The Tucki Mine

The remaining Tucki Cabin

The scenery overtakes you long before the road reaches the site. Towering canyons and broad vistas are far more attractive than any artificial feature of the Tucki Mine road. The road begins by slithering off of Emigrant Canyon Road along the base of Tucki Mountain, a rather stand-alone peak of the Panamints, providing unique view of the valley below. Soon enough the driver is engulfed by the orange whirls of Telephone Canyon, so named for the Skidoo-Rhyolite telephone line that ran though it. The driver splits off into a side canyon, and enters a towering and broad gorge separating Tucki from the rest of the Panamints. Cresting the pass, the view of Furnace Creek dominates the horizon and the road descends into the head of a canyon that contains various mining relics.

Sweeping views of Death Valley along the road to Telephone Canyon.

The Tucki Mine was first located in a claim report in April of 1909, and relocated several times in the late 1920s. Serious work on the claims were not reliably recorded until 1937, when Ed Attaway and Sam Ball were recorded trucking ore to Death Valley Junction in the Amsrgosa Valley for processing and later to the massive cyanide mill in Keeler, in the Owens Valley. Ore was reported as $12 to $60 per ton, and the mysterious Roy Journigan of Journigan's mill established part ownership. By 1938, about $850 in revenue every two weeks. At this time until 1940, ore was treated at Journigan's mill twenty or so miles away in Emigrant Canyon. In 1940 a crude cyanide leaching mill was built, and all ore was treated here.

Orange alluvium walls in the canyon. The same type of
rock found in Goblin Canyon.

Until the 70s, little work was performed on the mine. In 1975, two of the four Tucki claims were allowed to expire and the remaining claims were reopened. A more efficient jaw crusher and advanced leaching facility were planned for the mine and tailings of the mine were leached with the existing crude facility for remaining gold. Twenty-five tons of ore processed were projected for each day of operation. The operation closed shortly after its resurrection having produced only a few dozen ounces of gold. In total, the site produced little more than $18,000 in gold, and like most mines, much less than that in profit. The final recorded production of gold was in 1971.

Rubicon in the overhang 

It really is quite similar to Goblin Canyon, the wider parts.

Winding two-track

View from above Tucki Camp out toward Furnace Creek

View from the crest of the pass.

This picture again. The Tucki Cabin used to be maintained, but now
suffers the ravages of time. The shed to the left is slowly taking the
cabin down as the elements penetrate inside.

Inside the decrepit cabin.

1970s-era Dr. Pepper can. I added it to the
collection of finds in front of the cabin.

The head frame of one of the main inclined shaft above the small ore bin.

Peering into said shaft.

The ore bin and camp. The grizzly on top is made of pipes.

The camp including the 1940s leaching tanks. Four cinder-block tanks lined
with sheet metal with a steel gate held tailings while cyanide was leached
onto ore.

Inside one of the tunnels. None went far.

This tunnel has a small shaft at the back.