Los Angeles County Mines #27:

Let me start out by saying thank you to all my supporters and to everyone who’s joined me on my explorations! My first video was posted exactly one year ago, and now I have 450+ subscribers and over 30,000 views on my channel! This past year has been amazing and I hope this year will be even better. There are a lot of really cool mines I hope to visit in the near future. Again, thank you all so much for this awesome first year.

Since this is my channel’s one year anniversary, it’s fitting that I post a video of a really neat mine. The Allison Mine just happens to be that neat mine. It’s located in a gorgeous gulch high above the East Fork of the San Gabriel River, has over 1000 ft. of accessible workings, has loads of old mining equipment, and, of course, has a very rich history.

The history of the Allison Mine begins in 1913, when the wellknown prospector John James Allison discovered goldbearing ore while “crawling on his hands and knees through the brush.” John needed help working the mine, so he brought up his three sons and possibly even more family members to the mine site. Arthur and George were the names of two of his sons. I don’t know the name of the third. A company called the Allison Mines Co. was formed, with John Allison as the president. At first, the Allisons crushed the gold ore with an arrastra, which is a circular device that uses dragstones to mill rock down into a fine powder. Away from the main mill of the mine, we found a piece of heavy equipment that looked a lot like a Chilean mill. A Chilean mill is similar to an arrastra, but instead of drag stones, it uses stone or metal rollers to crush the ore. I’ve seen Chilean mills misidentified as arrastras before, so it’s possible that we found the Allison’s original mill. Another possibility is that it wasn’t a Chilean mill, but some very unique modernized, metal arrastra.

By 1915, the Allisons were blasting out ore faster then their arrastra could mill it down, so they began planning a new mill. Eventually, they managed to haul in a conical ball mill, a rake classifier, a shaker table, and various other pieces of equipment. Apparently it was brought in through Coldwater Saddle and then around the slopes of Iron Mountain to the mine. This feat seems a lot more impressive when you discover that the current trail through Coldwater Saddle wasn’t completed until after October 1921. The Allison’s used a complex system of cables and pulleys to slowly bring the equipment to the new mill site. By the way, we hiked to the Allison using the gulch trail, not the trail though Coldwater Saddle. The Allison Mine was worked periodically by the Allison Brothers up to around 1930, when the mine became unprofitable for them to run. From then on, it was worked through leases up to 1942. It was probably shut down by the War Production Board due to WWII, as gold mining was considered a nonessential industry. The mine produced at least 1166 oz. of gold and 330 oz. of silver in its lifetime.

There’s still a lot of amazing things left at the Allison Mine, but there used to be a be a lot more. Two cabins and an openair workshop were demolished in the 70’s by the Forest Service. They did this to prevent squatters from living up at the mine, but I’d argue that destroying history is a much greater offense. Also, anything interesting that could be carried out was probably removed by the mine’s decades of visitors. Even though this mine is hard to get to, it’s still very popular based on all the trash lying around. The unfortunate thing is that what still remains will eventually be destroyed as well. Xavier has been to this mine before, and he told me that the millsite was in much worse shape this visit. In the gulch below, we found a hitandmiss engine that used to be mounted near the ball mill. Eventually, this engine will be washed over the tall waterfalls below the mine, shattering into dozens of pieces. Even the robust ball mill isn’t invincible. It will either be swallowed by a landslide or meet the same fate as the engine. This is why I started my YouTube channel. I want to document these historic sites before there’s nothing left of them.

A lot of this info came from the legendary historian John W. Robinson. His books Mines of the San Gabriels and Mines of the East Fork are mustreads.