Hedges, California

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Hedges began as the Gold Rock mining camp, that grew up around the Gold Rock Mine discovered by Peter Walters in 1884. He soon thereafter sold out to developers who renamed the mine the Golden Cross in 1892. In 1893, Golden Cross Mining and Milling Company began a development program bringing in a stamp mill to work the ore in the local mines. The camp grew into a town amidst the mines, named Hedges, in honor of the firm's vice president C. L. Hedges. The town was renamed Tumco in 1910, for The United Mines Company, the company that bought the Gold Cross mining company from its previous owners. The Tumco Mine operated from 1892 until 1917, and again from 1937 until 1942. The town in the late 1800s had a population of several thousand by 1942 it only had 30.

Hedges was a company town, run from a company compound on a small terrace in the center of town. At Hedges, the company supplied the community with a running water system, electrical lights, boarding house, miner’s club and reading room, housing for the management, and a hospital. The store was in a frame building. Adjoining it were the office of the receiver and a sleeping apartment for commercial travelers. Residences for the management consisted of four small wooden dwellings and three brick houses. The court appointed receiver occupied a seven-room structure, originally known as “Fuller’s House.” The miner’s club and reading room, actually a company saloon located in an adobe building, carried a general stock of liquors and tobacco and provided billiard and pool tables. The hospital was located in a stone building next to the miners club and had a resident doctor by 1897.

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