- Picacho, California
Picacho, now a
ghost town , was an early mining town on theColorado River inImperial County, California . It was named "Picacho" (Spanish for "big peak") after a nearby mountain of the same name.The townsite itself is beneath
Imperial Reservoir , but remains of some of the ore mills are above the lake level. The area is within [http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=641 Picacho State Recreation Area] .History
Spaniards probably mined placer
gold in the area as early as 1780. [William B. Clark (1970) "Gold Districts of California", California Division of Mines and Geology, Bulletin 193, p.162.] The area became very active when prospector Jose Maria Mendivil discovered gold veins in the nearby hills in the early 1860s. Mendivil laid out the townsite of Rio, which was soon renamed Picacho. The town had a population of 2,500, three stores, three elementary schools, numerous saloons, and was served by steamboats that connected the mining towns along theColorado River . The gold mines closed by around 1910, and the filling of the lake behind Imperial dam flooded what was left of the town in 1938.Geography
The townsite is at coor dms|33|01|23|N|114|36|40|W|city, at an elevation of 203 feet (62m) above sea level.
Picacho in fiction
Picacho was the setting of
Zane Grey ’s 1923 novel "Wanderer of the Wasteland", later made into a silent film.References
ee also
List of ghost towns in California External links
* [http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=641 Picacho State Recreation Area]
* [http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/picacho.html Ghosttowns.com: "Picacho"]
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