Noonday Camp, also known as Mill City, Noonday City, and Tecopa, is a
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
located in the
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in ...
east of
Tecopa
Tecopa (formerly Brownsville) is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Mojave Desert, in Inyo County, California, United States. Tecopa is located south-southeast of Shoshone, at an elevation of . The population was 150 at the 2010 census, u ...
in
Inyo County, California
Inyo County () is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is ...
.
Upper Noonday Camp is located at , while Lower Noonday Camp is located just south of it at .
History
The Finley Company built the town in the 1940s support the nearby War Eagle, Noonday, and Columbia lead mines. It was later used by the
Anaconda Copper Company
The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company between 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mi ...
, who constructed the lead ore concentration mill during 1947–1948. The town was abandoned in 1972. Compared to other mining ghost towns in the region, Noonday Camp became a ghost town quite recently.
Lead mining ended in 1957 when the U.S. government reached its strategic stockpile goal. The Tecopa and Darwin lead mines - which worked three shifts during the war years - closed.
Site
The remains of the mining operation can be found, collapsed timber structures, foundations, slabs, rock walls, and equipment pads.
;Lower Noonday Camp
The mill's large water tank marks the location. Near the now rapidly deteriorating mill and debris pool is the site of Lower Noonday Camp or "Married Mans Camp". 18 to 20 foundations can be found buried in the brush, along with a small graveyard, slag from the 1870s
lead smelter
Plants for the production of lead are generally referred to as lead smelters. Primary lead production begins with sintering. Concentrated lead ore is fed into a sintering machine with iron, silica, limestone fluxes, coke, soda ash, pyrite, ...
, and a few
adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...
buildings.
;Upper Noonday Camp
Across the Western Talc Road and up the arroyo is a cliff-side dugout dwelling. A water pipe ran from the well to Upper Noonday Camp or "Single Mans Camp" on Furnace Creek Road, used by Anaconda's employees from 1949 until 1957, and then Western Talc's employees until 1972. It was abandoned, scavenged by the locals, and torn down in 1978.
Foundations of the supervisors and guest houses, several slabs that supported the kitchen, boarding house, and bunkhouses are evident, along with a lot of debris. Prominent is the cinder block vault that held the script currency the miners could use at the company commissary.
;Talc mine
Roads from the site of Noonday Camp go to the Noonday and War Eagle mines. The large white open pit of the talc mine is on Western Talc Road. Talc went out of favor due to its asbestos content. Visible from Highway 127 and the Old Spanish Trail are the landmark Tecopa bins, built in 1944. One was for lead, the other talc. The lead ore was trucked to the UP siding at Dunn and shipped to smelters in Utah.
See also
*
*
References
External links
Ghosttowns.com: Noonday CampLower Noonday Camp, Inyo CountyUpper Noonday Camp, Inyo County
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Ghost towns in Inyo County, California
Lead mines
Mining communities in California
Populated places in the Mojave Desert
Former settlements in Inyo County, California
Former populated places in California
History of the Mojave Desert region