Rhyolite- Tramps/ Gibraltar Mines

Nye County

I'm sure that an expert on the Bullfrog District and Rhyolite mines could set this straight without much effort. However, I'm not that expert. I've had to try and piece this together, and it has been one of the more confusing series of mines that I've encountered. First, when I look for latitude/ longitudes to see which mine is which, it seems relatively easy. But as I keep plugging in lat/longs from different sites and sources, the same mine either appears in multiple different places, or two different mines appear in the same place. Therefore, I decided to go to the USGS Reports. That didn't make it any easier. For example, when I pulled up the Denver Mine, it didn't show any alternate names. When I pulled up the Tramps Consolidated Mine, it showed Gibraltar Mine and Denver Mine as alternate names. When I pulled up the Gibraltar Mine, it didn't list any reports. When I pulled up the Tramps Consolidated Mine, it only showed the Tramps Mine as an alternate name. When I pulled up Virginia Lode, it showed Gibraltar Mine as an alternate name. Everything is all over the place.

From- Mines of Goldfield, Bullfrog and other Southern Nevada Districts 1907 by Ransome: He lists the Gibraltar as being located on the steep, south slope of Bonanza Mountain. He lists the Eclipse and Tramps mines as being located north of the Gibraltar on the west slope of Bonanza Mountain. He stated that the Gibraltar consists of three separate tunnels, each being a few hundred feet in length. The Eclipse and Tramps were both in early stages of development and had nearly the same ownership. 1,500 feet northwest of the Eclipse is the Denver Mine, which had three separate tunnels and fourth being started. Here is an interesting thing about the above statements. He stated that the Tramps and Eclipse are located on the western slope. I wonder if this was a typo. Everything that I could find shows that they are on the southeastern slope. He also described the Denver mine and Eclipse Mine as being 1,500 feet apart. If you use GoogleEarth and draw a line over the top of Bonanza Mountain from the southeast side to the Denver Mine, it is literally right at 1,500 feet. And, if you draw a line from the southeast side to the west side, via going around the southern edge, it's also right around 1,500 feet. I'll leave that up to you.

USGS Report excerpt for the Tramps Mine: "WORKINGS CONSIST OF THE TRAMP TUNNEL, HOBO INCLINED SHAFT, NELSON SHAFT, ECLIPSE TUNNEL, TRAMP SHAFT, ECLIPSE SHAFT." This report also lists the Tramps Mine on the South edge of Bonanza Mountain, which contradicts the western slope comment from Ransome's book above. As well as the fact that everything else points to it being on the southeastern slope. Another USGS Report lists the Virginia Lode on the southeastern slope of Bonanza Mountain. Going back to the alternate names that I described above, the Virginia Lode and Gibraltar share a name. The Tramps Consolidated and Gibraltar also shared a name. So now we're back to the southeastern side. As you can see, this is all over the place and somebody has to be wrong.

All the workings, shafts, remnants and relics that have I checked out are on the east side of Bonanza Mountain. I will leave the rest up to you.

Last Trip/ Road Conditions: I've been here too many times to list. It's been a few years though. The main roads through here are all good and maintained. Or at least they were in the past.