The Bonanza mine / Gold Eagle mine
The Bonanza mine and the Gold Eagle mine consist of at least 6 shafts located around a 1/2 sq mile area at aprox 33.66842 N 113.59115 W. This mine was famous from 1888-1910 and produced TONS of gold. The main shaft is 500 feet deep with 7 levels and long drifts. It became the town of Harqua hala in the Harquahala Mountains.
It has had some activity after that time, some reprocessing of tailings with cyanide with large amounts of cyanide still on site and worthy of caution.
THE PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. GPS on all pics and many more pics to come shortly.
There are few structures left standing today. Buzzards circle you hoping you will die. No one goes here, it is in a very remote location and off the radar for everybody
This grave yard has no markings and no history. 34 people are buried here. Indians were a constant problem and people were killed. No doubt the hazards of mining also took its toll as well as saloon fights some of which were well documented.
This was a very busy place from 1888 thru 1910. It really hit its stride with a 20 stamp mill from 1891-1893 when it produced $ 1.7 million in gold in 1893 dollars.
It had by then a number of stores, numerous boarding houses, 3 saloons and many other businesses needed for a small town. It even had a newspaper, The Harqua Hala Miner. Also, it had a 6 mile long pipeline that was created to provide water to the town.
Very little is left of anything now more then 100 years later.
There are numerous shafts dotting the hills and the hills have a distinctly different geology. I am walking on tailings and there is a vertical shaft inside this crack.
The main shaft a 15 foot wide vertical shaft that is welded shut with gynourmously thick 1/2 steel. To open this would require a front loader. This is of course per arizona law. This is after all a 500 foot ( 50 story ) vertical drop. We dropped rocks down in it and YES it was a V E R Y deep hole. This is probobly the only way to access the 7 levels of the mine. Many of those levels are, no doubt, filled with water by this time.
Amazingly a week later someone had seriously moved these plates and the supporting pipes.
There are however numerous other shafts that may connect to the main mine. Most of which are vertical and seriously capped with steel, however there are a few horizontal ones left that are open.
The below shot was fairly deep in one shaft that turned the corner in the back of this pic. The markings on the wall are interesting, we see these in all the shafts in this area and they start off with small numbers and get bigger as you go underground. This shaft was surveyed fairly recently. There was a partial cave in however in this shaft and further exploration will be difficult.
We found a shaft filled with jumping cactus. This was very strange indeed. It also had a real live bat in it. We have designated it the "Bat Cave". We will explore it further shortly.
There are extensive reprocessing of the tailings that have gone on with HUGE piles of exposed cyanide. WARNING TOXIC.. Do NOT VISIT THE PLACES PICTURED BELOW.
We found a fun mine shaft we have called the Bat Cave, cuz its got bats. Bats are actually about the size of a small mouse and not dangerous at all. Kinda cute actually.
Usually -I- have to go into the mine. S U R E Dave is big and I fit better... BUT could it be that Dave is scared to go ?? The above bat could be reason to be nervous.
Dave made up for this in the nice exploration vid below
This was a nice one and lots of bats
This section of arizona is a very dry and inhospitable place with dust devils that look just like tornados.
