The Salt Spring Hills are a low mountain range 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 ...

, in northern

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County (), officially the County of San Bernardino, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181, ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. They are just outside the southeastern corner of

Death Valley National Park Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eureka ...

, southeast of the

Saddle Peak Hills The Saddle Peak Hills are a mountain range in the Mojave Desert, in northern San Bernardino County, southern California. They are located within the southeastern corner of Death Valley National Park, northeast of the Avawatz Mountains. See also ...

. The road between

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...

and

Baker A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient history Since grains ha ...

passes through the hills.

History

From 1831 to 1848, the Old Spanish Trail passed from

Salt Spring A brine spring or salt spring is a saltwater spring. Brine springs are not necessarily associated with halite deposits in the immediate vicinity. They may occur at valley bottoms made of clay and gravel which became soggy with brine seeped downslo ...

on Salt Creek east of the Salt Spring Hills near its confluence with the Amargosa River through the hills near Amargosa Spring.Edward Leo Lyman, Overland Journey from Utah to California: Wagon Travel from the City of Saints to the City of Angels, University of Nevada Press, 2008. In 1849, when

Jefferson Hunt Jefferson Hunt (January 20, 1803 – May 11, 1879) was a U.S. western pioneer, soldier, and politician. He was a captain in the Mormon Battalion, brigadier general in the California State Militia, a California State Assemblyman, and a representa ...

led a Mormon party of several wagons along the Old Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, they camped at Salt Spring east of the Salt Spring Hills. Some of the party discovered gold in the creek and traced it to a quartz vein in the nearby hills near Amargosa Spring. The Salt Spring Hills were named for Salt Spring, on the

Mormon Road Mormon Road, also known to the 49ers as the Southern Route, of the California Trail in the Western United States, was a seasonal wagon road pioneered by a Mormon party from Salt Lake City, Utah led by Jefferson Hunt, that followed the route of S ...

that passed just west of the hills, where the gold was first found. This discovery which became known once the party reached the

Rancho Santa Ana del Chino Rancho Santa Ana del Chino was a Mexican land grant in the Chino Hills and southwestern Pomona Valley, in present-day San Bernardino County, California. It was granted to Antonio Maria Lugo in 1841 by Mexican Alta California Governor Juan Bauti ...

, set off the first gold rush in the

. Several mining companies attempted to mine in the hills from the early 1850s. Mrs. Rousseau and her doctor husband traveled the Mohave Desert in the final months of 1864 with a wagon train from Utah bound for San Bernardino. That train passed the Salt Spring Hills, where Mrs. Rousseau mentioned in her diary, dated December 4, that there were four houses and a quartz mill there, and that three men who had been serving as caretakers for a mine located there had been killed by Indians eight weeks earlier.Richard D. and Kathryn L. Thompson, Pioneer of the Mojave: The Life and Times of Aaron G. Lane, Page 7, RIDING OUT THE CIVIL WAR
from empirenet.com, accessed July 5, 2019.

References

Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert Mountain ranges of San Bernardino County, California Hills of California Old Spanish Trail (trade route) Mormon Road {{SanBernardinoCountyCA-geo-stub

History

See also

Further reading

References