Lost Josephine gold mine

                                                Conclusion
Below, you will see photos that we took in August showing the fire damage, and other photos of importance.  Later, I will try to put it all together as I see it, and leave the rest for you to decide whether I am close or not. I heartily encourage anyone who wishes to make a conjecture to please do so.
I will only be able to post one photo at a time. The first three show the fire damage that occured in 2003. All of the trees are dead, and no bark(which contained the carvings)remains.





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This shows the damage to the area where most of the tree carvings were located. The green brush that surrounds the trees are nearly seven feet tall. When I was last there (14 years ago), no brush was anywhere.

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Look at this work!! The mill it's self is steel from Sweden. Amazing.

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Now, I think that I can put it all together. Did Burke and Bowen take gold ore from the Mount Pennell area? Yes! Was it from the Josephine? No, remember Wolverton said, " found the old Mexican(Spanish) mill site ........... on the hill SOUTH of camp". The Burke and Bowen mine is located NORTH of his camp, and quite high above the Spanish arrastras and smelter. Did we find the Burke and Bowen mine? I believe so. It was above Corral Creek, there was a very old shaft, one could see where ore had been knocked off around the entrance to the mine. Wolverton built his mill and camp on Straight Creek. Across from his camp were Spanish arrastras, near the mill was a smelter, nearby were tree carvings indicating a direction to his area. He wrote in his journal that he had found ore south of his camp on a hill side.
Olgean and Hainey had followed a waybill to the Mount Pennell area where they found an old smelter. Hainey found a piece of phonolite that contained gold. There is quite a bit of phonolite in the area.
One last little piece of interesting information. My partner has built an electronic geophysical instrument that will detect anomalies from a distance. In only one place in the entire area did we get a reading. Standing at the site of Wolverton's mill, we got a reading directly south, up on the hill side!

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,2340.msg19148.html#msg19148

Bill, Great detective work/research on the Utah region & mines. I thorougly enjoyed the pictures, reading about getting to the area, and, with the clues, seeing for yourself how all the pieces of the puzzle fell together. I have to think that the mill wasn't just an activity to while away the hrs. The Henry Mtns have an interesting history and were/are so scenic - no idea that I was missing such a neat area when I would go thru Utah on the way further west. Thanks for sharing it all with us.

Sycamore Canyon appears to be quite scenic, but pretty rugged. Guess it goes to prove that if an area is easy, everything would have been explored to the nth and found. Initally it sounds like you are trekking into an area that's haunted. The pix that I'm attaching, I'm sure you are already familiar with, but I like it and thought it seemed fitting. Sue

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