Panamint [new] (Shadow Mountain), Panamint Mining District (Ballarat Mining District), Panamint Mts (Panamint Range), Inyo County, California, USAi

Regional Level Types
Panamint [new] (Shadow Mountain)	- not defined -
Panamint Mining District (Ballarat Mining District)	Mining District
Panamint Mts (Panamint Range)	Mountain Range
Inyo County	County
California	State
USA	Country

This former mining camp/town is rather obscure. There is no presence of any of its former claims/mines in the USGS MRDS database. The topo map reflects "Panamint" at/near the summit of Sentinel Peak, on the Panamint Range summit divide, just S of Panamint Pass. This is in the vicinity of the headwaters of the northernmost fork of Johnson Canyon, but is quite some distance from Telescope Peak. There are no mining symbols in the immediate area (nor are there any E of Telescope Peak). The description and history of the place are strictly derived from Greene (1981). Greene details how the initial claims were located by Clarence E. Eddy, traveling up through Johnson Canyon (West slope of the Panamints), to a point E of Telescope Mountain (below its E slope), on the opposite side of the mountain from (old) Panamint. The new town was named "Shadow Mountain" and later had the name changed to "Panamint." Greene also, at one point, refers to "old Panamint." Salient extracts from Greene are provided:

In the summer of 1907 Clarence E. Eddy, "The Poet-Prospector" who had been doing some work in the Panamints in Johnson Canyon, led a party of newspaper men into the area to view his Fairview Group of fourteen free-milling gold, silver, and copper claims, whose ore was assaying from $28 to $31 per ton. He and the Salt Lake City newspaper men who had grubstaked him, headed by Frank I. Sefrit, manager of the Salt Lake Tribune had also secured the water rights to an adjacent stream and spring. Eddy, as the initial discoverer in the area, was completely optimistic about the whole situation, though he was not above acknowledging that sometimes these strikes did not pan out.

The discovery was said to be located on the opposite side of the mountain from old Panamint at an altitude of 5,000 feet below the east slope of Telescope Peak, and could be reached by wagon road from Rhyolite via Lee or Daylight Springs to Bennetts Well and then by trail up Johnson Canyon for about fifteen miles. This latter part of the route could best be negotiated on horseback, and with more difficulty by wagons. It was encouragingly reported that the country had plenty of water and fuel, with good grazing land available for pack horses and mules; it did not appear to have been worked earlier by whites. In contemplating formation of a new townsite in the area, the name "Shadow Mountain" was decided on, because of a dark area on Telescope Peak's east slope visible in the distance.

By the middle of July 1907 plans, including a post office, were proceeding ahead full steam for the development of the new mining camp, which was being renamed "Panamint." Over 100 claims had now been staked, with prospectors still swarming over the area. Salt Lake interests were the principal backers of the camp, intending to organize two companies, each with a capital of 1-1/2 million dollars; two more companies were due to organize within another month. Businessmen were commencing at once to sell stock, but would wait until fall to begin actual development work:

the numerous ledges of gold discovered . . have given all a full faith in the camp. They maintain that Greenwater, Skidoo and Lee, with all of their indications, are not ahead of the new Panamint. It is also believed that the famous Breyfogle was found and lost in this section, and that the new discovery is within a few miles of "Scotty's" famous mines.

In short, the prospectors and persons interested in the new discoveries are confident that the Panamints will witness the next excitement in Nevada-California mining.

Among the main parties heading for the new area to join the Rhyolite Mining Company people, the newspaper men, and the Salt Lake City capitalists, was C. A. Perry, a mining man from Denver and manager of the Golden Chief Mining and Milling Company operating in the South Bullfrog District. A week later the first note of pessimism was creeping into accounts of the district. According to newspaper reports, Paul De Laney, an assistant district attorney at Rhyolite and one of the representatives of the Rhyolite newspaper syndicate, had been sent to the area to scout it, and

Regarding the strike, . . . does not exhibit any marked degree of enthusiasm. He says the early statements about it are somewhat at variance with the facts.

This may be why, when "Slim" Young and James Kane joined the rush to the Panamints, they passed by Eddy's camps and went seven miles further west to the site of old Panamint where they located six claims. This area seemed to promise more good discoveries and Young mentioned that the former mill operators there still owned sixteen patented claims in the vicinity. Bolstering De Laney's opinion about the new Panamint was the Inyo Independent's terse comment: "The strike was a fizzle." It further quotes De Laney as reporting:

The Lost Inca . . . is a fake, pure and simple[.] I do not know whether Eddy knew any better, but he certainly should have known what he was talking about before spread [sic] the wild stories. We sent two men, Le Compte and Simpson, to look after our interests there, and they were evidently carried away by the stories of Eddy and the appearance of the country. There was nothing but lime, but the lime was of different ages, and the various discolorations gave it the appearance of a contact.

The last accounts found concerning the new Panamint mining area mention Eddy as being still involved in prospect work there. He evidently still represented, or thought he did, the Salt Lake interests who owned twenty-seven claims in Johnson Canyon in the name of the Panamint Mining Company.

Eddy, obviously in an attempt to draw attention away from his fiasco in Johnson Canyon, was now gradually turning his thoughts and hopefully those of his detractors to the possibility of locating gold on the floor of Death Valley.(Greene, Linda I. (1981): III.A.14.d)

NOTE: The coordinates provided are based on the location of the second "Panamint" on the topo map.

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