The Discovery of the Calico Mines
CONSIDERING THE SUCCESS of the Waterman and Porter operations, further strikes in the region seemed assured. Parties of San Bernardino residents went out onto the desert almost daily, reporting their luck to an eager press in Colton and San Bernardino.
Less than 10 miles northeast of Grapevine Station rose a multicolored mountain resembling a "great mass of burnt volcanic rock" whose steep, rugged sides and summit "are covered with broken, sharp stones. In the canyon the walls rise almost perpendicular and in many places the formation is twisted and distorted as though it had at some time been in great agony. . . ." That's how one pioneer visitor described Calico Mountain, already known by that name.
The first persons to file claims in the district, in late March, 1881, were M. Lawrence and Hieronymous Hartman. (Hartman and his wife became prominent business owners in Calico.) But of greater importance was the discovery of the Silver King claim two weeks later, in early April. The discoverers were a group of San Bernardino residents stirred by news reports of the Waterman and Porter claims: young Frank Mecham, a son of Lafayette Mecham, former operator of Fish Ponds Station, on the Mojave River; George Yager, Mecham's uncle; and Tom Warden and Hues Thomas, sheriff's deputies. Grubstaking them were Sheriff John C. King and Ellis Miller, the owner of Grapevine Station and ranch.
Fish Ponds
Road from Fish Ponds
Calico Ghost Town
Calico Mining History
Stoddard Wells Road
Another Beneme Rancheria
Oro Grande and Waterman
Discovery of the Calico Mines
The Camp
The Town
Roads & Rails
Rugged Individualists
The Calico Print
Bismarck Camp
Mines & Mills
Town Life
The Decline
Daggett
Calico: Rally & Collapse
Lafayette Mecham