Leadfield

Leadfield is the ruin of a short-lived mining town in Titus Canyon, within Death Valley National Monument. It began in 1925 as a promotion scheme resting on spurious claims. C.C. Julian advertised the town with exaggerated claims, including posters that showed steamboats reaching it on the Amargosa River, even though that river is often dry and does not run within twenty miles of the site. The settlement had wood and tin buildings serving as stores, a post office, dwellings, storage sheds and processing plants, some on concrete foundations, along with dugouts, prospect holes and a main mine shaft. Julian disappeared, and the disillusioned residents soon left. Today several tin structures still stand, some dugouts remain in good condition, and concrete foundations are easy to see. The shaft entrance has collapsed in places. The site is valued as an example of the get-rich-quick schemes of the 1920s, and its dugouts, typical desert shelters, could become an interpretive exhibit along the Titus Canyon Trail.