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Historical Mining Towns of the Eastern Mojave Desert
Mescal
Six miles south of
Ivanpah,
near
Mountain Pass, was the Mescal Mine (also known as the Cambria or
Mollusk), which was discovered about 1879. William A. McFarlane, one of
the pioneers of Ivanpah, bought the property several years later and
began developing it. By early 1885, he and a partner, Simon A. Barrett,
had extracted a large lot of ore worth $100 a ton in silver and gold.
They shipped their ore by pack train to Ivanpah, where the Ivanpah
Consolidated mill processed it in June of 1885. A few weeks later,
Wells, Fargo & Company carried away the first bullion: two bars
worth more than $2,000.
Mescal entered its most productive period after McFarlane and
Barrett leased out, and then sold, the Cambria to a company of
businessmen in Los Angeles in January, 1886. A 10-man crew drove a
second tunnel and laid a 350-yard ore-car track. (Eventually, two
300-foot tunnels were driven.) By late 1886, the camp contained an assay
office, comfortable offices, a boardinghouse, a lodging house, adobe
houses for men with families, and other buildings. The company also
built a
five-stamp mill
near Mescal Springs. The machinery started up in
early December. In January of 1887, the mill produced 15,000 ounces of
bullion; the company soon added five stamps. A post office, named
Nantan, was established in March. By then, the camp had a store.
That was Mescal’s heyday. The price of silver gradually slipped; the
value of the ore fell to only $20 a ton. Only 12 people remained in
1890; in December, the post office closed. The mine had produced an
estimated $250,000 in gold and silver.
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