Scheelite Chief Mine

I’d been wanting to check this mine in the Great Basin region of Nevada out ever since I first read about it many years ago. We first visited it in 2010 and it turned out to be a nice find.

Ore chutes

There is an empty mining camp with a minor amount of equipment, of which most interesting is an old drill rig. If you look closely, you can see it is labeled "Keystone Driller". These rigs date from the 1880s.

The mine is interesting as well with a few thousand feet of drifts and stopes. Silver was first discovered here on March 13, 1869, when a Native American led a group of miners to a vein outcrop on the hill above the mine. Little was produced, however, and the mine was abandoned by 1874.

Later, during World War I, tungsten was mined here. After the war, the mine fell silent until 1938 when the drums of war began to beat once again. The mine was worked throughout World War II for tungsten and again in the 1950s.

As of April 2016, the mine is gated. Enjoy my photos.

Portable Drilling Rig