The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Spring 1996, Volume 42, Number 2
Richard W. Crawford, Editor

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Hedges

Cover: The gold mining town of Hedges in the Colorado Desert, northwest of Yuma, Arizona, ca 1900.

Hedges and vicinity.

Page 56. Hedges and vicinity.

Golden Cross mine

Page 63. The Golden Cross mine headframe, ore bin, and hoist house. (Unless otherwise indicated, all photographs are circa 1900).

Golden Crown mine

Page 64. Hoist house and headframe of the Golden Crown mine.

Page 65. The Golden Queen mine shaft’s headframe with ore cart dumping into ore bin.

pumping plant on the Colorado River

Page 66. This pumping plant on the Colorado River conveyed water twelve miles to Hedges.

pumping plant on the Colorado River

Page 66. Pump house detail.

The 100-stamp mill.

Page 68. The 100-stamp mill. Ore was conveyed from the mines in horse drawn rail carts on the tracks, in the foreground, to the crusher house, at left center. The crushed ore was carried via the ramped conveyor to the mill for processing.

100-stamp mill

Page 68. Looking south at the 100-stamp mill. In only five years following the mill’s construction the tailings it produced were piled up to its base.

Air compressor and steam engine

Page 69. Air compressor and steam engine inside the 100-stamp mill.

Stamps and amalgamation tables

Page 70. Stamps and amalgamation tables in the 100-stamp mill.

huge pile of tailings from the 100-stamp mill

Page 74. By 1900 the huge pile of tailings from the 100-stamp mill dominated the eastern edge of town.

bulkhead

Page 74. A bulkhead protects the schoolhouse, at center, and the rest of the eastern edge of town from burial by tailings, ca. 1896. Courtesy of Arizona Historical Society, Tucson.

Miners filling ore carts with tailings

Page 76. Miners filling ore carts with tailings for the trip to the cyanide plant, ca. 1902. Courtesy California Historical Society, TICOR, Special Collections, University of Southern California Library.

Page 77. The cyanide plant under construction. At the right of the processing house the small vats are to hold reusable cyanide solution.

The Free Gold cyanide plant under construction

Page 77. The Free Gold cyanide plant under construction. The vats on the platform will hold the tailings to be leached.

Page 78. The Free Gold cyanide plant. On the hill upper left, the solution vats; center, the leaching vats; lower left, the extraction room building and in front of it, sump tanks marked “Poison-No Admittance” in Spanish and English.

Rail carts of tailings

Page 78. Rail carts of tailings move up the trestle to the leaching vats at the Free Gold cyanide plant

metal leaching vats

Page 79. The metal leaching vats of the Free Gold cyanide plant, shortly after completion.