Finding old ghost towns in the desert is typically not an easy task because the desert reclaims the land fairly quickly; so, I was really surprised when I found "Old" Ivanpah on the first try. ("Old" Ivanpah is sometimes called Ivanpah I because there is also a "New" Ivanpah ghost town, which is sometimes called Ivanpah II - See RonnieAdventure #0049, April 5, 2013.)
I did not have GPS coordinates for "Old" Ivanpah, but I did cheat a little because I looked at the site on Google Earth before I left home. Actually, because I have such a short memory I printed a picture of the area that helped me weave my way through the maze of old trails and roads around the "Old" Ivanpah site.
The townsite of "Old" Ivanpah was laid out in a "Y" shape with some of the buildings located on each "arm" of the "Y" and a mountain between the "arms." There is also at least one building site and a water tank on the stem of the "Y." I found the water tank, which is still in use today, but I missed the building ruins.
At the junction of the "arms," I first tried the "left arm" of the "Y" and drove as far as I could before the arroyo became too narrow and rough to go any farther. After hiking up the arroyo a short distance I found the old spring with its enlarged opening and a nearby vertical mine shaft, but I located only one building foundation. I knew that there were other building foundations in the area so I climbed a nearby hill for a better view of the area and much to my surprise, less than 100 feet from where I parked my vehicle were two partial buildings and another vertical mine shaft. There were also several other building foundations and lots of mining debris in the area.
Once back in the vehicle, we retraced our path back to the junction of the two "arms" of the "Y" and found a large tank, a loading chute, an old mill site foundation and other historic artifacts lying around the ground. Historical documents indicate that there were two mill sites in Ivanpah - a five-stamp mill and a 10-stamp mill. This was apparently the location of the ten-stamp mill because there was a multi-tiered, foundation and lots of steel embedded in the ground.
Traveling up the right "arm" of the "Y," we discovered the site of what was apparently the 5-stamp mill location and a number of buildings remnants that were adjacent to the trail that we were following. The rock steps were still in place so that you could walk up the top of the mill foundation. Just to verify that we were at the correct location, I climbed another hill to view the surrounding area and I could see that there were no other obvious building locations.
Historical documents indicate that "Old" Ivanpah was founded in 1869 and occupied for about 30 years. There were reported to be in "Old" Ivanpah a number of "neat and comfortable" houses, two hotels, two stores, two saloons, two blacksmith shops, two shoemakers' shops, two hay yards, a butcher shop, a post office, and the office headquarters for Piute Mining Company. The Green-Eyed Monster newspaper was founded in 1880, but went out of business after a few issues. By 1899 the post office had closed and most of the miners had moved on to more prosperous areas.
Today, "Old" Ivanpah waits for the desert to reclaim the land.
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