Mammoth Gold: The Ghost Towns of Lake District

Gold high on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada brought hundreds of miners racing to Lake Mining District and the boom town of Mammoth City. Mammoth Gold brings back to life the brief but tumultuous years of 1877 to 1881, when hopes leaped sky-high, then abruptly faded and died. It was gold high on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada that had brought prospectors racing to Mammoth City, California. General Dodge and other moneyed men from San Francisco rushed to the new strike, bought up claims, and formed the Mammoth Mining Company. The company drove several tunnels into Mineral Hill, built a 40-stamp mill, a tramway, and a flume from Twin Lakes. Yet barely two years later the mill shut down forever and the following year all the company's property was sold at a sheriff's sale.

What went wrong? Was it just bad luck? Or mismanagement? Fraud? Highgrading? And who were the gutsy men and women that cast their lot with this harsh, isolated mining camp? Where did they come from? How did they manage? Were they happy? Did they strike it rich? Exploring for answers, Gary Caldwell combines an historian's obsession for accuracy with a writer's love for the people who lived, worked, and died in Lake District.