Off-road & Hike Big Bell Mine, Death Valley National Park, California

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Big Bell Mine, Death Valley can be reach by 4WD road for about 13 miles to the top of the cable road (5,000 feet elevation) above the mine. Hike down to the mine at 3,600 feet. The drive passes the Chloride City ghost town. The Big Bell mine lay idle from 1912 to 1935, when the Coen Company acquired mining rights to the property. After a preliminary testing period, the Coen Company opened operations in earnest on the Big Bell site, and established a camp. Eight men were put to work in March of 1936. A ball mill was erected at the property, as well as cyanide tanks, and a pipe line was constructed from Keane Springs down to the mine, via Chloride Cliff. Due to the virtual inaccessibility of the mine, access was primarily down from Chloride Cliff, via an "improved" motorcycle trail, which was little more than a crude inclined cable road. A Mack truck chassis was modified and used to slowly winch supplies and men up and down the steep ridge. Keane Springs was improved and a pump house and pumping machinery installed. Operations at the mine, however, proved that overhead was too high or the ore content too low for profitable operation, and by the fall of 1937, the Coen Company had abandoned its efforts. Due to the extreme efforts required to haul its machinery back out of the mine site, everything was left in place. The Coen Company probably produced a small amount of gold bullion during its period of operation, but no production statistics are available.

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