New Dale Ghost Town

About 1910 New Dale was built several miles south of Old Dale. Of course Old Dale wasn't called Old Dale then, simply Dale. As far as can be told, no one is sure of who Dale was to begin with. None the less, the Dale Mining District moved around a bit.

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Prospectors and miners were drawn to the area known as the Dale Mining District, located 15 miles southeast of Twentynine Palms, as early as 1881 by reports of gold in the Pinto Mountains. By its peek production period in 1898, there were as many as 3,000 miners within the district. During its heyday, lode and placer gold mining took place and spawned the birth and death of two mining camps. Dale City sprang up around a well that was dug in 1884 and continued to grow until water began to be pumped to the mines in 1899.

Once the mine owners no longer had to bring the gold ore to Dale City to be milled, the town pulled up roots and moved to a new site 6 miles south, known as New Dale. It was situated near the two largest producing mines, the Supply and the OK mines. When the Supply and OK mines closed down in 1917, New Dale was also abandoned. Small-scale mining continued through the Depression until all mines were closed by executive order at the outbreak of World War II. The Virginia Dale Mining District is a popular area for present day recreational mining.

- City of 29 Palms

Dale mining district

The Dale mining district, located about 2 to 3 mi west of the wilderness study area, includes the Virginia Dale and the Monte Negro districts. The mining district was first prospected in 1884 and continues to be active in the present. Most mines within the Dale mining district are located along quartz veins within diorite, quartz diorite, and andesite of Jurassic and older age. The ores include gold, silver, lead, copper, and iron as well as lesser amounts of manganese and uranium. Larry Vredenburgh (written commun., 1981) reported that approximately 185,000 troy oz of gold was recovered from the most productive mines in the district.

An aeromagnetic low extends southeastward through the Dale mining district into the wilderness study area and across the Pinto Mountains into the Pinto Basin. The aeromagnetic low may be caused by alteration of magnetite to hematite and (or) pyrite during gold mineralization. The Zulu Queen and Outlaw mines, located within the aeromagnetic low on the southern flank of the Pinto Mountains, contain gold-bearing quartz veins in northwest-trending fault zones that cut igneous rocks similar to rocks in the Dale mining district. The close spatial relation between the mines and the aeromagnetic low as well as the geologic similarity of mines within the aeromagnetic low suggest that gold mineralization may extend southeastward from the Dale mining district into the wilderness study area.

MINERAL RESOURCE POTENTIAL OF THE COXCOMB MOUNTAINS WILDERNESS STUDY AREA (CDCA-328)