Cudahy's Old Dutch Cleanser Mines

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Pumicite production from the property began in 1923 under the auspices of the Cudahy Packing Company. Material was removed from underground workings along wide drifts on a vein height up to 21 feet from floor to ceiling. The large side-by-side portals of these workings on the face of the white outcrop are still completely intact.
During the early mining period hand labor was used to remove slabs of the semi-hard, brittle material for placement in 1-1/2-ton side-dumping cars pulled up out of the mine into daylight by burros. Twelve men were employed to produce 100 tons of pumicite per week. While remote western ores were hauled to shipping centers by burro or mule-team, the ore from The Old Dutch Cleanser mine was lowered to loading bins over a 475-foot- long inclined rail tramway. Evidence of this unusual conveyance is easily observed today, most safely from the lower roads.
From the base of the rail tramway the mined rock was trucked to a siding on the Southern Pacific Railroad seven miles due south of the mine. The tramway on the western workings was shut down when a road was built to the eastern workings on the same vein. Truck loading was then employed near the working portals. Rail cars delivered the ore to Los Angeles, where it was ground and blended with other material to produce a disinfecting scouring powder. The product was and is widely known throughout the U.S. as Old Dutch Cleanser, a domestic kitchen and bathroom scouring agent. Beginning in 1947 the manufacturers obtained their pumicite from other sources.

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