Exploring and Informing: The Garibaldi Mine

The Garibaldi mine can be considered the first major mine in the Wild Rose District. Its earliest deposits were discovered as early as 1874 by Italians Joe and Zeff Nossano, Joe Lanji, and Charles Andrietta. Probably the first Italians in the region, they located eight rich outcrops of silver ore. The Inyo Independent newspaper reported:

Among them is the 'Garibaldi' mine, a very large lode, showing on the surface hundreds of tons of rich ore. An average sample of the ores of this mine, assayed by J. L. Porter, of Cerro Gordo, yielded $238.18 per ton in silver.

This was an impressive silver deposit if the reports were accurate, but little work was done on the claims for some time. Some of the lodes were assayed up to $1800 per ton. Interestingly, the eastern portion of these deposits was worked by E.M. Bentley, from the Christmas Gift Mine in Nemo Canyon for some time.

Even though little work had been done, interest began to develop and they were heralded as the most promising in the county, and before long a San Francisco company purchased all eight of the Nossano Brothers' claims for a whopping $70,000 dollars in 1875. The San Francisco investors incorporated as the Garibaldi Mining Co, and by April of the next year a 100-foot incline shaft had been sunk along the top of the vein, employing several men to cut tunnels and drifts to tap the ledge. The Superintendent, Irwin, unfortunately decided the ledge had petered out after reaching ore selling for $600 per ton, possibly due to an error in sinking the shaft and digging away from the ore. The mine lay abandoned for some time after this misfortune.

The mine was relocated and reclaimed by W. L. Hunter and several other gentlemen from Lone Pine in 1883, and their first order or business was to sell the tailings on the mine dump to San Francisco, about 150 tons at $150 per ton, used to finance ongoing digging at the Garibaldi (now called the Blue Bell) site. The mine underwent several relocations and name changes over the years, and very little ore was produced from 1906 to 1953, when the Blue Bell Cabin was probably built and the surrounding land was mined for ore, about 150 total tons between 1953 and 1967, that was shipped to Barstow. There was a lot of silver that came out of this mine, but it still manages to stay under the radar of Death Valley History.

The trek to this mine is not easy. Two miles downhill, over 1,000 feet downhill, that is, to a few stone cabin remains and a lonely adit. The views alone make up for the steep return however.