Tip Top Gold Mine - Eastern Sierra - California
A lucky find, seeing this print of the Cardinal Mine by Ken Stroman, hanging on a wall in Bishop Coins & Antiques.
Two brothers, Felix and Charles Meyerson, located a claim on the Middle Fork of Bishop Creek way back in 1890. They worked their “Tip Top” mine for around five years, after which it was sold to an investment group out of New York City. It later was known as the Bishop Creek Gold Company, and at some point down the line became known as the Cardinal Mine.
For a more in-depth read of the area’s history, check out this LINK to the Bishop Visitor Center website. An excerpt: “The mine was a large, impressive operation in its day. Deep shafts were drilled and tunnels dug under the cliff comprised about 4,000 feet of excavation underground. The main shaft went vertically into the earth for 100 feet and a further 500 feet was dug at an incline. Other shafts were drilled higher up the ridge. Numerous tunnels extended at various levels from the shafts with the longest tunnel, at 200 feet below the head of the main shaft, extended for 1,400 feet – completely under North Lake!”
It’s a short hike to the mine, a little research will show you how to get there. Afterall, what would be the fun in just following directions to get there 😁.
It was a beautiful day for a hike, to a place none of us had ever been. I’d read of the Cardinal Mine a few years back, and as chance would have it, our group was spending the week in the area. “Let’s hike to a gold mine,” I said. So we did. We were a group of young men and leaders from a SoCal ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints, an excellent bunch of guys. Here’s our story, mostly in pictures.
The most exciting part of the hike to the mine, was undoubtedly the crossing of Bishop Creek, over a very sketchy “log bridge,” pictured above. While a misstep and fall into the raging current probably wouldn’t have ended in a trip to the ER, I’m glad none of us explored that possibility. I’m not sure how many more winters that “bridge” will survive….
Some big piles of waste rock, overburden, on the sides of the hills.
The overall grounds of the mining operation were pretty big. There are foundation ruins of all the main buildings one would expect to find at a big operation: Stamp Mill, Cyanide Plant, Bunkhouse, Headframes, Hoist Houses, etc. It must have been a sight to see when it was in operation.
Was there a shaft down there? The foundations seemed pretty substation, maybe for a hoist over the shaft?
These may have been foundation pieces for a Stamp Mill, it’s hard to know for sure and there are practically no photos of the place when it was operating.
These interesting foundations and possible shaft areas were pretty fun to poke around in, and were among the first spots of mining evidence we hiked by. I probably could have spent another hour just searching the area up on this hill, but there was more to see.
Spot the hiker. Looking back now, we probably should have climbed up above that top waste pile to see where it all came from. I’ve no doubt there’s a tunnel or two up there. D’oh! Oh well, next time! And are they waste piles or tailing piles? I don’t know.
There’s the biggest, intact remaining piece of the Cardinal Mine. I believe it’s the headframe for the ore-bin. The stamp mill would have been near the creek, across the gravel road I was standing on to take this picture. Some very substantial concrete foundations up there.
The Powder Tunnel
The foundation ruins of what I believe was the Stamp Mill are visible in this shot above.
No idea what this was for, but it needed to have its picture taken.
1933 in the concrete. Hey, I’m in this picture, too!
Around and behind the cement walls on the left, there’s a tunnel!
This was pretty cool, behind the boys there’s a tunnel entrance that goes in maybe twenty feet or so, the back face of the wall drilled for dynamite. I wonder why they quit on this tunnel? And now that I look at that back wall of the tunnel, those rocks at the bottom seem too perfectly placed to be debris. I wonder if there was an opening behind them that was sealed off?
What I think are the Stamp Mill foundation ruins, or maybe some other processing buildings. Now home to a lot of rusty debris and many vicious mosquitos.
I think we all would have been happy to spend another hour or two here, most likely many things we didn’t discover. But it was time to head out and go fishing!
On the hike back, we caught a glimpse of a beautiful waterfall. Luckily, we had time to fit a hike to the falls into our schedule on Friday. It was well worth the brutal terrain we traversed to reach its sweet waters. A journey none of us will ever forget.
It was a great hike and I was happy to be able to share with the boys my excitement about finding and exploring old places like this. I think they may have all caught the fever.
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Didn’t see this plaque when we were there, but I know where it is now 😁.