The Panamint mines were discovered in 1872, but not brought into any notice until the summer of 1873. Some of the early prospectors bore very unsavory reputations and did not dare make much effort to attract outside capital, except through some trusted middle men. The reasons were made obvious in concluding one of the first sales when the owners went to San Francisco to get their money. Wells, Fargo & Co's agents were watching one of them for an old stage robbery and when the money was ready they demanded from him the restoration of $12,000, to cover losses sustained by his depredations, or an arrest would be the immediate result. He very coolly assented and asked for a receipt, and the money was paid.

The success of selling the mines was almost wholly due to the efforts of E.P. Rains, a man who possessed the daring and dash of a Jim Fisk and who would have rivaled his achievements in finance, had he been favored with any educational attainments; but in this, he was deficient and the knowledge of it bred in him a reckless waste that was only equaled by his natural prodigality and generous impulse. He coveted money only for the pleasure of spending it and he squandered it with a recklessness that was born of the spirit of '49 and his early associations in California.

The history of his efforts to "place" the Panamint mines on the market would fill a volume, but the main facts are briefly told as follows: This writer chanced to journey with him on his first trip, when, to reach Panamint, the trip was made from Bakersfield, California by stage, through Havilah and Walkers Pass, on the way to Cerro Gordo. At Little Owens Lake, Rains left the stage, procured a horse and crossed the Coso and Argus Ranges, eighty miles to the outdoor camp at Panamint. He soon obtained a bond of the principal mines and returned to San Francisco . No success met his first efforts, and he had to return for samples of ore to verify his highly colored statements. He went back obtained about 1,000 pounds of handsome specimens of copper-stained ore, rich in silver and very attractive in general appearance. He could not get this carried out from Little Lake on the stage and had to send it by slow team through the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles, nearly 300 miles distant. He wouldn't risk it out of his sight and he went with it. Arriving at Los Angeles, his plans assumed shape. It was necessary to create a boom for the new mines in order to enlist capital. There, he again met this writer, and through him sought introductions. Rains stopped at the Arlington Hotel, then the leading one of Los Angeles, and in the barroom made a display of Panamint ore that set the town agog, and aided by his lavish expenditure of money at the bar soon created a furor. He made no effort to swell any interests there, but gained the confidence of leading citizens and got the Board of Trade to subscribe $4,000 toward building a wagon road to the new mines.