By William Daugherty, 1891.
Kearsarge Pinnacles.
On Mt. Kearsarge, one of the high peaks of the Sierras in Inyo County, California, near its summit at an elevation of 13,000 feet above sea level, stands a gold mine known some years ago as the Rex Montez. It was far above the timberline in the region of perpetual snow. Consequently, it was pretty expensive to transport all supplies on pack mules, including wood for domestic use, while water was obtained from melted snow. The boarding and lodging houses were made comfortable, for during the Winter, for three and four months, the miners were cut off from all communication with the town of Independence, only eight miles distant and in plain sight from the mine. Work, however, was prosecuted nearly as well in Winter as at any time, for even in August the mine’s tunnels and drifts were like refrigerators, their walls covered with ice all the year through. The mill lay at the foot of the central peak, five miles down, and ran only in the summer when the pack trail was open.
Occasionally, men would venture down from the mine in the Winter, but the descent was so dangerous and the return so tricky and perilous that this was a rare event. On one occasion, a Chinese cook employed at the mine, trying to make the descent to celebrate China’s New Year in Independence, was lost and perished in the snow. His body was not found until summer when a miner descending by a shortcut found it frozen in a snowbank in a deep ravine. The Chinese of Independence had made efforts to find the body and had offered a reward of $500 to anyone who would produce it. The finder dug it out of the snow, carried it down some distance, and hid it in the brush. Then he went into town and claimed the reward, which the Chinamen could not pay because of financial difficulties. He did not lose much time negotiating and hurried matters to a conclusion by telling them the body was hidden on the sunny slope and would soon thaw out. That caused them to hustle around, and they raised $250, which they tendered; the miner finally accepted and delivered the goods at once. In due time, the bones were sent to China. The miner went on a spree that ended sometime after his shooting and killing of the Sheriff. He was duly tried and sentenced to death, but escaped that fate by being adjudged insane, and years after, this writer saw him in the Stockton Asylum. The cunning leer of recognition he gave indicated some “method in his madness.”
By William Daugherty, Reno Evening Gazette, March 11, 1891. Compiled and edited by Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated November 2026.
Also See:
Mining on the American Frontier
Pioneers on the Nevada Frontier (Reno Evening Gazette)
About the Author: William Daugherty wrote this for the Reno Evening Gazette in 1891. The Reno Evening Gazette, first published on October 12, 1876, ran for 107 years. In 1977, it merged with the Nevada State Journal and continues today as the Reno Gazette-Journal. Note: The article is not verbatim; spelling errors, minor grammatical changes, and editing were made for the modern reader.