Noonday Camp, California facts for kids
Noonday Camp, also known by names like Mill City, Noonday City, and Tecopa, is a ghost town. It's found in the Mojave Desert in Inyo County, California. This old town is located east of Tecopa.
There are two main parts to Noonday Camp. Upper Noonday Camp is located at 35°48′39″N 116°06′15″W / 35.81083°N 116.10417°W. Lower Noonday Camp is just a bit south of it at 35°48′01″N 116°06′05″W / 35.80028°N 116.10139°W.
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The Story of Noonday Camp
Noonday Camp was built in the 1940s by the Finley Company. Its main purpose was to support nearby lead mines. These mines included the War Eagle, Noonday, and Columbia mines.
Later, the Anaconda Copper Company took over. They built a special mill in 1947–1948 to process the lead ore. The town was used for mining operations for many years. However, it was finally abandoned in 1972. This makes it a fairly recent ghost town compared to others in the area.
Lead mining stopped in 1957. This happened because the U.S. government had collected enough lead for its emergency supplies. Because of this, the Tecopa and Darwin lead mines closed down. These mines had been very busy, even working three shifts a day during the war years.
What You Can See Today
If you visit Noonday Camp, you can still find many signs of the old mining days. You'll see collapsed wooden buildings and old foundations. There are also stone walls and places where equipment once stood.
Lower Noonday Camp
A large water tank from the old mill helps mark the spot for Lower Noonday Camp. Near the old mill, which is now falling apart, was the area called "Married Mans Camp." Here, you can find the foundations of about 18 to 20 buildings hidden in the plants. There's also a small graveyard. You might see slag, which is waste from an 1870s lead smelter. A few adobe buildings, made from sun-dried mud bricks, are also still there.
Upper Noonday Camp
Across the Western Talc Road, up a dry creek bed, is a unique home. It's a dugout dwelling built into the side of a cliff. A water pipe once ran from a well to Upper Noonday Camp. This area was known as "Single Mans Camp" and was on Furnace Creek Road.
Anaconda's employees used this camp from 1949 to 1957. After that, employees from Western Talc used it until 1972. The camp was then abandoned. Locals took materials from it, and it was torn down in 1978.
You can still see the foundations of houses where supervisors lived. There are also slabs of concrete that supported the kitchen, a boarding house, and bunkhouses. Lots of old items are scattered around. A notable sight is a cinder block vault. This vault once held special money, called script currency, that miners used at the company store.
Talc Mine and Bins
Roads from Noonday Camp lead to the Noonday and War Eagle mines. You can also see a large white open pit. This is the talc mine, located on Western Talc Road. Talc was once very popular, but it's used less now because it can contain asbestos.
From Highway 127 and the Old Spanish Trail, you can spot the landmark Tecopa bins. These large bins were built in 1944. One was used for lead ore, and the other for talc. The lead ore was loaded onto trucks and taken to a train siding at Dunn. From there, it was shipped to smelters in Utah.
