For this trip we will be relying on Roger Mitchell's Inyo-Mono SUV Trails

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We begin our traverse of the White Mountains at White Mountain City and its namesake Area of Critical Environmental Concern

From Desert Fever: An Overview of Mining in the California Desert Conservation Area by Shumway, Vredenburgh, Hartiil
archive.org/details/desertfeveroverv00shum

WHITE MOUNTAIN CITY
A year after the discoveries at Coso, J. S. Broder, Col. L. F. Cralley, the Graves brothers and Dan Wyman (all miners from Aurora, Nevada) came to the east side of the White Mountains seeking placer gold values said to exist there. By 1864 White Mountain City and Roachville (on Cottonwood Creek) both had regularly surveyed town plats. By 1881, the Tarrytown District was located on a mineral belt 6 miles long and 2 miles wide that was 6 miles west of Deep Springs Valley. It was both a silver and gold district. Ore values ran from $75 to $150 per ton. The principal mines of the Tarrytown District were the Heritage, which boasted a 3 1/2 foot wide vein that averaged $124 in silver and $15 in gold per ton, and the Alta, which had a 2 1/2 foot wide vein and 80 tons of ore on it's dump.

At least 8 mines, among them the California, Indian, Greenly and Cairo, were listed as being in the Deep Springs area. Although it was said that "the development on these claims has been sufficient to show that they will become permanent mines" not much is known about them. It is presumed that they became unprofitable, due to the drop in the price of silver, by 1893.
Although little is known about White Mountain City and Roachville, they most likely served as supply centers for prospectors exploring these gold-silver mines and for those working in the White Mountains gold region in southeastern Mono County. As late as 1918 the area experienced some activity with D. F. Shively filing 11 tungsten claims on the north edge of Deep Springs Valley to develop a series of parallel quartz veins in granite up to 4 feet in thickness.

GhostTowns.com history of the area
www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/whitemountaincity.html

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The meager remains of White Mountain City rise above the snaky desert shrubs

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The Hiskey & Walker smelter stack, which postdates White Mountain City, overlooks Wyman Creek

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While searching in vain for petroglyphs, we found this pictograph boulder upcanyon from White Mountain City

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