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Tucked away deep in the California desert lies a former Superfund site, a place with a history never meant to be remembered. Sick workers, early deaths, a history buried in silence. It was left behind and forgotten. I started at the
Exploring a forgotten Superfund site and abandoned ranches in the California desert reveals toxic history, old mining operations, and desert life remnants.
Key Takeaways
- The California desert holds hidden toxic industrial sites with significant environmental and historical impact.
- EPA cleanup efforts removed the most contaminated materials but left much of the site exposed.
- Abandoned mines and ranches reveal the harsh living and working conditions of early 20th-century desert inhabitants.
- Many desert sites are publicly accessible but carry risks due to contamination and structural decay.
- The history of these sites is intertwined with the natural desert landscape, reflecting a vanished way of life.
What the video covers
- The video explores a former Superfund site in the California desert, uncovering toxic history linked to early copper smelting operations.
- The Environmental Protection Agency conducted cleanup in the 1990s, removing arsenic-contaminated ore and slag piles.
- The site includes underground buildings, collapsed cabins, and remnants of worker housing used during the smelter's operation.
- The journey continues into Mojave National Preserve, discovering abandoned mines like Evening Star and Bernice Mine.
- An abandoned ranch with water reservoirs, windmills, and cattle ranching facilities is explored, showing how ranchers lived and worked.
- The video highlights the contrast between toxic industrial ruins and natural desert surroundings, including Joshua trees.
- The Rosalie Cemetery is visited, containing graves dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.
- Old mining infrastructure such as ore bins, head frames, and ore cart tracks are documented.
- The exploration raises questions about the legacy of the people who lived and worked in these remote desert locations.
- The video uses maps, satellite imagery, and on-site investigation to reveal hidden and forgotten desert sites.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to the Superfund Site and Toxic History
- 00:57Exploring Abandoned Mines and EPA Cleanup
- 01:49Underground Buildings and Worker Housing
- 03:56Visiting Rosalie Cemetery
- 07:29Exploring Abandoned Ranch in Mojave National Preserve
- 11:02Ranch Facilities and Water Reservoirs
- 13:19Mining Infrastructure and Ore Processing
- 23:03Reflections on Desert Life and Legacy
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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old Valley Wells smelter site, where I began uncovering the toxic history buried in the Mojave Desert. But that was only the beginning. Using old maps and satellite imagery, I traced a series of abandoned locations scattered across the desert, including a massive ranch
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hidden on Mojave National Preserve land. At [music] first glance, it looked completely deserted. But when I got there, something felt off immediately.
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Locked buildings, warning signs, and cameras tucked into the landscape. No one was visible, but it didn't feel empty.
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[music] From there, the journey led deeper into the preserve, where I discovered the Evening Star Mine and the Bernice Mine.
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Places long decayed, yet not entirely forgotten. [music] This journey took me from toxic ruins to abandoned mines deep in the desert.
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[music] And places that may never be as abandoned as they appeared. And what I found, I wasn't expecting at all.
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This would have been the start of the operation, where everything began. And then it came down here for processing.
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Out to these giant reservoirs. And there's one after another. And this is where really all the contaminated stuff went on. And look at all these bricks as well.
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Tons of bricks on the ground. All over the place. So, what the EPA ended up doing was a lot of the slag piles.
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There's still some here, but most of them that were the most contaminated, they just removed them and trucked them elsewhere, which makes me wonder how many people come out here and spray paint and don't know what they're messing with out here.
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Wow, look at all these buildings, too, underground. There's nothing inside of it. It's just a big empty room.
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All these underground buildings as well, just one after another. Oh, this one is wrecked. It's all collapsed in.
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This one, too. There's nothing inside of any of them. I was kind of hoping maybe there'd be some equipment or something to indicate what these were.
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Oh, this one goes inside. Maybe we'll enter. Checking for snakes. Someone's old glove. Oh, it's cool in here. No wonder why they would have lived in these.
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Which some of these I know were lived inside of, but most of them, [snorts] I don't know.
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But it gets so hot in this desert, and then they built out these little sections to put stuff.
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That is so cool. Oh, yeah, this is all collapsed. It was another small cabin.
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Yeah, so I did some research and figured out that this is where they lived, in these little spots underground.
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So, this is really where all the contaminants originated from was these giant piles here.
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And the EPA put something down and they removed a lot of it. Yeah, you could see kind of how they bulldozed everything in the 1990s trying to remove it all.
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They left a lot, but I don't think this was really the contaminated stuff. When I say, I mean not as contaminated.
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In the early 1900s, this remote [music] site was once a copper smelter supporting more than 80 workers and multiple mule teams hauling ore from nearby mines and moving copper matte to the railroad. Operations ended in the 1940s. [music]
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During the 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, [music] conducted a major cleanup removing large quantities of arsenic-contaminated ore left behind from early smelter operations. [music] What's left is a stripped-down landscape, quiet, exposed, and marked by the remains of an industry that [music] once
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operated at full scale before vanishing into history. All right, let's head to the cemetery.
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We really just seen everything now all around us. And it's cool. It's a neat little operation out here.
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And what's this about? Huge hole in the ground. There's water piping going in. Interesting.
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This really gives us a good look at how extensive this waste rock is. That's one of the small piles.
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And then it keeps going right past that. Straight ahead of us is this cemetery known as Rosalie Cemetery, and I don't expect much to be left since it is such an old spot.
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Let's go inside. I love how there's a Joshua tree growing right in the middle of it.
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So, some of these graves, they're just so old. There's nothing on them. There's not going to be much in terms of dates, unfortunately.
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But, we do know that a lot of them were early 1900s. [music] There are a couple somewhat modern ones, actually. 1918 to 2018, then 1914 to 2011, then 1888 to 1951, 1876 to 1923, 1911 to 1996.
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All of this is graves. You wouldn't even know it because there's nothing remaining. 1887 to 1908.
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[music] See, you guys, this is kind of just my objective right now. I'm over here, and I want to cross over and see whatever this is right down in this area.
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It's like some abandoned buildings and whatever, right? And then, after that, I want to come up this way because apparently there's an abandoned ranch that's right down in this desert.
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And after that, I want to head up these mountains and see all this that I've marked down. I found all of this on Google Maps, keep in mind. And I want to just check it out. I don't really know
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what there is or what to do, but it all looks kind of interesting. So, we're now entering Mojave National Preserve, where we're going to find these two abandoned spots that are on Google Maps. The first one I'm actually
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taking a road a quarter mile to the right, going right into these deserts over here about like 5 miles, and then I'm jumping back onto the road and going another 20 miles or so to get to the next one.
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I see a windmill straight ahead. This is the moment of truth to see if anything remains of this first location. There's very little to no wind today, so the windmill isn't moving at all.
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And then, coming out here is all these water reservoirs with a couple structures. So, we will begin with the houses.
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Basically, the gist of it was people would live out here. The ranchers would come out here with their cattle for a couple months out of the year to let them graze and eat all the sagebrush and grass around us.
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And then, after that, they would move them elsewhere, probably to a main ranch somewhere nearby.
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This was a small bedroom for one of the cattle ranchers. Then going in, this was the same idea, just another bedroom.
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So, there's no kitchen or anything in these two rooms. They were just two small bedrooms with some drawers.
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Each had a closet. Right here is where they would have hooked up to stove pipe. So the stove pipe would sit on that, hook up there, and then go out.
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Oh, and this underground building, too. That's interesting. Wow. Rock Tank Cattle Company. Please treat this place with respect.
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And now it just sits all in ruins. No cattle anymore. And then a small room over here.
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Looks like the bathroom. There's plumbing, I see. So that's the shower. There's the pipe. We're going to have to see this, which is very interesting because it's underground.
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And they just built all this sand on top of it. There's the ventilation pipe. Now straight ahead of us, that was another windmill. That one's off for whatever reason.
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And then looking all around, it is amazing out here. I love seeing all the Joshua trees surrounding this entire ranch.
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Yeah, this was the pantry. Where all the cold food would be kept. It always makes me wonder because people have spent their lives out here. What happened to the family now? You know, the people may have passed away who were
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ranching this, but now that the ranches are shut down and got sold, what's going on with the families now? I wonder whatever happened. Maybe they all moved to the city. Who knows?
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Going into the barn now. It's not a whole lot. Flathead screwdriver. The windmill, it's a little bit windy, but not enough for it to move, unfortunately.
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And this was the water reservoirs. Yeah, that is a huge reservoir. But when you think about all the cows they would have, they needed all that water.
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And I
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Keep looking. It's all fenced around. And even more on this side. But that's really all there is of this spot.
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So, we'll go check out this other ranch. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Four-wheel drive, high ground clearance vehicles only. Well, I definitely fit that description.
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And straight ahead on this road is the abandoned ranch. And it's somewhat traveled. Oh, that's a coyote. You see that? I got that on camera, but it's so far away, unfortunately.
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It probably just looked like a tiny speck. All of these Joshua trees are dead.
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It gives this kind of post-apocalyptic vibe. Kind of creepy coming up to this ranch and all the trees around it are dead. There is not one living one. I wonder what happened.
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It's so strange because at that other ranch, they were all alive. But over here, they're all just fallen down. The ones that are standing aren't even alive.
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They would just tip over if you touched them. Oh, no way. We're coming up right now.
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And it's a modern-looking ranch. And there's the house. Water tower up the road. Oh, is this This might not be abandoned.
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Some of these places, you kind of have to just go slow. I don't know. I might see what that sign says.
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So, there is a sign. This area is under 24-hour video surveillance. Wow. I don't know.
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It's public land. I didn't see any signs saying we couldn't be here. Maybe it's just a historically protected area.
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Because check this out. Over here is the solar panels. And then they've been fixing this up.
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Maybe I wonder if it's like for the rangers to stay here. That type of place.
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Because when you come out here as well. There's a porch. It might just be locked up.
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Because they don't want people to vandalize it or anything. Let's see. Yeah. That's locked up. So they don't want people to come out and vandalize. I wonder Looks like they might be fixing it up to use it again, you know.
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That's what it looks like cuz there's the kitchen. And yeah, they would have people who work for the park service come out and live here.
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I think that's what they're trying to do because this ranch was bought out by the park service.
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And once they bought it out they kind of just abandoned it much like that other one we explored. There's a ceiling fan, another empty room.
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So check this out. That's the propane tank. And then these huge solar panels and this modern utility shed.
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I'm pretty sure I'm right about my guess. Which is that they plan to have park rangers start living here.
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That's why they're putting so much money towards this abandoned ranch. This got burnt up.
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It's the old food storage. Oh, that's a shame. It's all blackened now. Somebody just burnt this up just for the heck of it. I hate that. That's why they have to have this under video surveillance is because of people who do stuff like
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this. They did have an entrance. Look what happened to the wood. This burnt down as well.
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It was a house. It's unfortunate because you could see the foundation where the house would have been. There would have been two houses. This one and that one and this one has burnt down.
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And then straight ahead's the corrals, the barn. Let's keep having a look around. [music] So, you had the house and then coming up, I drove past all of this, but it's all the corrals.
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Water trough in the distance. So, they would just let the cows all in this one area, but obviously they would also be free-range and just go wherever they wanted all along this desert.
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This is still used for horses occasionally. I could smell the horses. They were in here.
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flammable Oh, that's all with supplies. This was a tool room. There's not much left. Some PVC piping and those.
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That's it. And the roof itself could use some work. I bet you some strong winds came and blasted that side off.
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Go inside of the barn. [panting] Just used for storage now. No way. Just some topo maps.
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2242022 Well, we seen most of the ranch. Let's keep looking though. There's this other road, too, that looks a lot more well-traveled than the way I took in.
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The last thing in this main section is an old wagon. Now I want to go up to the water towers.
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So keep traveling up the road a little ways. There's that house. So it appears at the top is another corral and three water containers with more solar panels.
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But there is nobody for miles. That's the insane thing about all of this is how desolate we are right now.
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So I now have my GPS on navigation to an abandoned mine operation which is going to be straight into those mountains right here. So let's go check that out.
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That is not what I expected. That is so cool looking. This whole operation, the massive head frame goes to an ore bin which goes down a whole shoot into another ore bin.
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I've never seen a head frame like that before. And then if you look over this way that's a gated off incline shaft.
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There's a miner's cabin in the distance and a bunch of waste rock. And look how surreal it is up here.
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Maybe you could see way in the distance I-15. I don't think you could get onto it to climb.
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It's probably all wrecked now. No ladders. So, if you don't know, I'll explain real quick the whole process. Basically, this head frame, you had an incline shaft right here, we'll be able to see it. And they had cable going down
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with ore carts that would ore or buckets, so to speak, that would bring up all the ore. That's what this head frame was for. So, it's giant cables connected to it with these ore buckets.
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Then these ore buckets would have to have somewhere to go. So, they're dump it up above in that huge ore bin at the top, the reservoir. And then from there, it would get dumped all the way down into ore chutes that would hit this ore
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bin. Once it hits this ore bin, it would sit there until a truck comes by. This truck dumps all that ore into it and brings it to a mill for processing. Then the mine gets paid.
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They have to pay the mill usually some sort of fee, some money to process the ore. And that's how the whole process worked. And I get a lot of viewers who don't know much about mining. It's really cool to see that I'm attracting
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that mainstream kind of audience. But, yeah, this is impressive. And that's the mine where all the material would come from, the main haulage.
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The ore carts would be on this track that go all the way to the top.
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Which is a fascinating piece of work they did. Now, what's really cool is it looks like we can climb up it.
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They didn't leave any rock. It's all been removed. Unfortunately, the ore chute has been removed.
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Would have sat right on that off to the reservoir. There's no way to even get up there anymore.
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Not that it would be too safe. A lot of this wood isn't too secure now.
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But there is a ladder to get down into the ore bin if maybe there's a clog or you need to get down, you know, for whatever reason, maintenance.
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That's that. And this gives us a good look around. Yeah, the other incline shaft. Then I see another head frame in the distance.
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We'll go check that out before going to Gear Prospect. [music] Remains of a workshop right here, maybe an assay office.
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Whatever it would have been. Then going off this incline shaft would have connected. So all these mines would have connected where that was the main haulage going up to the Is that open?
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We're going to have to get closer and inspect it real quick. Yeah so here is where the miners would have entered to go to work every day.
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And then up above that's the main area where they would remove all of the material from the mine.
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So this would be multi-leveled. I'm guessing there's raises and winzes throughout the entire mining tunnel.
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Just a huge mess of collapsed in sections and wood all falling down. I love being able to see all these cacti.
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This was a dynamite storage room. You could tell because of how thick the concrete is. Then there's a ventilation hole on the side of it.
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So, dynamite is obviously incredibly unstable. And because of that, they would have had it far away from everything else.
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And in a place such as this, where it's a concrete enclosed space. I love how quiet it is out here.
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Where if I stop, this is all you hear. There's nothing. This is where they left all of her kitchen stuff.
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There's the beds over here. There's springs for them. And then the fridge. Another bed.
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I like how this one is kind of all bent and warping. And this ginormous fridge here, too.
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And I just noticed this is also where the house was. This is the foundation. That's why it's all flattened out like that. And there's the rocks all around.
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There's the old stove pipe. And that was the house. Sweet. I noticed that driving up. Didn't see it before.
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A much smaller head frame for this mine. It's also been all gated up. Still got the ladder going down, though.
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It just drops off. It doesn't actually go too deep. There's the other incline. Then this was a dynamite storage room.
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Cool. So, we seen the Evening Star mine. Now, I want to go up to Gear Prospect, which is literally just right on the other side of this hill.
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And then, we'll call [clears throat] that an episode. So, this is Gear Prospect. There's not a whole lot. A very small headframe to an incline shaft.
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And then, the old cabin that they would have lived in with some ore cart tracks.
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These would have come out onto an ore shoot. And that's it up here. That's the entire place, you guys. That is it.
Topics:California desertSuperfund siteMojave DesertEPA cleanupabandoned minesEvening Star MineBernice Mineabandoned ranchtoxic historydesert exploration
