Gold Bronze Mine: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Mojave National Preserve

Regions 8, 9, 10, and 12 Park Cultural Landscapes Program; Northwind Resource Consulting, LLC

The Gold Bronze Mine is located west of the town of Ivanpah in San Bernardino County, California. The property is abandoned, although vestiges of roads, mining structures and equipment, building ruins, artifact concentrations, shafts, prospects and waste rock piles, and other cultural materials associated with its history remain. A total of 74 features located within the boundaries of the original 1894 Gold Bronze mining claim were documented by North Wind during the current survey. This includes 26 features and 1 isolated find not previously recorded by NPS during their 2012 survey. All of the resources are located on NPS land. Additional features associated with other adjacent and overlapping mining claims, such as the Gold Bar and Boomerang, as well as the community of Vanderbilt, are visible across the landscape in all directions. The survey area conforms to the original boundaries of the Gold Bronze Mine, as depicted on an 1894 claim map. The Gold Bronze is one of approximately 32 mining claims filed within the broader Vanderbilt Mining District, which was initially organized in 1893 with M. M. Beatty acting as its first recorder. A total of 74 features were recorded during the intensive-level survey of the Gold Bronze Mine. These include 7 prospect trenches, 10 prospect pits, 12 rock wall segments, 7 road segments, 6 shafts, 10 stacked-stone building ruins, 5 adits, 3 stand-alone waste rock piles, 3 artifact concentrations, 2 earthen depressions, 2 open stopes, 1 gate post, 1 concrete machine mount, 1 retention basin, 1 mining claim monument, 1 collapsed headframe and ore chute, 1 winch foundation, and 1 ore pile. Approximately 30 acres of the Gold Bronze Mine property was evaluated for listing in the NRHP at the request of the NPS. As the remains of the Gold Bronze Mine represent the location of a significant historic occupation and activity and the features are in a ruined state, the property has been categorized and evaluated for NRHP eligibility as a site. Gold Bronze Mine is eligible for listing in the NRHP under Criterion A at the local level of significance for its association with the development of the mining industry in the east Mojave Desert—specifically the Vanderbilt Mining District—and its contribution to the economic growth of the region during its period of significance. The Gold Bronze Mine is also recommended eligible for listing in the NRHP under Criterion D for its information potential regarding mining in the Mojave Desert and the lives of the miners who worked at the property. The dense artifact concentrations as well as the stone building ruins may contain additional subsurface deposits with unretrieved data that is important to understanding the consumption behavior and nature of the lives of the miners who lived and worked at the Gold Bronze property. As such, the site has the potential to yield information important in mining history.

Gold Bronze Mine: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Mojave National Preserve

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