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| SP's PMT International Harvester RDFC-402 Truck - Pine Creek Mine Tungsten SP Bulletin Sept'59 Cover |
I started covering individual commodities that were shipped over the Jawbone Branch before with my post on the uses for Soapstone from Zurich, and the second post on Trona, Soda Ash, and Boron from the Columbia-Southern Chemical plant at Bartlett. I'm going to expand in this post to some of the other mining activities which were underway around Bishop, which was shipped out by SPNG at Laws and after WWII more and more by truck.
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| About 0.7 Miles east down the Pine Creek from the mine site is this hairpin corner. - Google Maps screen shot. |
The photo above is as close as I can get Google Earth to render the same view as the SP Bulletin photo at the head of this post. The mine is at the base of the right mountain, just around the corner of the foreground road. The road cut into the side of the mountains at left is the Pine Creek Hiking Trail, which climbs up the valley and into the high Sierra lake country.
Here's some of the Tungsten mines and locations in the Owens Valley around Bishop and Mono Lake areas:
Pine Creek Mine
Of the many mines around Bishop, probably the largest producer of Tungsten was the Pine Creek Mine high in the mountains west of Bishop. The Pine Creek Mine was unique among most mines in that it was started part way up the side of the mountain, just above Pine Creek. The shaft then burrowed thousands of feet into the mountain then up several thousand feet through multiple chambers. Finally closed down in the late 1970s with the diesel-powered excavators and movers sealed in the mine "for later" if they ever needed to reopen the mine.
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| Pine Creek Tungsten Mine at the wide graded area center foot of the mountain. - Google Earth screen shot. |
According to Joe Dale Morris's book Slim Princess in the Sunset, 1940-1960, the Tungsten concentrate was shipped in 55 gallon drums down to Laws for loading onto the SPNG boxcars at the US Vanadium Co. These would then be trans-loaded at Owenyo into Standard Gauge boxcars, at the transfer platforms. So this gives me yet more "boxcar" loads to come out of Owenyo! This makes since as there were hand-trucks at the transfer platforms, which would be perfect to move drums with. I believe this would be a load that could be shipped in lower graded boxcars and older '37 AAR steel cars or even the old single-sheath wood cars as the steel drums would be sealed and weatherproof, not that metallic tungsten ore would care if it got wet again before processing into metallic ingots or alloyed with carbide.
I'm not sure where USVC's plant was to process the concentrate into metallic Tungsten wire for light bulbs, sold metal for Tungsten-Carbide cutting tools for machining, or by the ordnance manufactures in the manufacture of armor piercing tank penetrators, in the form of solid T-C metallic rods (before DU penetrators were developed for SABO and A-10 GAU-8 30mm armor piercing ammunition).
I'm not sure where USVC's plant was to process the concentrate into metallic Tungsten wire for light bulbs, sold metal for Tungsten-Carbide cutting tools for machining, or by the ordnance manufactures in the manufacture of armor piercing tank penetrators, in the form of solid T-C metallic rods (before DU penetrators were developed for SABO and A-10 GAU-8 30mm armor piercing ammunition).
Tungsten Hills Mining District, West of Bishop, CA
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| Tungsten Hills, West Bishop - Bishop Mining District - mindat,org website screenshot |
This area had multiple Tungsten mines over the years, and I don't really expect to go into much detail about each one here. There are other websites that give more detail on each mine site. I think it's enough here to show this above map from the MinDat website (linked below) that shows the general area west of Bishop that is being discussed. Pine Creek Mine is west of these little 'hills' up in one of the canyons higher above the Owens Valley.
Huntley Industrial Minerals Incorporated Tungsten Mine:
"The Huntley Industrial Minerals Incorporated Tungsten Mine is located in close proximity to Bishop, California. This mining site has a significant historical background, being part of the renowned Deep Creek-Tungsten Hills Mining District"... Short excerpt from the first paragraph on the website: https://thediggings.com/mines/usgs10035156
The Diggings website (above) shows this specific site was originally mined from 1937-1939 by Tungsten City Milling Company and then according to the link from Western Mining History's website (below), the tailings were reworked for Garnets in 1944-1945 by Huntley Industrial Minerals Inc.. So seems that was exhausted by my modeling era mostly, but another example of these smaller mines chipping away at something of value out in the Owens Valley.
Additional website: https://westernmininghistory.com/mine-detail/10035156/
"CONCENTRATE PRODUCED AVG. 72% WO3; 1944-1945 200,000 TONS OF TAILINGS WERE REWORKED AVG. 56% GARNET AND .4% WO3"
Nothing really shows at the coordinates today... they note that the N-W coords might not be accurate for the mines or that all traces were razed before modern photography was done.
The Diggings website (above) shows this specific site was originally mined from 1937-1939 by Tungsten City Milling Company and then according to the link from Western Mining History's website (below), the tailings were reworked for Garnets in 1944-1945 by Huntley Industrial Minerals Inc.. So seems that was exhausted by my modeling era mostly, but another example of these smaller mines chipping away at something of value out in the Owens Valley.
Additional website: https://westernmininghistory.com/mine-detail/10035156/
"CONCENTRATE PRODUCED AVG. 72% WO3; 1944-1945 200,000 TONS OF TAILINGS WERE REWORKED AVG. 56% GARNET AND .4% WO3"
Nothing really shows at the coordinates today... they note that the N-W coords might not be accurate for the mines or that all traces were razed before modern photography was done.
Huntley #4 - Standard Industrial Minerals
I might not put this mine in the "Owens Valley" category, but more in the Long Valley mining area, north of Bishop and south of Mono Lake. I'm putting it in here because it was another Huntley Minerals operation.
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| Huntley #4 - Standard Industrial Mineral - Google Earth screen shot looking South East towards Crowley Lake. |
37.6947°N 118.8724°W - These coordinates show as tine foreground pin marker, but I would think the mine was actually the large white scar on the side of the opposing mountain side!
In Closing
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| Loading SP boxcars at the transfer dock at Owenyo, with more cars scattered around on the siding and main track. |
As a machinist, I certainly have worked with plenty of tungsten-carbide machine tools for mills and lathes over the years. So in some ways it's fitting that I'll get to model the trans-loading of tungsten at Owenyo!
Jason Hill
Jason Hill
Related Articles:
Owens Valley Mining (Part 1) - Soapstone - An Unexpectedly Useful Material
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