Kearsarge or Kearsarge City is a former mining settlement in

Inyo County 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 o ...

, eastern

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 ...

. It was located high on the east slope of the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

, near Kearsage Pass, west of present-day town of

Independence, California Independence is a census-designated place in Inyo County, California. Independence is located south-southeast of Bishop, at an elevation of 3930 feet (1198 m). It is the county seat of Inyo County, California. The population of this census-de ...

. The mining camp was in the Kearsarge Mining District, located just below the high granite

Kearsarge Peak Kearsarge Peak is a mountain located less than two miles east of the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in Inyo County, California, Inyo County in northern California. It is situated immediately northwest of Onion Valley in the John Muir ...

, and east of the Kearsarge Pass.

History

Kearsarge was named after the Union man-of-war , which had recently sunk the Confederate ship off the coast of France. A nearby settlement had been named

Alabama Hills The Alabama Hills are a range of hills and rock formations near the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada in the Owens Valley, west of Lone Pine in Inyo County, California. Though geographically separate from the Sierra Nevada, they are part of ...

by Confederate sympathizers, so this "evened the score" after the naval battle. In the Autumn of 1864, on the side of a then-unnamed mountain, five woodcutters discovered a vein of rich silver and gold ore. The men staked their claims to Kearsarge, Silver Sprout, and Virginia Mines. They mined and shipped four tons of ore to a

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operatio ...

in Nevada, receiving $900 a ton. The news of location of their mine leaked out, and the Kearsarge Mining District, and eponymous mining camp below the mines, was established high in the Eastern Sierra. Several mine investors purchased the three main silver claims, forming the Kearsarge Mining Company. These new owners had driven a tunnel into the southeast side of the mountain by August 1865, reaching $650+ per ton ore. After a winter of heavy snow, on the afternoon of March 1, 1866, an avalanche swept away most of the town and some of the population, killing the wife of the mine foreman and injuring several men. Francis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra, SIERRA CLUB. San Francisco, 1926, pp.91-92, KEARSARGE PASS, PEAK (12,650), PINNACLES, LAKE
/ref> A camp was relocated to a safer site nearby, but most of the town's population departed, except the miners who continued to operate the mines and a mill that was constructed that summer. The Rex Montis mine, which became the principal gold source in the District, was worked on a large scale from 1875 to 1883. Kearsarge was mostly abandoned by 1888. The mill was removed and little else remained, but it was occupied intermittently as attempts were later made to revive the mines with little success.Clark, Gold districts of California, p.84

References

External links

1871 Lithograph of the Kearsarge Mining Works, Kearsarge District, from David Rumsey Historical Map Collection website, accessed September 27, 2011.

* ttp://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/rex_montis_mine/page80.html Rex Montis Mine from owensvalleyhistory.com website, accessed September 27, 2011. {{authority control Ghost towns in Inyo County, California Mining communities in California Gold mining in California History of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Populated places established in 1863 Former populated places in California 1863 establishments in California