Darwin, California

Discussion 0 posts |  Only members can post. Join?

No topics have been posted yet.

About Darwin, California

The ghost town of Darwin, in the shadow of Death Valley!

In 1874, Darwin French discovered silver ore deposits in the Coso Mountains, just south of Death Valley. And so, another California mining town was born. By the end of 1875, Darwin boasted some 700 residents and 20 mines; by 1877, the population peaked at a few thousand people with five mining furnaces. But like so many other California boom cities, the mines quickly played out, and by 1880 Darwin had fewer than a hundred people left. But Darwin never completely died - there have been some low-level mining activity around Darwin ever since, including the Anaconda Copper Mining Company that operated a large facility just outside of Darwin until the 1970's.

Today, there are approximately fifty full-time residents of Darwin...and plenty of ghosts. Located in the lonely high desert east of the Sierra Mountains, several miles off of Highway 190 (the main road into Death Valley) at the end of a dead-end, two-lane cracked blacktop.

This group is for photos in and around Darwin, California. Including Darwin 'town' itself, as well as any mining ruins and buildings in the area, the Coso Mountains, the Argus Range, Lane Mill, Ophir, the Old Toll Road, Panamint Springs, and (my favorite) Darwin Falls - a thirty-foot running waterfall in one of the driest places on Earth.

Old buildings, ruins, mining equipment, people, nature scenes, landscapes are perfectly fine. This group is NOT for general Death Valley photos (except for that small section of Death Valley around Darwin itself) -- there are other groups for that.

For more information about Darwin: freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gtusa/usa/ca/dar...
Or here: www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/darwin.html