taken from Owens Valley History site. Situated near the summit of Buena Vista Peak at an elevation of 8,500 feet, the isolated mining outpost became known as Cerro Gordo, meaning “fat hill”, the meaning, of course, that it was fat with silver. The principal mines at this time were the San Lucas, San Ygnacio, San Francisco, and San Felipe. Within four years, the number of mining claims would increase to more than seven hundred… go to their full site
A great site with lots of links and news about Cerro Gordo Mines, compiled by Digital Desert. The “fat hill” produced silver, lead and zinc for a century. At its peak over 1,000 people lived here working in mines as the San Felipe and Union. At the time the smelters were the best there were. Silver was roasted and formed into bullion, sent down the Yellow Grade road by mule team, then shipped across Owen’s Lake by steamboat. From the lakeside port of Cartago the bullion was loaded onto Remi Nadeau’s freighters and hauled into Los Angeles… Go to their full site
LA Times, Cecilia Rasmussen, Times Staff Writer CERRO GORDO, Calif. — Some say ghosts walk the dusty streets of this abandoned silver-mining town. With a murder a week in the 1860s and ’70s, bloodshed permeates its history. Cerro Gordo, meaning “fat hill,” is an Old West settlement in the shadow of Mt. Whitney, on the eastern outskirts of Lone Pine. After the Civil War, it became “fat city” for silver miners, who shipped their diggings to Los Angeles… Go to their full site
story by KCET, photographer Osceola Refetoff and writer/historian Christopher Langley In the daylight, I found Cerro Gordo, a mining camp that dates back to the mid 1870s, a charming rustic collection of period houses and weathered wood skeletons on the verge of tumbling in on themselves. Ah, but the night is quite different. Darkness envelopes me, as I caretake the ghosts here. As the sun drops over the hills to the west and the Sierra Nevada crest behind, the landscape transforms into shadows of beasts and other phantasmagoria… Go to their full site
Great images and history about Cerro Gordo from: GhostTownGallery.com Go to their full site
Rise and Fall of Cerro Gordo by mojavedesert.net Cerro Gordo, on the western slope of the Inyo Mountains about seven miles east of Keeler and thirty miles south of Independence, was the first major silver strike in the Owens Valley. Originally a small-scale operation worked by Mexicans between 1862 and 1866, the mine was included in the Lone Pine Mining District organized in April 1866… Go to their full site