Johnson Lake Mine Historic District

At the lower visitor point, an interpretation board stands beside the ruins of Johnson Mill. The cabins, equipment and other mining traces continue uphill toward Johnson Lake, so think of this as a historic landscape spread across a slope, not a single preserved building. The old structures are fragile: stay out of them and leave every artifact where it is.

Ore barrels came downhill from the mine adit on an aerial tramway powered by a Beaver flathead motor. Mules then hauled the ore to a gravity-concentration mill built into the slope. It entered on the upper story and left from the lower rear level; after processing, the tungsten concentrate still had to travel about 70 miles east to the railhead at Frisco, Utah.

Tungsten was found on the western Snake Range in 1885. Alfred Johnson applied for mining and power rights along Snake Creek in 1909 and established his mine in 1912. Tungsten was alloyed into steel used for World War I equipment, including weapons, tanks and radios. Production became intermittent after the war, then a snowslide in 1935 damaged buildings and closed the mine.

The complex had four log cabins. Their cut stumps sit unusually high because workers appear to have felled the trees with snow on the ground. Evidence suggests the three smaller cabins were used for sleeping or storage; a larger one had a wood stove and rodent-proof pantry and may have served as an office and mess hall. Cans left behind tell a homelier story: meat, lard, fish, coffee and canned milk, along with about fifty tobacco tins.