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1952 Map of Chloride Cliff

Name: 1952 Topographic Map of Chloride Cliff
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1952
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1952

About this map

Chloride City and its industrial remains anchor the high desert slopes in this early 1950s survey of the eastern Death Valley National Monument borderlands. The map documents the persistent infrastructure of gold and silver extraction, noting the Keane Wonder Mine and the nearby Keane Wonder Mill along the western escarpment of the Grapevine Mountains. These sites, along with the Monarch Mine, trace a history of remote mining operations that depended on scattered water sources like Keane Spring and Hole-in-the-Rock Spring.

Evidence of early exploration and administration is visible across the landscape, from the Jean Lemoigne Grave to the National Park Service Hdqrs near Park Village. The survey also marks the Von Schmidt Line, representing the original 19th-century boundary survey between California and Nevada. Key transit points such as Beatty Junction and the ominous Hells Gate provide geographic context for travel through this arid terrain before modern developments changed the area's accessibility.