|
A Wiki Search
Copper Creek Mine (Copper Creek, CA)
Located about four hours northeast of the city of Prospect, just south of Twentynine Palms, near the Eagle Mountains , Copper Creek began as a frontier mining camp in the 1870s and grew into a small desert settlement by the early 1900s. After several collapses and a major accident in 1926, the site was abandoned. A few wooden structures and rusted mining equipment remain, slowly being reclaimed by the desert. Today, Copper Creek is considered a ghost town that's mostly forgotten by hikers, photographers, and urban explorers—though park officials warn that the mine tunnels are unstable and closed to the public.
A Map Search Search
Copper Creek Mine (Copper Creek, CA)
Located about four hours northeast of Prospect, the remains of the Copper Creek Mine is just south of Twentynine Palms, near the Eagle Mountains.
A Records Search
Copper Creek Mine (Copper Creek, CA)
County and federal records confirm that Copper Creek was incorporated as a mining settlement in 1874 under the Copper Creek Mining & Milling Company, originally chartered out of Riverside County. The site produced small amounts of copper, lead, and trace silver through the 1880s but suffered multiple cave-ins attributed to unstable water tables and poor shaft reinforcement. Ownership changed hands several times before operations were halted following a fatal collapse in May 1926, which killed seven miners and flooded the lower galleries.
The company’s dissolution was filed in 1928, and the remaining assets were transferred to a shell company called Desert Consolidated Holdings, which ceased operations within the year. Property records show no formal sale afterward.
Survey maps from the 1940s list the area as “abandoned”, with a warning about structural instability. However, a Bureau of Mines memo dated August 1953 references “unexplained light phenomena” and reports of unauthorized exploration, though the case was never formally investigated.
Local county archives include one surviving payroll ledger and two partial survey maps, both marked with handwritten notations referencing ‘secondary shafts’ that do not appear on official plans.
A News Archive Search
Copper Creek Mine (Copper Creek, CA)
Digitized microfilm from *The Twentynine Palms Gazette* and *The Desert Sun* includes several short references to Copper Creek between 1903 and 1926. Most mention supply shortages, small mining claims, or employment notices. The last article, dated May 14, 1926, reports a “catastrophic cave-in” that “trapped seven men below ground” and “ignited pockets of gas that continued to burn for days.” Follow-up coverage ends two weeks later with the declaration that the site was “unrecoverable.”
A later piece from 1954 revisited the area as part of a feature on “California’s Lost Towns.” It briefly mentions “the ghost of Copper Creek” and describes “blue firelights seen dancing in the creek bed at night.” The article attributes these to “phosphorescent gases,” but closes with the line: “Some say the miners never stopped digging.”
| 
