Ivanpah!

Silver was discovered in Ivanpah in 1869. The ore was then shipped to San Francisco to be smelted. Some time around 1870 a small mill was built and a camp was formed, that is to the east where the maps say Ivanpah is now. Between 1875-80 the district had around 500 people and two mills. The main mines closed in 1881, but not until 4 million in silver had been removed.

Brian and Joe had come here three weeks before but I could not make that trip so Brian and I made a Saturday run over so I could see. What the maps call Ivanpah and everyone else thinks is the town site is really one of the mill sites. The original town site is some what west of there. You can see that some of the ruins were even adobe. There were ruin sites all over the area. Easily 500 people could have lived here.