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February 2000
At the time my friend Ray and I were
exploring the Providence Mountains, in the early '70s,  there
were no freeways cutting across the wide, flat, desert. There were a few
dirt roads here and there, and the famed Mitchell Caverns State Park not
far away. This would not be our first visit, but for me,  certainly
the windiest trip into this area. Our destination was the Bonanza King,
a silver and lead mine of prodigious wealth. At least in the past.
It was discovered in the 1870s and developed in the early 1880s. The Providence
Mountains are a "marbled cake" of minerals that range from iron to gold,
silver, lead, and carbonates. Most of these are located on the Western
and Eastern flanks of the mountain.
We left the National  Trails
Highway at the tiny town of Essex and angled Northwest up a good paved
road toward Mitchell Caverns. Now you can arrive by Interstate 40, which
cuts the distance from Essex in half.  Climbing
all the way, we eventually reached a major crossing, part of which is
pipeline road, the road to Foshay Pass, and Kaiser's closed Vulcan Mine
(iron). In other directions the junction will take you Northeast up the
Black Canyon Road to other interesting areas to explore.
"Our" road was to be a dusty dirt road,
heading almost North into the depths of the  Providence
Mountains. Steep in places, and barely maintained, our vehicles raised
clouds of dust. The last part of the road, revealed now the abandoned
collection of stone buildings, roofless and falling apart.  This
was the town of Providence. Late afternoon. We set up camp on flat spots
in front of some of the crumbling buildings hoping the wind would die
down. Up the dirt road we could see the massive headframe of the Bonanza
King mine, crouched right up against the mountain. We walked up the road
to the mine. It was quite a view. The remains of Providence, roofless,
 partly
vandalized, below, and the long shadows of early evening moving out onto
the still sun-lit plain. The wind was increasing and thoughts of supper
hastened our walk back down the rocky road to our camp.  That
which still remained of Providence were the stone builings made of tuff,
a fine-grained volcanic ash that is strong enough to support the building's
roof, but soft enough to be sawn from a ledge in the area using a wood
saw!
After supper prepared on my truck's
tailgate, we sought the protection of the inside of a tuff-walled ruin
and built a small fire from the debris left by other people. Even here,
the wind rushed, twirled and scattered sparks in all directions making
it rather unpleasant.  Off
to the sleeping bags. Sunup came much too soon for our hardy band of two.
Before breakfast I fired up my Honda Trail 70 and camera around my neck,
rode up to the mine to take a few pictures of the impressive headframe
lit up by the early morning sun. The wind had blown itself out during
the night leaving almost crystal-clear air. It felt good to warm my bones
in the sunlight.
Tuff was used everywhere, it seemed.
Even the location of the draw-works was walled with the useful stone.
From the base of the headframe one could look around and see other stone
houses that hadn't been totally destroyed. However,  looking
over the side of some tailings down the other side a mill that had served
this and some of the other mines was pretty much destroyed. A few empty
tanks still stood but it looked like everything else was flattened.
Returning to the truck, Ray and I prepared
the motorcycles, canteens of water, snacks, cameras, and topographic maps
and set out to look over the other clusters of prospects, small mines,
and scenery. Using the dual purpose motorcycles let us cover a considerable
amount of scenery from the gas bubble pocked walls of Hole in the Wall
to our North, now an established  campground
with all its humanity, back down and over Foshay Pass, visiting the Vulcan
Mine, operated by Kaiser Steel during World War II. All that is left there
is a deep pit with a pool of seepage water in the bottom. In the distance,
down the back (West) side of the Providence Mountains, from the Vulcan
Mine road, you can see the small railroad town of Kelso now fenced-in
and awaiting negotiations from several interested groups who want to presrve
the historic building that long ago  served
food at both a cafe for the railroad men and in the middle of the Depot
building served the passengers in a formal dining room complete with table
linen and crystal chandeliers, while extra steam engines were coupled
to the train to help it climb the grade to Cima and beyond.
Back in the Providence Mountains once
again, we explored Southwest along the Eastern side until we came  to
the Bighorn Mine. A caretaker lived there, but did not respond to our
call. We spent but a few minutes there taking pictures of this spectacular
headframe. It was a curiosity, well built and heavy, the headframe was
designed for two ore buckets. At the time of our visit, only one part
of the headframe had been in use as suggested by the protective sheet
iron on the dump chute.  Even
though it was not operational at this time, the grounds were tidy.
After we took a few pictures, we returned
to our base at the Bonanza King, and soon on the way home. A final note.
A later return trip to the Bonanza King shows the devastation to it's
headframe and grounds until nothing remains but some piles of tuff. --
Jerome W. Anderson
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