Exploring Death Valley Mine and Camp

hey guys west of mind detective here coming at you with the urban exploring and also hopefully a mine exploring video so believe it or not there's actually uh i believe half a dozen structures so right in front of me this looks like the old boarding house at this mine probably a few of the miners would have lived there there's like a couple shacks over there or sheds there's another looks like house over that way and then uh right behind that big joshua looks like there's a big pile and that's where the mine is looks like there's another structure but uh we're gonna check out this big house first and it's just a beautiful day out in the mojave it's about 70 degrees and it's only uh about 10 o'clock so just beautiful weather out here especially for me and then here's a look at the house it's really cool because uh there's still vines going there all right let's check out the inside i would have to guess that this house was probably built in the 1940s or so wow this is pretty cool i might have to get my flashlight out let me get that real quick all right so i grabbed my flashlight uh as you can tell it's pretty dark in here so let's check out this little side room first got a couple windows right here closet oh it looks like there's even a stairway right here there's a little bird skeleton right there yeah so here's a stairway i'll check that out in a second let's check out this little side room and not much in most of these rooms there's a table oh wow there's an article about a muhammad ali ali ko's lyle in the 11th 11th round wow yes i'm guessing this is probably from the 80s or 90s let me all right never mind it was 1975. i really don't know my boxing history i know ollie fought until the 80s and then i'm gonna head up here kind of creepy being in here by myself all right so yeah there's a bunch of old newspapers up in here there's a couple old porcelain insulators right there ah there's a beautiful view looking out uh there's a mine right there there's that other house it looks like that's like a maybe a corral or something yeah pretty cool all right so i pretty much showed a whole tour of the inside and then uh here's a look at those vines growing on the side that's pretty cool and then uh come off this way like a tank right here oh sure he's looking below the house might be some cool stuff in there but i'm not gonna be crawling up in there but yeah this is actually riveted so who knows my date to the early 1900s also there's an old brick then there's uh another tank right here that's all cut up and then this looks to be the old uh bathtub there's another tank right here it says arizona shell oil company that's pretty cool and then uh i might have one at one point been an outhouse but now there's a bathtub and then uh i'm gonna go off this direction yeah this is really awesome okay and then here's the uh oh there's like a cellar and then uh here's the back entrance to the house so i'll go in here real quick oh yeah definitely way cooler since it's uh surrounded by dirt and they would have probably uh stored a lot of other canned goods on these shelves pretty awesome so here's an outside shop looking at that uh root cellar and then i'm gonna check that corral or whatever that is real quick yeah i'm not sure what this would have been they would have probably had horses or cows out here and uh here's those little outbuildings that i was talking about not much left of them but let's see what's inside real quick oh i got a is that a stove oh no that's not a stove that's a filing cabinet okay i got some uh car parts right there and they would have probably had put their tools up on here got a couple work tables oh yeah another work table some uh gasket these pieces yes i guess they're working on the cars out here some more gaskets on the floor big old oil barrel and looking out from the window we got a pretty nice view yeah more work tables not much there got a couple nuts yeah there's really not much left out here pretty cool to see though all right guys so there's a little work shed that i just checked out and uh right here this is probably the coolest little building out here this is actually the outhouse i knew it had to be close there's a house right there they didn't want it too close or else it would smell up the place so it looks like this one's a triple seater that's just crazy that they still got this i mean probably dates to the 90s or so 80s or 90s but yeah pretty cool find right there let's see if there's anything else to be seen out here lots of uh random woods strewn about and then this piece looks like uh old dynamite box at least a couple pieces so you could see the big g from giant that's a giant powder company piece and then uh looks like this one right here you can't really see it but it says atlas powder company and then this middle piece it says icc 14. and yeah there's a couple of uh pieces of siding from dynamite boxes yeah that's pretty much the entire tour from uh around this house and then i'll check out that one right now all right so now i'm coming up on this second house it's definitely much smaller so i won't take too long to check it out this is very weird so you'd usually have these over uh vertical mine shafts but obviously there's no mine right here so they're either thinking of um covering one up or just gave up i'm not totally sure there's a big lizard and then uh same dealers vines running on the on this metal let's go in the open door all right let me get my flashlight out real quick okay so this just looks like a little closet and then let's see is this door open it is so yeah just looks like a little living room right here there's a bathroom there's a toilet shower there's a sink i'm guessing this was the kitchen as a living room and here's the back door all right that's the end of this one all right guys so here's looking back where i just came from there's the big house and there's a small one i was just checking out and right in front of me we got the remains of what i believe is an old corral and it probably dates to the early 1900s or so because right here we just got a bunch of really cool artifacts got this really old necto bottle you could see that there's a bubble right there and the top is really crude got some old pottery and then got this base to bottle it says ab so i believe that was the american bottling company this probably dates around 1905 or so found a few of those before super purple piece of glass that probably dates to the early 1900s too this one surprisingly is out here that's an old square nail so this probably dates to probably 1890 even last piece probably the coolest out here this is actually an old harmonica reed made out of brass awesome finds so now it's time to check out some of the old mining remains got this old building right next to this uh huge pile that spans from there all the way behind the building and i already see a huge piece of equipment right here looks like there's an engine and uh looks like it might be a ball mill cylindrical in shape yeah i think that's what that is so the ore would have been fed up there oh yeah it's a huge ball mill that's one of the bigger ones i've seen and it says on the side um wick mix dandy d-a-n-d-i-e never heard of that before but yeah let's take a look at that uh engine right here got a little hand crank right here got the fan in the front looks like there's a company name so it says the buddha company looks like the serial number is 98586 huh i've never seen one like this there's even a ladder up to it well that's cool so yeah obviously that would have uh powered this huge ball mill you can see the gear right there and here's a look up inside huh yeah it's pretty dang cool never seen a setup like this then uh here's a look inside the building as you can see it's pretty trashed not much left inside there would have definitely been some sort of equipment on this concrete footing and it looks like this portion has collapsed ooh but that's pretty cool right there let me go around real quick all right so this is what i was looking at from over there this is actually a trommel and what's cool is it still turns really nicely even so yeah they would have probably put um the ore and uh rocks in here and turned it to further process i've never seen one like this awesome and then it looks like we got a stove right here even got a fridge and then uh got like a huge funnel right there not sure what this would have been but my guess is i guess a furnace we got a pipe on the side that's interesting if you guys know what that is please comments got like concrete right here got a brick maybe it was a smelter furnace yeah that's my guess now let's go around here real quick oh got a big old pipe right here it's got rivets in it all right so i got a pretty good view from up here uh that's where that ball mill and uh all that other equipment was that looks like an organ and then uh right here we actually got a conveyor system of course the uh ore would have went in these little cups and then down there we actually got an incline shaft i can already tell from up here that it is uh fully collapsed probably within only five feet so that's kind of a bummer but it's actually a head frame right there it's a metal head frame so i will head over there and see if that one's open all right so i'm coming up on the metal head frame and i already see a bunch of really cool stuff so this is a pneumatic air tank so that would have supplied the pneumatic air to the pneumatic drills and then uh look at this big mechanism wow so right here on the end this looks like a gen set there's another one that i found out in the mojave that kind of looked the same it was blue though and uh that one was made by kohler so yeah this is uh says case so yeah that's a case generator and that would have powered this double drum winch and the cool thing about this is still got the gears and also the cable still spooled up after hour guess maybe 70 almost 80 years awesome stuff let me get on the other side real quick and uh got this little hand crank deal and a couple pedals that still moves and this still moves i think yeah and it moves that piece wow that's interesting i've never seen anything like that and right here says use cylinder oil this uh generator still got pretty much everything got the radiator in the front got the the fan still got all the spark plugs wow i think that's a grounding strap just look at all that stuff huh and uh oh i think i missed yeah so this one was actually powered by this hand crank unfortunately doesn't move anymore but there's another tank right here riveted and let's take a look at all this stuff right next to a head frame so this orange deal that looks like a small engine and obviously that would have powered this uh winch still looks like this has a lever but yeah this is definitely way newer substantially newer than that i'll guess that this probably dates to the 70s or so this engine it says wisconsin motor corporation based out of milwaukee wisconsin and then right there says wisconsin heavy duty air-cooled engines wow there's another pedal i i've literally never seen anything like this before with those pedals here's a couple more levers this one still moves got a spring on it and then right here we got a belt and pulley system obviously another wincher hoist and then looks like a smaller deal engine huh some cool stuff here probably made by the same company i can't really see and then uh right over here i believe this is an air blower uh so i believe this would have turned like a trommel but the air that this would generate would be pushed down this pipe you can see it's well oiled after all these years let's take a look up here see how the ladder goes all the way up there and there's even a sheet wheel at the way top and uh let's see if we could even get in there there's a door right here oh it's open hell yeah let's hope this is solid all right holy crap i think i see water down there there's a look at this metal ladder and it looks like maybe close to 90 feet there's a water but there might be a level going off so i think i'll go down there real quick and assess the situation all right guys so there's a shot looking up i'm about maybe 10 to 15 feet down so far and here's a shot looking down looks like it's collapsed and flooded but uh i'll just check real quick if there's a level before that all right guys so there's a shot looking up it's about maybe 50 or 60 feet to this collapse and flooded section so unfortunately i didn't make it to a level before it was flooded because uh this is actually the first level and i'm not sure if it's the only level it looks like the ladders keep going down but i'm not sure and then i'm actually standing on what looks like a skip car or something because i see i try to show you guys that there's a wheel right there i can't really see it but this is a this is metal right here so it's either skip car or oracle but it seems like it's facing this direction there's another wheel on this side right there yeah this is a probably a skip car i would guess there's another wheel right there yeah unfortunately uh this mine can't be explored that's a pretty cool view though it's about maybe five or six feet deep but yeah i head up to the surface and uh that's pretty much the end of the video alright guys so i was on my way out and uh i heard some rustling and there's a desert tortoise right here we're gonna uh give him some water i bet he'll love that all right here's a real cool close-up never seen a desert tortoise this close poured him some water right here hopefully uh drinks it all right well i guess mr tortoise didn't want any water he's uh scooting away i've never seen a desert tortoise that is just so cool all right let's leave him alone all right guys so that's pretty much the end of the explorer i'm going to be heading home right now but i just can't say how awesome it is to be out here in the mojave surrounded by all these beautiful joshua trees but uh yeah that was a pretty awesome explorer not much in terms of uh underground mine exploring but i do enough of that anyway uh definitely the highlight was uh all this surface equipment and uh buildings you usually don't see that many intact uh structures at most of these mines um i'd say the number one highlight though was that a desert tortoise and probably the generator and uh double drum winch that was really awesome uh but yeah pretty much uh that's it i hope you guys enjoyed this video please like and subscribe thanks for watching you

Channel: Western Mine Detective

Views: 18,155

Keywords: #goldrush, #mineexploring, #abandonedmines, #mojave

Id: 3oAEC1_TXPY

Length: 30min 25sec (1825 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 11 2022