Briggs Mine

 gold mine  Add category

Once the location of Manly Fall, the highest dryfall waterfall in Inyo County and Henry Briggs's cabin, it is now the site of Briggs Mine, a gold mining operation. Briggs often shared his cabin with Seldom Seen Slim from Ballarat. The fall was named after William Manly who, along with John Roger, walked from Death Valley to Los Angeles in 1849 in a desparate attempt to save the Bennett/Arcan travelling party.

Before the curent operation started, there were two gold claims being worked here: the Southern Homestead (or Southern Homestake) and the Gold Tooth (or Schnellheist). It is currently operated by Canyon Resources Corp., 250-14142 Denver West Parkway, Golden, CO 80401. In 2001 it produced 96,000 toz.

From the California Journal of Mines and Geology, Vol. 47, No. 1, Jan. 1957:

The Gold Tooth was owned by A.R. Greenslit and R.E. Baughman, Trona (1938).

An 8-10 foot vein of schistose rock cemented by quartz strikes N 10 degrees W, dips 70 degrees east. Wall rocks are quartzite, altered porphyry and schist. Free gold is associated with iron sulfides. Worked by adits and related workings.


The Southern Homestake was 10 unpatented claims owned by Harry Briggs, Trona, California:

A wide brecciated diorite sill, associated with steeply west-dipping limestone and quartzite beds, contains auriferous pyrite. The sill, now altered and silicified, has intruded along the contact of the quartzite with granite porphyry.

The deposit is worked by open cuts and by a series of interconnected tunnels and lateral workings totalling more than 1600 feet.

Samples tested show the ore to be worth $7 to $16 per ton. The ore-bodies, which carry more gold in areas of intense brecciation, range from 4 to 10 feet in width.

The owner is engaged in surface stripping of promising areas with a bulldozer. (as of 1957)