New Wave of Gold Mining

I found an article that my mother Marion Deaver wrote in August of 1974 about the price of gold going up and regulations relaxing, and I thought about the Golden Queen Mine, just south of Mojave.

In the article my mother interviewed Glenn Settle, owner of Tropico Gold Mine, west of Rosamond. President Gerald Ford had just approved legislation that would allow U.S. citizens to buy and sell gold.

In 1974 the hills that rise above the valley in East Kern were mostly quiet, but some like Settle, hoped that those hills would bustle with activity, as they did in the 1800s as miners worked hard to find their fortune in “them thar hills.”

Settle and others at that time were taking a “wait and see” approach to see if the then new legislation had any impact on the price of gold.

Settle said that the price of gold would have to rise to “at least $200 an ounce” to pay him to begin mining operations again at Tropico. (Today, as I write this, the price of gold is listed at $1,319 per ounce, and it is down from earlier markets. It is a far cry from Settle’s hope of $200 per ounce.)

Tropico Gold Mine had not been in operation since 1956, and more than $8 million in gold had been taken out of the mine prior to its closure. Settle noted that there was very little gold left in the main tunnel.

Settle and his wife Doreen found another “gold mine” at Tropico when they turned the site into a gold camp and museum, with other old buildings moved there for others to visit. Thousands of visitors from around the world visited the gold camp and took tours to the mine tunnel and “glory hole” at the top of Tropico Hill.

Most of the other mines in the area between Mojave and Rosamond, including the Golden Queen, Cactus Queen, and Silver Queen had water in their shafts and it would cost too much to pump them out and make them operational again, Settle said in 1974.

Another mine owner, Al Pauley owned the Whitmore Mine, located three miles south of Mojave, and was skeptical of the new law helping mining in East Kern.

He said that there was only one mill left and it was at Tropico, so most would have to ship their ore elsewhere to separate the gold from the slag.

“It can take up to a ton of ore to produce one ounce of gold,” he explained.

There is a new wave of gold mining getting ready to become operational just south of Mojave, however. The Golden Queen Mining Company, Ltd. It is in the midst of construction on Soledad Mountain.

Work began in July of 2013 and is expected to be finished this month, according to a December, 2013 press release issued by Golden Queen Mining.

Some of the construction included access roads, and site preparation for a workshop and warehouse. The company is working on finding the best dust suppressant for the area once production starts.

The company is not looking at deep mining in the mountain, but a gold-silver, open pit, heap leach operation that is fully permitted, according to owner Lutz Klingman, president of the operation.

The Soledad Mountain Project will use conventional open pit mining methods and the cyanide heap leach and Merrill-Crowe processes to recover gold and silver from the crushed agglomerated ore.

Over 8,300 tons of ore was mined by others there in the late 1950s. Those of you who have read my column recently remember the stories of two women who lived on Soledad as part of their childhood. At that time there was no mining to speak of taking place on the mountain.

At one time in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s the Cactus Queen, south of the Gold Queen, had a mining operation going for gold and silver.

I am sure that if Settle and some of his other old mining friends were still alive they would be amazed at the price of gold and the modern mining techniques which make the type of mining at Soledad possible.