As the summer wore on and fall approached, it became apparent to all but the most die-hard that the great Greenwater boom had started to bust, and many people could be seen quietly leaving town. As a continuing barometer, the Ash Meadows Water Company postponed its connections to Greenwater once again. It announced on September 13th that water would not be available to the district until the middle of November.
Those who still had faith tried to explain away the decline of the district. But, if the mines were still developing, not nearly as many were doing so as in previous months. Of the 73 companies which had incorporated to do business in Greenwater by the spring of 1907, only 12 were left by September. Unless some ore was found soon, the camp would die. The Panic of 1907, which was beginning to hit the mwest’s mining regionsby this time, obviously aggravated the problem.
Businesses, such as the Greenwater Lumber Yard, began to close their doors in the summer of 1907, and as the fall progressed, the trend increased. Fires again played a part in mid-October, when Charley Hennessy’s saloon, the Death Valley Vault, burned to the ground.
The departure of businessmen continued in November,and included one of the eGreenwater Times editorswho sold out his half interest to his partner. And as 1907 ended, ore bodies were still not located even though the mines had gone deeper and deeper. The population had shrunk to “several hundred,” and only ten companies were still working, five of which had come under the control of the Greenwater Death Valley Cooper Mines & Smelting Company, the large holding company.
As 1908 opened, it was dearly evident that the only hope for the Greenwater District lay in the two big mines wthatwere still operating,and woing for great depths to find the ore bodies. The Furnace Creek Copper Company, the Patsy Clark outfit, was still sinking on its property, as was the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company, the main Schwab holding. Both were sinking below the five hundred foot level, and one or the other would have to find ore soon or Greenwater’s mining history would be extremely short.
The work continued through January and February but with no results. By mid-February, the once-bustling Greenwater District had shrunk to a mere shadow of its former self. The only business establishments left in the district were the Tonopah Lumber Company, which was still supplying timbers for the mine shafts, two saloons, two stores, and one restaurant. The district’s total population had fallen to about 50, and the remaining buildings at Greenwater were already being torn down and moved to Gold Valley, a small boomtown to the south.
The Furnace Creek Copper Company and the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company continued to sink through April and May. In late April, the Bullfrog Miner reported again on the district. “The future of the Greenwater District depends very largely upon the shafts which these two companies are sending down. It is held by geologists and mineral experts that if copper deposits exist in commercial quantities in the Greenwater District, they will be found below the water level and at great depth, and these companies have undertaken to demonstrate the theory.”
But still, no ore was found, and the district continued to decline. The Greenwater Times, the last of the district’s newspapers, finally gave up and quit publishing shortly after the end of May. By early June, R. J. Fairbanks had the only store and saloon left in the district. The only other business left in town was the Tonopah Lumber Company, which would stay as long as the companies were sinking and buying timbers for their shafts.
Rholite and the Bullfrog Hills, 1909
The decline continued through August. The post office at Greenwater was discontinued on the 15th and moved to Death Valley Junction, and Mrs. Spear, the proprietor of Greenwater’s last restaurant, closed down the same month and returned to Rhyolite. During the rest of 1908, the district was exceedingly quiet. The Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company continued to sink its shaft, going deeper and deeper in the search for ore. The Furnace Creek Copper Company did likewise, although at a slower pace. But, as the year ended, no profitable bodies of copper ore had been found anywhere in the district, and it was quite apparent the time was rapidly running out for Greenwater.
Just when it seemed that Greenwater was finally dead, another revival of hopes arose. Early in January of 1909, ore was again found in the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company’s mine, this time at a depth of nearly 1,100 feet. The mere mention of the discovery, before anyone knew the amount, extent, or richness of the deposit, caused another mild rush back into the district, several other defunct mines reopened their works, and the district’s population soared up to 150.
Developments on several properties continued through March, but the efforts were futile and soon proved worthless. The small mines shut down again, and in March, one of the two giants gave up when the Furnace Creek Copper Company finally abandoned hope and ceased work. Throughout the summer and fall of 1909, only the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company continued to work, and finally, even that company quit in September. The shaft was stopped at a depth of 1,439 feet, and the papers were finally able to report for sure that Greenwater was totally dead.
The great boom that had propelled its name across the nation’s headlines and stock boards was best forgotten by the thousands of investors who had been badly burned. In its annual review of mining for 1909, the Mining World summed up the demise of the once-heralded in one short sentence: “The copper districts of the county have lapsed into obscurity. With the final crushing of hopes, locations were abandoned, as were titles to the once-thriving business blocks of Greenwater and Furnace.” In the meantime, the Inyo County papers started carrying long lists of delinquent tax payments due from mining companies, businesses, and citizens who had once owned land in the district. The demise of Greenwater even had a ripple effect, as Amargosa, once a lively station on the railroad used to supply the Greenwater boom, declined by the middle of 1910 to a population of two.
Mining was never again revived in Greenwater, and by 1917 all that a visitor could find on the spot of the town of 2,000 inhabitants was one deserted cabin. Most of the buildings at Greenwater and Furnace were readily movable due to the lack of permanent construction, and most had been hauled away by their owners. What was left had been taken by R. J. Fairbanks, the last merchant of Greenwater, and hauled to Shoshone, a settlement on the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, where Fairbanks started a small store which later grew into a thriving desert oasis.
Small attempts at sporadic production were made in 1916-1918 and again in 1929, during periods of very high copper prices. Still, these efforts never amounted to more than one or two-man operations and consisted mostly of gleaning the remains from the old mines’ dumps.
Another last attempt was made in 1970 to revive the Greenwater District when a consortium calling itself the Furnace Creek Copper Company (no relation to Patsy Clark’s outfit) scraped together the mining rights to a great number of claims in the district and paid for a mineral report on the area. In the end, the backers of the company decided against the attempt to resume mining.
Of Greenwater, Furnace, and Kunze’s old towns, the area is scattered with tell-tale signs of mining, including numerous dumps, shafts, and barely visible outlines of leveled building and tent sites. The old site of Kunze has the remains of an old stone dugout cabin.
© Kathy Weiser-Alexander/Legends of America, updated March 2021.
Also See: