Lucky me! I was perusing local USGS Historic Topo’s and came across this awesome find. From Google Earth I could clearly see a mine shaft, a ball mill, a truck and other equipment scattered about the hills with an old road to guide us. I couldn’t find any history on the mine. The topo shows “Domingas Mine” and mindat.org refers to it as “Domingas Occurence”. So we set off to check this baby out.
couple cowboys pulled in behind us
About a 1/2 mile north, up the hill from a gated fence where the old mining road met with Hornitos Rd. As we pulled up to the gate a couple cowboys pulled in behind us and asked if we were with Paul’s crew trying to locate a loose cow. I said no we are here to photograph the mine up on the hill. One of the cowboys was quick to tell us this was not BLM land and was privately owned by Paul. We told the cowboy we weren’t going to harm anything only take pictures as we were interested in the history. He said that Paul’s family had owned the land for over a hundred years and we better check with Paul if we wanted history. I asked if it was ok if we took a couple photos. He said he couldn’t tell us yes and he couldn’t tell us no.
So we waited until he drove off and hopped the fence. We followed the barely discernible mining road to the mine. We first came upon the long sandy run off from the mill and could tell a lot of ore had been processed over the years. We then checked out the Ball Mill and jaw crusher sitting below a still intact ore hopper. Several electric motors were laying around and had been opened almost as if to attempt a repair, copper winding’s intact. It looked like an operation from the early 1900’s. Slightly north of the mill is the gaping hole of a collapsed mine shaft collar. Behind the shaft was a winch powered by a 4 cylinder engine. Behind the winch was a compressor and tank powered by yet another 4 cylinder engine. Near the compressor was an old dump truck from the 20’s or 30’s that was obviously used for hauling ore.
old chimney in the distance toward the creek
We knew from google earth more tunnels and prospects existed further up the hill but it was a long hot walk back and we didn’t go any further though we could see the tailings further up the hill. We also spotted an old chimney in the distance toward the creek that looked like it could have been a smelter. All in all a great trip.
Comment below if you know any history on the Domingas Mine near Hornitos! Check out our photos in the Gallery below.
