Desert Queen Mine

Desert Queen Mine is an abandoned gold mine of roughly 80 acres in Joshua Tree National Monument, south of Twentynine Palms. Its remains include four large vertical shafts, five inclined shafts, ten adits, and a main tailings pile 65 feet high. Scattered across the site are pipe, cyanide tanks, tramway track, concrete pads, an air pump marked Chicago Pneumatic, and the ruins of a stone house on the opposite hillside. The mine was listed as a locally significant example of desert mining. A. James discovered the gold in the early 1890s and was killed after being forced to sign the mine over to cattle rustler Jim McHaney. McHaney borrowed against expected ore, and the mine passed to a bank. William F. Keys possibly acquired it in 1917 and worked it intermittently until 1961. Operation was sporadic, yet occasional rich pockets of ore sustained interest for decades, making it more productive and longer-lived than most neighboring mines.