The story of Lone Jack Road

We found a cool place to explore in our San Diego County California hills. An abandoned Copper Mine!

Being a rock hound and loving old stuff this was just up my alley so to speak.

History of the mine ~ From 1887 to 1897 copper was discovered. The mine was owned by Encinitas Copper Mining and Smelting Company.

The mine consisted of 3 vertical shafts and a small processing mill to concentrate the ore. After being processed it was the ore was then hauled by horse drawn wagons to Cardiff by the Sea, to be shipped out.

A workforce of 5-12 men produced 5,000 pounds of copper during these 10 years.

In 1897, they built a boarding house and a gang of men worked around the clock making a better approach to the mine for the removal of ore by trains. It must of worked, after this was completed 4 tons of copper were removed daily and hauled to Escondido California by trains.

The end of an era. The mine couldn’t keep up this level of operation and was forced to close in 1925.

The legend of Lone Jack Road soon started being rumored.

#1 Rocks Rock

You can see the red and green in these.

The sand is even green in areas.

Lone Jack Road leads its way to the mine.

We started seeing this lovely green rock. It's called Copper Ore.

An ore is a rock that has enough metal in it to make it worth extracting the metal.
The main ores of copper are:

Chalcopyrite
Bornite
Malachite
Over 50% of the World’s copper comes from chalcopyrite and bornite.

Ore is first mined, then put through a series of processes to refine and purify the copper. The USA is the second largest producer of copper in the world.

Source

They looked like a hardy crew!

Amazing colors

Local legend is told that a solitary Jack Ass or Donkey roamed the area for years after being turned loose after the closing of the mine. Lending name to the small road or trail we took to get to the mine.