James A. Harden was a member of a wagon train from the eastern United States heading for Oregon in the summer of 1849. The wagon train had crossed the central plains and Rocky Mountains on the Emigrant Trail, and took the Applegate-Lassen cut-off from the Humboldt River. The wagon train crossed the forbidding Black Rock Desert, rounded Black Rock Point and camped at what is now known as Double Hot Springs on the edge of the Black Rock Desert.
Harden and another man by the name of John Lambert set out to look for some game since their food supplies were running low. They had no luck in the sparsely covered rugged terrain. Harden stated that they had gone about 3 or 4 miles from the camp in a nothernly direction.
While crossing a dry sandy creek bed, a bright glitter in the bed caught Harden's eye. He stopped to investigate and found chunks of heavy, dark gray metal scattered throughout the sand in the wash. When he picked it up to inspect it he thought it was lead, and being short on ammunition, the two men gathered up as much of the metal as they could carry to use for making bullets. Harden apparently stated later that there were several wagon loads of the ore spread all over the ravine.
After their unsuccessful hunt, the two men returned to their camp. Hardin borrowed an oven that night to cast most of the metal he had found into bullets. He kept one chunk of the ore for later use and carried it with him as the wagon train continued on to Oregon.
Hardin eventually settled in Petaluma, California, where he worked as a carpenter, while Lambert had settled in Oregon. He had all but forgotten about the chunk of metal he had brought back with him from his travels until a neighbor of his, an assayer, happened to see it in his shop one day. The assayer asked if he could test the rock... The results showed that the ore actually contained a high percentage of silver.
Hardin immediately started putting together a small expedition back to the Black Rock Desert to stake a claim in the ravine. The Petaluma Journal of July 9th, 1858, chronicled the party's departure in search of what they believed to be an immense deposit of silver ore.
Try as he might, Hardin could not locate the source of the silver deposit again. His group spent the summer of 1858 searching for it, but gave up when cold weather set in. The following spring they were all back with others who joined in the search. No one could locate any trace of the silver.
The Paiute Indian war which had broken out just to the south of the Black Rock in 1860 put an end to most of the prospecting in that part of the country for years.
In early 1866, a man from the Honey Lake area of California discovered a ledge that was immediately thought to be the source of the lost silver ore. ...Had the lost Hardin mine finally been found?? The word spread like wildfire, and prospectors flocked to the Black Rock Desert to try and get their cut of the riches.
The camp of Hardin City sprang up near the mines, named in honor of the original discoverer. A small batch of Black Rock ore was worked which apparently yielded significant returns of both gold and silver. When the news was released, the rush of hopeful people intensified. The Humboldt Register, March 24th, 1866, reported, "When you see a man sitting in front of a roll of blankets and a frying pan, and behind a Henry rifle, you need not ask him where he is going – he is 'going to Black Rock or burst'."
In spite of some major contradicting assays from different mills about the actual value of the ore, the rush continued and Hardin City expanded. A post office and a few business opened while two mills were built in a "city of 15 houses and 15,000 rats" as well as many tents.
This time, with their own mills working material instead of shipping the ore elsewhere to be refined, the results were consistantly poor.... Every test showed that the ore was devoid of both gold and silver and therefore completely valueless. By March of 1868 the mills in the district had stopped their operations, and by the middle of 1868 the mines and the town were abandoned and Hardin City passed into history.
...It's very possible to be fooled by the many changing faces of the desert. Flash flooding and dusty high winds can destroy a landmark overnight. Perhaps that's what happened to Harden's lost silver mine. A number of people have returned to the area in search of the legendary silver without success, but to this day no significant deposits have been located. As the desert terrain constantly changes, perhaps someday, someone will locate the lost silver Hardin had found once before...
Rock formations, the remains of some houses and a primitive mill, as well as depressions where buildings once stood are still visible at the site of Hardin City.
This cache is located in a rugged environment and it is preferred that certain preparations are made if you attempt to find this cache... To get to the physical cache, you must hike a short distance from the road – What kinds of treasures will you find along your hike? When driving, please stick to the roads and do not otherwise ruin the place for future people who would like to explore the area. ...All that being said, most of the people that know and explore the area are already familiar with these concepts.
References:
- "Nevada Lost Mines and Buried Treasures", by Douglas Mcdonald
- "Nevada's Black Rock Desert", by Sessions S. Wheeler
- "Where to Find Gold and Gems in Nevada", by James Klein
- "Fairfield's Pioneer History of Lassen County, California:...", by Asa Merrill Fairfield