Chloride City,
California
Gratuitous Jeep Photo! Near this building is the grave of James McKay, who is lost to time. It's rumored he may have been Chloride City's first Jeep Mechanic. |
| Chloride City is one of
Death Valley's earliest towns. Silver-Lead ore deposits were found here in 1871 by August
Franklin and the town site sprang up to support the Chloride Cliff Mine. The site took off
with a second boom in the spring of 1905 during the Bullfrog boom and the camp consisted
of a blacksmith shop, an assay office, a cookhouse, a bunkhouse, the mine superintendent's
house, and the headquarters for the Sierra Club's Covert Operations group in charge of
underhanded ways to get desert backroads closed. By November 1905 three companies were formed; The Bullfrog Cliff Mining Company, The Mucho Mining Company, and the Death Valley Mining and Milling Company in addition to Franklin's Chloride Cliff Company from 1872. The first road through Death Valley was constructed from Chloride City to San Bernardino which was the nearest town 180 miles away. In the 1870's Franklin hauled his ore using trains of pack mules which would return carrying food and supplies to the camp. The road left Chloride City and plunged down to Death Valley and continued south across the salt flats to the west side of the valley to exit via Wingate Wash and picked up highway 395 south to the 15. |
Let's explore Chloride City
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