Colorado Desert Archives - Destination4x4

In the sun-scorched folds of the Cargo Muchacho Mountains, where the Colorado Desert meets the stark horizon of Imperial County, lie the weathered remnants of Hedges—a fleeting gold camp that once pulsed with the clamor of picks, stamps, and dreams of fortune. Established in the late 19th century amid California’s enduring gold fever, Hedges epitomized the raw, speculative energy of the American West’s mining frontier. Named for a corporate vice president rather than a rugged prospector, this outpost in what was then eastern San Diego County (prior to Imperial County’s formation in 1907) swelled to over 3,000 residents at its zenith, only to fade into spectral silence by the early 20th century. Renamed Tumco in 1910, it endured sporadic revivals until World War II, leaving behind a landscape etched with mine shafts, tailings, and a poignant cemetery. This report traces Hedges’ arc from discovery to desolation, weaving in its vital ties to the Southern Pacific Railroad’s lifeline at Ogilby, the perilous mines that sustained it, and its contextual bonds with the broader Imperial Valley towns that emerged in its shadow.

[Circa 1905] Tumco Historic Mining Town, California - Hedges California — [Circa 1905] Tumco Historic Mining Town, California – Hedges California

Early Discoveries and Foundations (1780s–1890s)

The Cargo Muchacho Mountains—whose name, Spanish for “muchacho cargo” or “boy’s load,” evokes tales of young Mexican prospectors hauling ore—harbored gold long before Anglo-American settlers arrived. Spanish explorers from Sonora mined veins in the 1780s, their efforts halted by the Yuma Revolt of 1781, a Quechan uprising that severed supply lines and claimed 48 lives at the nearby Yuma Crossing. Mexican miners returned post-1823, staking claims and etching the mountains’ moniker into history, but operations remained small-scale until the U.S. era.

The modern saga ignited in 1862, when legend credits a stray mule from a wagon train camped near the mountains with unearthing a nugget—prompting searches that traced quartz ledges but yielded no immediate boom. True ignition came on January 6, 1884, when Peter Walters, a resident of the nascent rail stop at Ogilby, discovered the Gold Rock vein while scouting Tumco Wash. Walters’ Little Mary Claim birthed the Gold Rock mining camp, a ragged cluster of tents amid creosote and ocotillo, where water was hauled from the Colorado River via a 12-mile wooden pipeline pumping 100,000 gallons daily.

By 1892, Walters sold to developers who rechristened it the Gold Cross Mine, forming the Golden Cross Mining and Milling Company. A 20-stamp mill rose in 1893, its thunderous rhythm processing ore from deepening shafts, drawing a tide of fortune-seekers—largely Hispanic laborers from Sonora and Sinaloa, supplemented by Anglo investors and Cornish engineers. The camp formalized as Hedges in 1893, honoring vice president C.L. Hedges, swelling to 3,200 by 1899—a polyglot boomtown of adobes, frame shacks, and assay offices huddled in a narrow canyon at 617 feet elevation. In 1900, amid Imperial County’s preformation expanse, Hedges boasted 400 souls, the largest settlement in the future county, its air thick with dust, charcoal smoke, and the acrid tang of cyanide leaching.

The Boom Era and Mining Operations (1890s–1900s)

Hedges’ golden pulse beat fiercest from 1893 to 1899, fueled by the Cargo Muchacho Mining District (also called Hedges or Ogilby District), a web of veins yielding over 200,000 ounces of gold across its lifetime. Key mines encircled the town: the flagship Gold Cross (formerly Gold Rock), with its labyrinthine tunnels plunging hundreds of feet; the Picacho, American Girl, and Guadalupe, luring investors like ex-Governor Henry Markham; and lesser veins like the Little Mary, Blossom, and Padre Y Madre. These “most hazardous mines in the Southwest” claimed lives through cave-ins, fires, and suffocating heat exceeding 120°F in summer, their Cornish-style shafts demanding timber hauled by rail from Arizona.

The town’s layout mirrored mining exigencies: a central mill district flanked by ethnic enclaves—Hispanic barrios with adobe jacales, Anglo boardinghouses, and a Chinese laundry quarter—bisected by rutted streets alive with ore wagons and burros. Saloons like the Golden Cross poured rotgut amid raucous tales, while a school, store, and post office (open 1894–1905) lent fragile normalcy. Yet prosperity was illusory; overexpansion plagued operations, with the mill grinding low-grade ore to sustain 140 stamps, amassing vast tailings that cyaniding failed to redeem. By 1900, debt mounted, and Hedges teetered.

Railroad Lifeline: Train Stops and Connectivity

No artery was more vital than the Southern Pacific Railroad, whose Yuma-to-Los Angeles line, completed in 1877, threaded the desert like a steel vein. Ogilby, founded that year as a siding 4.5 miles southwest of Hedges, became the indispensable railhead and supply depot. What began as a sparse outpost—cistern, section house, and bunkhouses for Chinese laborers—burgeoned in the 1880s as Hedges’ ore gateway, shipping bullion to San Francisco and importing timbers, machinery, and grubstakes. Freight trains halted at Ogilby’s platform, their whistles echoing through the washes, while passengers—miners, merchants, and speculators—trekked north via wagon or horseback along S34 (now County Highway S34).

This symbiosis extended the district’s reach: ore from American Girl or Picacho rumbled to Ogilby for transshipment, fostering satellite camps like Gold Rock and briefly boosting Ogilby’s own post office (intermittent 1880–1942). No direct rail penetrated Hedges’ canyon, but the line’s proximity—mere miles from the mines—spurred the 1912 Plank Road’s construction nearby, easing overland haulage. When Hedges’ post office shuttered in 1905, Ogilby absorbed its mail, underscoring their interdependence. Farther afield, the rail linked to Yuma, Arizona (20 miles east), a provisioning hub, while westbound cars fed the burgeoning Imperial Valley farms.

Ties to Surrounding Towns and Regional Context

Hedges stood as an outlier in Imperial County’s mosaic—a mining enclave amid what would become an agricultural powerhouse. Its closest kin was Ogilby, a symbiotic rail sibling whose fate mirrored Hedges’: both peaked with the gold rush, waned by the 1900s, and ghosted by the 1950s, leaving only Ogilby’s cemetery (with 1878 Chinese graves) and foundations. Broader connections fanned to the Imperial Valley’s northwesterly towns, born of the same Colorado River irrigation that transformed desert into lettuce fields post-1901.

Calipatria (20 miles northwest) and Niland (25 miles northwest), platted in the 1910s as rail-ag stops on the Southern Pacific’s Salton Sea branch, drew Hedges’ veterans when mines faltered. Niland (formerly Imperial Junction) shipped ore early on but pivoted to cotton and produce, its post office absorbing stragglers from Ogilby. Calipatria, with its towering flagpole symbolizing resilience below sea level, hosted Mexican families akin to Hedges’ Hispanic core, fostering informal migrations for farm labor. Today, these towns collaborate via the NorthEnd Alliance, addressing shared woes like water hikes from Golden State Water—echoing Hedges’ old thirst for Colorado River hauls. El Centro (30 miles west), the county seat since 1907, absorbed administrative echoes, while Yuma provided cross-border trade. Hedges thus seeded the valley’s hybrid economy: gold’s grit paving agriculture’s green furrows.

Decline and Legacy (1900s–1940s)

Hubris felled Hedges: speculative overreach, vein pinch-outs, and mismanagement bankrupted the Gold Cross Company by 1905, idling the mill and emptying streets. A ghost by 1909, it revived as Tumco in 1910 under The United Mines Company, extracting sporadically until 1917. The Great Depression quashed hopes, but a 1937–1942 wartime push yielded final ounces before abandonment, the population dwindling to 30. Hazards persisted—fires razed workings, and isolation bred despair—yet the district’s output burnished California’s gold legacy, predating the 1849 rush.

The Hedges Cemetery, northeast of the ruins at 643 feet, endures with unmarked graves—15 Protestant, 75 Catholic—testifying to the town’s diverse dead. A trash midden of rusted cans evokes discarded hopes, while petrified adobes whisper of families fled to valley farms.

Current Status

Today, Hedges/Tumco sprawls across 640 acres of Bureau of Land Management preserve, a California Historical Landmark (No. 182) accessible via Gold Rock Ranch Road off S34, 9 miles north of I-8. No residents haunt its sun-bleached bones: collapsed mill foundations, yawning shafts (barricaded for safety), and ore cart relics dot the wash, patrolled by coyotes and kit foxes. High-clearance vehicles navigate the graded trailhead, where interpretive signs recount Walters’ strike and the 300-year saga. Flash floods and summer scorch demand caution; no water or facilities exist.

Revived as eco-tourism, Tumco draws 5,000 visitors yearly via BLM’s “Get Outside” campaigns, their drones capturing golden-hour ruins amid cholla blooms. Nearby, the Mesquite Mine hums with modern gold, linking past to present. Hedges endures not as mourned relic, but as a stark parable of desert alchemy—where veins of quartz turned to dust, yet forged the valley’s enduring vein of resilience. For guided tours, consult BLM’s Yuma Field Office.

Town Summary

Name		Hedges, California
Alias		Gold Rock, Tumco
Location		Imperial County, California
Alias		Tumco – Hedges – Ogilby
Latitude, Longitude		32.8793891573, -114.837144612
GNIS		243332
Elevation		575 Feet
Population		3200

California Historical Landmarks

NO. 182 TUMCO MINES – Pete Walters of Ogilby discovered the first gold vein at Gold Rock on January 6, 1884. From his Little Mary Claim began a gold camp which reached its peak development between 1893 and 1899 as Hedges, with 3,200 residents. Nearly closed, 1900-10, it was reopened as Tumco, 1910-13, and worked intermittently until 1941. Tumco has long been a California ghost town.
California Historical Landmarks

Hedges Town Map

References

“Back in the 1960s. Desert Magazine published a letter by a person who claimed to have found Peg Legs Lost Gold or treasure in the Colorado Desert. Interesting, was the fact that the writer included some sample gold nuggets with his letters. The nuggets were coated with a black coating that seemed to match the original legend, Numerous letters were exchanged between the “finder”, the “doubters”, and “interested others”. Some even though is was a second mine owned by the Peralta Family with the Lost Dutchman in Arizona.”

A folder of Desert Magazine Articles about Peg Legs Lost Treasure given to me by my dad.

This message was scribbled by my dad, on the outside of a manilla folder, which contained numerous articles from Desert Magazine on the Lost Treasure of Peg Leg Smith. At the time of Publication in 1965, my dad loved exploring the desert southwest in his International Scout, and like many others, collect magazine articles on places to explore. This is how I learned about the Lost Peg Leg Treasure.

Peg Leg Smith
(1801–1866)

Thomas L. Smith, widely known as “Peg Leg” Smith, was an American mountain man, trapper, explorer, and storyteller who became a legendary figure of the American West. Born in Crab Orchard, Kentucky, in 1801, Smith’s life was characterized by adventure, resilience, and a penchant for tall tales, which helped cement his place in frontier folklore.

Early Life and Career

Little is known about Smith’s early years, but by his late teens, he had ventured westward, drawn by the opportunities of the burgeoning fur trade. He joined trapping expeditions in the Rocky Mountains and quickly developed a reputation as a skilled trapper and resourceful frontiersman. However, his life took a dramatic turn when, during an expedition, he lost part of his leg in a skirmish with Native Americans or possibly from an infection after an accident (accounts vary). Undeterred, Smith fashioned a wooden prosthetic leg, earning him the nickname “Peg Leg.”

Gold and Storytelling

A Map of Henry E. W. Wilsons search area published in Desert Magazine

In the 1830s and 1840s, Smith shifted his focus from trapping to guiding and trading with Native American tribes. By the 1850s, he had gained notoriety for his tales of adventure and his claims of discovering a rich gold deposit in Southern California’s Colorado Desert. According to his story, Smith stumbled upon a series of gold-laden black rocks while traveling through the region. Unable to carry much, he filled his bandana with the gold nuggets which were laying on the ground. He marked the location mentally, intending to return later. Despite numerous attempts by others to find this so-called “Peg Leg Mine,” its exact location remains one of the enduring mysteries of the West.

Smith capitalized on his fame by entertaining travelers and settlers with his colorful storytelling, often exaggerating or inventing details to captivate his audience. He operated trading posts and was known for his charisma and humor, though some viewed him as a conman who exploited the gullibility of gold-seekers.

Later Years and Death

As the West grew more settled, Smith’s lifestyle became increasingly precarious. He spent his later years wandering between towns and trading posts, regaling listeners with his tales and living off their generosity. He died in 1866 near San Bernardino, California, reportedly from complications related to his leg or alcoholism.

Peg Leg Smith is remembered as a symbol of the adventurous and often eccentric spirit of the Old West. His name remains associated with the fabled Lost Peg Leg Mine, which continues to intrigue treasure hunters and historians. Annual events and gatherings, such as the Peg Leg Smith Liars’ Contest held in Borrego Springs, California, celebrate his legacy as one of the West’s most colorful characters.

Smith’s life, blending fact and fiction, captures the essence of a time when the American frontier was a land of boundless opportunity, danger, and mystery.

Desert Magazine March 1965

In March, 1965, Desert Magazine published a letter from one of their subscribers, who claimed to have found Peg Legs Lost Gold. To add some gravitas to the claim, the author included several gold nuggets tarnished with a dark desert varnish, which matches the claims for Peg Leg Smith from over one hundred and thirty years prior.

Dear Desert Editor:

Although the enclosed story has no byline, I believe it and the photographs will be of interest to you. After you have read the story, you will understand why the reasons for my remaining anonymous are too obvious to enumerate.

You have my full permission to publish the story and this letter if you wish. They may be of minor interest to the readers of Desert Magazine.

More important, I am also enclosing two of the Peg Leg’s nuggets. One is still black, exactly as found, and the other has had the black copper oxides removed by the process mentioned in the story and is now native “gold” in color. You will have these nuggets to show one and all who have doubted the story of Peg Leg’s black nuggets. You may keep them with my compliments for Desert Magazine’s collection of desert artifacts, in this case you can start a new collection of items from lost mines that have been found.

Very sincerely yours,

The Man Who Found
Peg Leg’s Black Gold

The author of the article mentions that he spent six days out at the site of the Lost Gold and removed about 720 ounces of nuggets. He claimed that all of the easy gold was removed by him and that he was sure other gold existed below the reach of his metal detectors.

For the next ten years articles and letters are published in Desert Magazine debating the claim along with reassertions of his claims.

No matter what your thoughts are on the story of Peg Legs Lost Treasure, it is without a doubt, that the lure of blacked gold nuggets just laying about on the desert floor near the Salton Sea is without doubt.

Tag: Colorado Desert

Hedges California – Imperial County Ghost Town