Hello From Socal

[Compass]

8 hours ago, chuckwalla said:

The history on those camps is interesting, I didn't realize there were so many of them (I've seen the Patton monument at Chiriaco Summit, but never paid to go into the museum - I guess I'll pay the $10 next time).

this blog has some amazing pictures of the training centers in the 1940s for anyone interested

Thanks chuckwalla, That was a great read and the pictures were amazing as you said. Funny but when we first detected out there it was less than 30 years after wars end and nobody cared about the place. Now they are trying to make it an historical landmark. I remember finding a newspaper out there from the time that the troops were there and I've heard of other hunters who found weapons. I never did but I did find live ammo more than once. 

I took my dad out there years ago and on that weekend I found about 60 coins including 2 half-dollars. He was a complete novice and only found 3 coins but one was a silver Peace dollar. I have never found a silver dollar in 50 years of detecting!

On Google maps you can do a satellite view and make out some of the camps' gridlines and dirt roads.

[chuckwalla]

1 hour ago, Compass said:

Thanks chuckwalla, That was a great read and the pictures were amazing as you said. Funny but when we first detected out there it was less than 30 years after wars end and nobody cared about the place. Now they are trying to make it an historical landmark. I remember finding a newspaper out there from the time that the troops were there and I've heard of other hunters who found weapons. I never did but I did find live ammo more than once. 

I took my dad out there years ago and on that weekend I found about 60 coins including 2 half-dollars. He was a complete novice and only found 3 coins but one was a silver Peace dollar. I have never found a silver dollar in 50 years of detecting!

On Google maps you can do a satellite view and make out some of the camps' gridlines and dirt roads.

I'm kind of confused about the BLM regulations for collecting coins from some of these sites that aren't specifically protected. I've seen some sources, like this PDF from BLM.gov that say

Quote

"Modern money may be collected,but coins and artifacts more than 100years old may not be collected."

and then others like this BLM guide say anything older than 50 years could be considered an artifact.

I was actually able to find some of the old campsites that aren't listed under the coordinates of any of the official camps. Take a look at 33.460239°, -114.928497° - there's a cluster of camps and what looks like an old filled-in runway slightly to the north (at first glance, looks like a short 1400 ft runway, but you can see it was closer to 2800 ft, an arroyo has washed most of it out). Edit* at second glance, it seems like might too much elevation change for it to have been a runway, so I'm not quite sure what that is)

Seems like a great place to do some detecting if it can be done legally - I'd be curious to see what people here think about it and how they'd approach determining the legal status.

 

[Joe D.]

Chuck,

    I think you have hit on a great subject of this area! Steve H., the moderator of this site, may move it to it's own subject heading; seperate from your intro! Or else you can start a new one yourself under a new subject heading! 

   I think there is much more to explore about this area, and many people will probably have input, and/or more experiences to share with us all! 

  Thanks for posting! Very interesting area to be able to explore! Wish i was close to that side of the country!👍👍

[Compass]

9 hours ago, chuckwalla said:

I'm kind of confused about the BLM regulations for collecting coins from some of these sites that aren't specifically protected. I've seen some sources, like this PDF from BLM.gov that say

and then others like this BLM guide say anything older than 50 years could be considered an artifact.

I was actually able to find some of the old campsites that aren't listed under the coordinates of any of the official camps. Take a look at 33.460239°, -114.928497° - there's a cluster of camps and what looks like an old filled-in runway slightly to the north (at first glance, looks like a short 1400 ft runway, but you can see it was closer to 2800 ft, an arroyo has washed most of it out). Edit* at second glance, it seems like might too much elevation change for it to have been a runway, so I'm not quite sure what that is)

Seems like a great place to do some detecting if it can be done legally - I'd be curious to see what people here think about it and how they'd approach determining the legal status.

 

I checked out those coordinates and it doesn't look like those formations are part of the DTC and they don't look like any that I have seen out there. Perhaps they pre-date WWII? Definitely worth checking out.

If you look at 34.074544, -115.151317 on Google Maps and zoom in on both sides of highway 62 you will see gridlines from the Iron and Granite Mountain camps and to the east of Rice is the old airfield. 

I saw a TV show that featured Bombay Beach in the Salton Sea. It was a thriving resort town in the 50's and 60's but became somewhat of a ghost-town due to environmental reasons. It looks like an interesting but maybe a little depressing place to visit.

[Joe D.]

Compass,

    That must be the show i watched with Bombay Beach! They were big time, till the water was cut off, and the farming polluted it! I didn't know that there were other towns and bases around there too, till this post!

   That place seemed to be accessible, and not fenced off, or restricted like some of the others! I wonder if the few residents that still live there detect at all!? 

    Really like the video's posted so far! And i love the way silver comes out of the desert ground all nice and shiny! Maybe one day, i will be able to get out that way! But living in South Florida literally puts it a world away! 👍👍

[Compass]

16 minutes ago, Joe D. said:

Compass,

    That must be the show i watched with Bombay Beach! They were big time, till the water was cut off, and the farming polluted it! I didn't know that there were other towns and bases around there too, till this post!

   That place seemed to be accessible, and not fenced off, or restricted like some of the others! I wonder if the few residents that still live there detect at all!? 

    Really like the video's posted so far! And i love the way silver comes out of the desert ground all nice and shiny! Maybe one day, i will be able to get out that way! But living in South Florida literally puts it a world away! 👍👍

Joe, I thought that was the place you were referring to- pretty sad what happened there. We have lots of options here when it comes to metal detecting but we can't find Spanish treasure from hurricane wrecked galleons!

[chuckwalla]

2 hours ago, Compass said:

I checked out those coordinates and it doesn't look like those formations are part of the DTC and they don't look like any that I have seen out there. Perhaps they pre-date WWII? Definitely worth checking out.

That's true, the design is different and the scale is smaller than those other camps, so it might be something unrelated to the DTC. I do believe a lot of the vehicle tracks near the bradshaw trail are tank tracks, so it's possible these are smaller, temporary camps that were set up while training in the field, miles away from the divisional camps. I'll try to learn more if I stop at this spot and will post photos.

[GB_Amateur]

3 hours ago, Compass said:

We have lots of options here when it comes to metal detecting but we can't find Spanish treasure from hurricane wrecked galleons!

I watch a lot of treasure shows and read a lot of magazines and books on the topic.  As such they tend to run together into the murkiness of my mind.  I recall one story about an early (i.e. pre-American Revolution?) ship that sailed up a river in the northern part of the Gulf of California and got stuck there, eventually being buried in wind-blown sand.  I don't remember if it was supposed to be a Spanish Empire ship.  Does this vague recollection ring any bells?

[Joe D.]

Yes GB,

    I saw a show with that ship! Supposedly it was found back in the 30's or 40's, as i recall! But the legends vary that it was even real!  A couple of guys were recently trying to triangulate it's location from some old pictures they had found researching! But like most of the other shows, they did not find anything! Not even a ships (railroad) spike!😂👍👍