Klondike Ike here....
For all you MD folks out west and for those who may want to travel to this spot... here is a possible good target area to swing a detector over... it is the old town site of Baldwin City....
A little history here....Go back to the roaring days of Virgina City, NV... where a man named "Lucky Baldwin" won a Southern California Gold mine in a poker game... when The silver prices dropped like a rock in the late 1800's.. Lucky Baldwin decided to visit the gold mine he had won nearly 10 years earlier....he liked what he saw and decided to open it up... Since the stamp mill being used near Oro Grand on the Mojave River near present day Victorville, CA..which had been crushing the silver ore from Calico, CA... since these mines had shut down too..Baldwin bought the stamp mill ...and 3 months later along with the brute force of an army of 300 men delivered the mill to the entrance of his gold mine...(one needs to see how steep this country is to understand the great feat of accomplishment to get that mill up the mountain)...and over the next 20 years produced about $10 million in gold from the mine...now you know how he got his name..."LUCKY Baldwin..." He had already made million in the silver mines of Virgina City, NV...
Another 2 mines started up to the south of the Baldwin mine... with in 1/4 mile of Baldwin's mine.... The middle mine owner of the 3 mines decided to run a ditch from Holcomb Valley, the 16 miles to his mine to deliver water and increase production.... but the mine owner furtherest from Baldwin's mine would allow him to cross his property with the ditch and there ensued a gun fight... several miners were killed, along with a county Sherriff and both mines shut down and have never reopened....Sitting across the lake at Big Bear City, you can still see the line representing part of the 16 mile long ditch cut into the mountain side...only to come 200 hundred yards short of it destination...
A city named Baldwin City sprang up to service the mines and in 1904 came 2 votes short of becoming the County seat for the California County of San Bernardino...Baldwin City lost to the city of San Bernardino, which is still the county seat today...
In 1906 Baldwin City was literally wiped out by a Cholera epidemic.... and today all that is visible of this once thriving city is the community well site made of stone...(probably the cause of the Cholera problem)... and maybe a couple of stone or early attempts of concrete foundations...
The grave sites are to the North of the city site scattered all over some hills and today mostly covered by brush and unkempt.... most of the graves are easy to recognize as they are a simple stack of stones and cobbles on top of the ground...with no grave markings....(a lot like one would see in an old Hollywood western movie.... I believe there are about 200 graves scattered about....with many being of children....as they are very small stack of stones....compared to the larger stacks probably of adults... The last time I was there , in the mid 1980's... there was 2 graves with a very worn short iron picket fence around a couple of graves and some plastic flowers had been put there... but none of the graves are marked and with such heavy brush overgrowth, it is difficult to find the graves today.....
I have never detected this city site area... it and the 3 mine tailing piles might be interesting to swing a detector on ...seeking lost coins and jewelry and missed gold in the rocks of the tailing piles....Please stay out of the mine...it is a very dangerous mine with lots of cave in areas...
Baldwin Lake and the Old Baldwin City site are located slightly north east of Big Bear lake, highway 18 goes around part of the lake just before it starts the heavy switch back of the extremely steep drop from the high mountain area to the desert floor below....
The city site is located between the Western edge of the lake and the tailing piles of the mines further to the west at the end of a small valley...the largest tailing pile is the one on the right .... it is the LUCKY Baldwin mine....
Another side note about Lucky Baldwin... he built a house for his very young bride...called the "Queen Ann's House..." it is soooo fantastic to visit... it is located in the middle of the Los Angels Arboretum...next to the Santa Anita Horse race track.... at one time Baldwin and over 7 million fruit and citrus trees in plant all around the site of his house and the many cities that make up this area today.... Many of you have seen the Queen Ann's house without going there... as it was there house used on Fantasy Island TV series many years ago... and the short guy was in the bell tower of Baldwin house..saying..."Hey Boss..de plane,..de plane..." and the many girls would come off the front porch of the home when guest arrived...
When "Bogey" crawled out of the water through the reeds to Bacall in the movie... called.. "...the NILE QUEEN"..it was shot there in the moat that surrounds the house...
Today..all that is left of his empire is the L A County Arboretum...and the Santa Anita Race Track....and an old town site that almost became the county seat of San Bernardino, CA....
Good hunting and wish you luck...
Klondike Ike
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