Log Cabin mine and mill are located up a dirt road just a few miles (but several thousand feet of elevation) from the bottom of the Tioga Pass road. The Log Cabin Mine was once the largest gold-producing mine in California. It was state-of-the-art and could both extract and process the gold from the quartz ore far beneath the surface. It opened in 1910, and over the next 30 years became famous for the amount of gold it produced and for the harsh winters the miners endured. Log Cabin mine was closed by Presidential order at the beginning of WW2, remained mothballed for the next 20 years in hopes of a rise in gold prices that would again make operation profitable, and finally closed permanently in 1956. Now, all that remains of the once bountiful mine are decaying buildings, equipment ravaged by time and vandals, and memories. |