tunapi claim is a sister claim to the King Claim. The Tunapi Claim is laid out running NW and SE, parallel to the King Claim. The Tunapi claim contains 3 mines, including one major working with extensive drifts and tunnels. More on the mines below. This is a gold mine, and gold mining camp. The surveyors reported extensive mining remnants around the site, including a massive old separator and screen, an ore bin, and many, many relics strewn across the site. The site is laid out just below a short knoll and has easy access, as long as you have 4WD. The roads to the claim are clean and in good repair, but do make several crossings over sandy washes. These washes will sink a 2WD in most cases. The claim is a standard lode claim, running 1500? x 600? for a total of 20 acres. The land above is mostly flat, low rolling desert. The climate is ideal for winter, spring and fall working. The summer months will get hot, but if you have water and supplies you will be fine. The site is up in the hills, but less than 10 miles of easy desert roads from Independence, CA. This is a stunning find in California’s Owens Valley and will not disappoint. There are total of 3 mines on the Tunapi claim. Mine IDs 3518-3520. All of the mines are shafts, but dont let that scare you. There is a lot of gold out here, enough to make the most timid prospector jump in with both feet. Mine ID 3518 is an apparent junk shaft. It looks like the miners from both the King and the Tunapi mines used this as a hole to dump all of their trash. Mine ID 3519 – This mine is a short shaft, only 58 feet. Its roughly 3? wide by 4?. There is some exposed quartz near the top, but nothing of much other interest in the shaft. There may be something that we missed or didnt see, but this looks like an attempt to intercept the same rich ore body that the 3520 shaft is sunk on. Mine ID 3520 – This is the motherlode shaft. What an amazing find. The surveyors were not excited at this shaft by any means, but they are paid to examine every shaft, regardless of what it looks like from above. There is a foundation up top, it looks like it may have been for a winch and motor. The shaft entrance is timbered and generally set for extracting ores. The total depth of the shaft is about 110?. However, there are many drifts inside this beast and each one is working on a massive lode that is hit at about 20 feet down. The lode seems to run generally NW and SE and the tunnels cut on the lode follow that trend. There is a drift 32 feet down that runs off both sides of the shaft. This has been cut on the top of a rich quartz, gold bearing lode. The drifts are tall and capture what must have been the richest sections of the lode at this level. There is still exposed ores of gold, possible silver and lead and molybdenum. This all runs through a beautiful, bluish quartz body. Running down to the 45 ft level there is another larger drift, this one more than 50? on one side. There is some amazing mineralization here. Gold runs in small flake, and assumed veins. We didn't see any veins, but the flake was clearly visible with a loupe on the quartz body. There is a lot of ore here, and a lot left to work and expose. There is another part of a stope that opens up at 54 feet and the actual drift begins at 75?. This is a large drift, well over 100? with old ore buckets, ladders and a host of other relics. The real treasure in here is the gold again. There is a huge quartz body, as noted above, and this gold runs with that quartz like a magnet. The stope has been opened up and has several supports still in place. As you reach the bottom of the shaft, it further continues as an incline. This is chasing along the bottom of the quartz lode and there is gold visible here with the naked eye. Its in tiny flecks and nuggets in the quartz, the assumption being that there was extensive gold deposits take from this area. Total, there are over 300 ft of workings not including the stoping. This mine has excellent potential and it is assumed these mines are intercepting the Jack Rabbit lode, where gold was also found in quartz, less than 1/4 mile from the King and the Tunapi claims.

Primary – Gold
Secondary -Silver
Tertiary – Copper

The Tunapi Mines are located in the Tibbetts Mining District, Inyo County, California. Paying orebodies generally trend northwest and do not usually dip much more than 200ft. A number of narrow quartz veins in Peleozoic metasediments and granitic rocks bear free gold and often abundant sulfides. Placer deposits, including those of Mazourka Canyon, were worked by dry placer methods from 1894 until 1906.

Host Rock:
The host rock is mapped as granitic, however the massive amounts of quartz and the lack of quartz in waste rock suggests anomalous deposits of precious metals were exported in quartz and of great value as there is virtually no quartz in the waste rock.

Mineral Deposits:
Economically viable deposits of gold in native form have been observed and reported. The Jack Rabbit Lode has been noted for production value gold, also noted is copper in small amounts. The ore is found in Mesozoic granitic rocks, unit 3. Consistent with deposits in the Sierra Nevada, Death Valley area, Northern Mojave Desert and Transverse Ranges vein and replacement. The mineral assemblage of quartz veins with iron and precious metals indicate this mine was an actual producing claim. The vein strikes N42E and dips 87NW (Geach, 1972) and is 4?-10’ wide. Winters et al (1994) observed six caved shafts and 1,500’ of underground workings. Production records from 1914 show 10 oz Au, 39 oz Ag, and 88 lbs of Cu from 9 tons of ore.

Tibbetts Mining District History:
Its hard to make an accurate assessment of mines and mining claims today. The history, the books and the documents change over time. Universities and Agencies seem to write and release documentation designed to deter the average miner.
GRE employs a field and research Geologist, we examine each mine, and determine its actual potential. This is based on documented and verifiable history, as well as field observations and mapping of the sites. This helps us thoroughly and accurately describe our claims, as well as help you make informed decisions regarding the purchasing of a mining claim. In addition, the geological and historical information provided gives claim owners the tools to know where to look. After all, the gold, precious metals and minerals are out there, and there is a lot of it, you just have to know where to look. If you need more information, please feel free to contact our office and set an appointment to discuss your desired property.

Inyo County Overview:
Mexicans in the 1800?s are credited with the first discovery of many of the deposits located on the lower slopes of the Inyo Mountains. It is likely that the amount of production was small. In 1851, the Russ mining district was established, located southeast of Independence, Calif., but the first important discovery was not made until 1862 at the San Carlos mine. Several other important gold-silver-copper deposits were discovered, mainly within a 12-mi radius of Kearsarge Station, including the Black Eagle mine, Alice Quartz mine, and the Custer (Baxter) mine. By 1890, stamp mills in Owens Valley at Chrysopolis, Willow Spring, the Reward mine, and the Montezuma mine, had or were processing local ores. A smelter at Elna Station, near Big Pine, Calif., processed ore from the Montezuma mine. Smaller amounts of gold were also recovered from arrastras located near springs. Most of the ore that did not contain free-milling gold was shipped by rail to various smelters in California and Nevada.

With few exceptions, most lead and silver properties were discovered at a later date. The more important properties showed production from 1880 to 1950. The three largest producers in the area were the Montezuma mine, Blake mine, and Custer (Baxter) mine. Approximately 8,000 claims have been located in the northern part of the Inyo Mountains since 1862. The number of workings are several times less than 8,000 indicating that many of the properties have been relocated numerous times. Five properties have a record of leasing, and currently 40 lode and 10 placer claims in the areas are active. The Eureka Consolidated Quartz mine and the Senator were the only properties patented.

Mining districts were important in Inyo County from 1860 until about 1920 and were used as a means of general claim location. With the increased availability of topographic maps, location by section, township, and range became standard. At least 105 district names were used in Inyo County, but only 61 gained wide acceptance. Often smaller districts or sub-districts were developed within the larger districts which helped define locations more clearly. The Tibbetts and Kearsarge Districts were sub-districts of the Independence District in the Inyo Mountains.
Independence Mining Town

Independence takes its name from Camp Independence, a military outpost established on Oak Creek, July 4, 1862. In the early 1860?s many of the miners en route to the gold rush town of Aurora stayed to try their luck in the Owens Valley. By 1865 water diverted from the Owens River worked stamp mills in the Inyo Mts. and “arrastras” crushed the ore of rich veins from mines at 12,000 feet in the High Sierra. In 1873, the town of Independence was already twelve years old and had become the County Seat of the newly organized County of Inyo. The town was rebuilding after the terrible earthquake of 1872. The second Courthouse was built and lumber was now used in most of the houses instead of the old adobe bricks that had been the case before the earthquake. The creek, now known as Independence Creek, ran through the town, flowing down across the present courthouse yard. There were several small branches of the creek, and during wet weather the town was marshy, its streets a sea of mud churned up by the sixteen and twenty-four mule teams pulling the large ore wagons.

Tibbetts Mining District:
The Tibbetts District is in the Inyo Range, about 10 miles northeast of Independence. Bend City and San Carlos were the mining towns that served the Tibbetts District. Bend City was located a few miles East of what is now know as Independence and was one of the first mining towns to be established in the Eastern Sierra. It was also the site of the first bridge in Inyo County to span the Owens River. In the early 1860s Bend City and its rival, San Carlos three miles to the north, were prosperous mining towns. In 1864 Bend City boasted 60 houses, five mercantile stores, two hotels with dining rooms, two blacksmiths, a shoe shop, tailor shop and laundry. Today, all that remains of Bend City is piles of melted adobe bricks that served as building materials for the homes and businesses of its residents. Visitors can see large scattered stones, glass fragments and heavy nails and bars forged from iron.

During its prime, Bend City and neighboring towns joined together to establish a new California county, named “Coso.” The county was never formally recognized due to late filing of legal paperwork. The people of Bend City began leaving town, seeking the more fertile land on the west side of the Owens Valley. Pauite Indian disturbances, the loss of their opportunity to create a separately identified government, and finally the devastation caused by the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake led to Bend City vanishing from the landscape. Damage from the quake was so severe, it changed the course of the Owens River, creating no further need for the bridge crossing. The Adobe brick homes toppled during the earthquake. The Bend City No. 299 California Historical Landmark is located along Mazourka Canyon Road, 4.6 miles outside of Independence.

Marzourka Canyon heads North East into the Inyo Mountains. Both lode and placer mining claims have been worked in Mazourka Canyon for over 100 years. Tunnels and shafts are found throughout the canyon. Bonanza Gulch, a side canyon to the south about 13 miles along the route, and Santa Rita Flat to the north, boomed after a cloudburst in 1894: torrents of water-uncovered gold ranging in size from ten-cent to ten-dollar nuggets.