Mammoth City: A Gold Rush That Vanished in Three Years
Near Mammoth Lakes, California
Long before skiers arrived, this was gold country, and for a brief, feverish moment it was one of the busiest camps in the Eastern Sierra. In eighteen seventy seven prospectors staked claims on the slopes above here, and in eighteen seventy eight promoters organized the Mammoth Mining Company, cut tunnels into the mountain, and built a stamp mill to crush the ore. Word spread, and thousands of hopeful people poured in.
At its peak the town of Mammoth City had somewhere around fifteen hundred residents, along with saloons, stores, breweries, restaurants, and even newspapers, all thrown up almost overnight in this thin mountain air. It did not last. The rich gold the promoters had promised never really materialized.
By eighteen eighty a brutal winter and a fire that burned much of the town broke its spirit, the company shut down, and people left as fast as they had come. The whole boom lasted barely three years. Decades later, a smaller operation called the Mammoth Consolidated Mining Company worked the ground near Lake Mary.
The Forest Service preserves those later mine ruins in what it calls arrested decay, weathered cabins and rusting machinery you can walk among today.
