Our breakfast: Eggs at Jerry''s in Fallon
Our lunch : Steaks and beer next to the Humboldt River
North from Winnemucca on US 95 for 31.5 miles to the junction of US 95 and NV 140; west on NV 140 for 25.8 miles to Bottle Creek Ranch Rd.; South on Bottle Creek Ranch road for 24.6 miles to junction of dirt road; north on dirt road for 13.4 miles.
Not much information on this particular area. Apparently called the DeLong mine before being referred to as the Iron King.
Ownership:Jackson Mountain Mining Company, P.O. Box 587, Winnemucca, Nevada. This company controls 79 unpatented claimed in this area and is keeping up the assessment. Economics: Presently shipping at least 5 cars per day from Jungo siding of Western pacific Railroad. Marketing all they can produce now (July, 1964) but market is uncertain because of large supply from several recently discovered iron ore bodies elsewhere in Nevada, in Utah, and in Australia. Conclusions: U.S. Steel made aerial magnetometer survey of Jackson Mountains and did not pursue further. Apparently results were not too good. Willden published their magnetometer map and said it did not look promising. However, mine owners have apparently blocked out sizable future reserves. Should be shipping iron ore for many more years.
-Western Pacific Railroad Company, July 28, 1964
Ownership changed hands several times over the years.
Iron King Mine, aka IC-Claims (Chevron Minerals)Ownership: Old claims- not known. Chevron Minerals have new claims. Reverted to Bengoa et al when Chevron pulled out. Three sets of old workings consisting of adits and shafts. New work consists of numerous drill roads and numerous drill holes. This work was done 2-3 years ago. Activity: None. Not known if Chevron is still working in area. Somebody was in area same day as me.
-Report, 1984
It seems there was a bit of minor activity before the iron mine started up.
Prior to the startup of mining operations at the DeLong iron mine in 1952, very little is known about mining activity within the district. Lincoln mentions that small amounts of copper ores and lead ores having been shipped but he gave no indication of when this happened. His information probably came from "Mineral Resources of the United States," as he listed three yearly volumes in his bibliography, 1912, 1918, and 1920. Based on the dates of these volumes the writer has assumed that some activity was in progress in 1912, possibly a few years before 1912.There are four sets of workings in the area and it is thought they all pre-date World War II. Mining began at the Delong mine in 1952 and continued for the next 10 to 15 years. By the end of 1960, 664,403 long tons of iron ore had been mined. Three other iron mines are also found in the district. They are the Redbird Mine, Humboldt Mine, and the Jackson prospect (originally the Iron King prospect). All of these properties have had some production but not near as much as the DeLong mine. Total iron ore production for the district approaches, or maybe even exceeds, one million long tons.
-Summary Report, 1985
None
Despite recent rain storms the roads up here are in great shape, and there is lots of nice scenery. The sites are spread out between the DeLong (Iron King) and the Red Bird mines, and each seems to have an upper and lower camp. While buildings are empty, there are plenty of them, and more than several abandoned cars, pickups, and dump trucks scattered about.