Historical Marker · No. 182
Tumco Mines
Winterhaven, Imperial County · California
Erected by State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Imperial Valley Pioneers Historical Society and Squibob Chapter, E Clampus Vitus, October 19, 1985, 1985
The town was named three times and never once for itself. Gold Rock for the mine Pete Walters found in 1884, then Hedges for the vice president of the company that bought him out, then Tumco in 1910, an acronym for The United Mines Company. The wages were three dollars a day where good camps paid four, and a miner wrote to the Arizona Sentinel suggesting the firm rename itself the White Man's Slavery Company of California. Three thousand two hundred people lived here at the peak.
What the plaque says
Tumco 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 3200 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 Registered Historical Landmark No. 182 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Imperial Valley Pioneers Historical Society and Squibob Chapter, E Clampus Vitus, October 19, 1985.
Where it stands
32.88182, -114.86213 · Directions