Standard Hill sits just south of Mojave, California. Today, it appears to be just another rocky desert butte, but for more than a century, people were convinced it was a golden hill.
It started in 1894 when George Bowers, a lone prospector, stumbled across gold in the rocks. His first load of ore was worth $1,600, a substantial sum back then. Word spread fast. Soon, miners were sinking shafts into veins with colorful names, such as Yellow Rover, Exposed Treasure, and Desert Queen.
By 1901, the place wasn’t just a scatter of claims anymore. A big 20-stamp mill and a cyanide plant were built to crush and process the rock. What had been a lonely hill was suddenly alive with pounding stamps, the smell of chemicals, and the clatter of wagons hauling ore. A little company camp, called “Gold Town,” even grew at the base of the hill to house workers and families.
Mining boomed off and on for decades. Companies came and went—the Mojave Consolidated, Standard Mining and Milling, and later Standard Hill Mines Company. Each tried to pull wealth from the hill. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the district came roaring back to life. Miners chased the gold veins hundreds of feet down, working day and night until World War II shut them down by government order.
All told, Standard Hill yielded approximately $3.5 million worth of gold and silver in the past, primarily from the first three prominent veins. That’s roughly 170,000 ounces of gold, much of it in the form of bright yellow metal mixed with silver. People who worked in the mines said that some ore was so rich it sparkled in the sunlight.
The rock itself tells part of the story. Standard Hill is made of ancient granite capped with younger volcanic rock. When hot fluids moved through cracks in these rocks long ago, they left behind quartz veins stuffed with gold and silver. Miners followed these veins like treasure maps, finding pockets of ore several feet thick.
The hill wasn’t done yet. In the late 1980s, modern companies returned with bulldozers and leach pads, excavating four small open pits. They mined for just a few years before prices fell and the operation shut down again in the early 1990s.
Today, Standard Hill is quiet. You can still see old mine shafts, scattered ruins of the mill, and the scars of the modern pits. It’s a reminder of how one small desert hill fueled dreams of riches, supported little communities, and became part of California’s long gold-mining story.
Standard Hill – Desert Fever
Mojave, CA
- Desert Fever: An Overview of Mining in the California Desert (Mojave Desert Mining History, Standard Hill section)
- California Division of Mines and Geology, Mineral Resources of Kern County (1957; later summaries of Mojave-Rosamond District production and geology)
- Mindat.org – Standard Hill Group (Mojave Mining District, Kern County, CA) – mindat.org/loc-219385.html
- Elephant Butte – Standard Hill Group, Mojave Mining District, Kern County, California (technical geology report, academia.edu)
- The Diggings – Standard Hill Mine (historical mining claim and production records) – thediggings.com/mines/28338
- California Journal of Mines and Geology, 1930s–1940s issues (district reports with production figures and ore descriptions)
- USGS Bulletins on Mojave District mineral deposits (notably reports describing epithermal systems of Soledad Mountain, Standard Hill, and Tropico Hill)