The Goldome Mill is an abandoned mining site of unusually modern vintage. It is located in the eastern Mojave Desert. The mill has been heavily vandalized. The worst graffiti has actually been cut into the metal structure. I refuse to give vandals the attention they crave, so I have tried to edit as much graffiti out of the photos as possible.

This mill was built in 1980. As far as I can determine, it originally milled ore that was mined at the site. Later the mill was used to process ore from the Morning Star Mine, about seventeen miles away.

My visit to the mill gave me a rare look at a modern gold milling operation. To some, modern facilities such as these are a blight, but to me they are a part of the history of the West. I would much rather see this place slowly rust into antiquity, than be torn down and forgotten.

Ore that was trucked to the site was dumped into a large steel hopper. Below the hopper is a crusher to break up the ore. A conveyer carried the ore to the mill building. This building consists of two large metal structures built side by side.

A ball mill was used to pulverize the ore. Ore and water are fed into a large, rotating cylinder that contains steel balls. As the cylinder turns, the balls grind the ore to powder. The resulting slurry exits through a screen at the end of the ball mill.

In the froth floation cells, gold-bearing froth is skimmed from the top of the slurry. The remaining slurry goes to the leech tanks outside of the building. The leech tanks extract the small amount of gold that got past the froth floation cells.

On the other side of the hill from the mill, I found a large mine portal which has been reinforced with sprayed concrete.

I visited this site in 2019 and shot some great video:

Posted February 2021.

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