When times are good, there were and are much better jobs in the new era of manufacturing and prosperity. Should America have another depression, plan on seeing a lot more people in the deserts once again eking out a small living by the sweat of their backs. Because the gold is still out there in the rivers of the North and the rocks and sands of the deserts, the recreational miner will load his truck with his family and friends, join a mining and prospecting club and spend a happy weekend or even a week or two getting dirty, wet, and sweaty scanning the ground with metal detectors, buying or making dry washers and believe it or not still finding the gold. I have seen the old aspirin bottles chock full of gold nuggets, and felt their heavy weight. But I digress.
Gold mining is for huge conglomerates and they are moving lots of earth to get it.
As usual when Larry and I were both gainfully employed, we had a week between Christmas and New Years off, and away we d go. Heading South East this was a well maintained dirt road that would take you not only through all the gold mine activity, but if you stayed on it, it would take you by the Joshua Tree National Monument, changing it s name to the Old Dale Rd. After we made camp we readied the dune buggy, grabbed cameras, maps, and canteens and drove further East on the Gold Crown Road for about 1 miles, where the quality of the road deteriorated. Surrounded by the rugged peaks of the Pinto Mountains, with good, bad, and terrible roads scraped just everywhere. Our first mine group on this Northward direction was the Supply Mine where I took a picture of it s headframe.