Randsburg California
Wandering prospectors from the El Paso District discovered that the Summit Range, located northeast of the El Paso Mountains, also contained placer values and began to dry wash for gold there in the early l890s. No more than 100 men lived at Summit Dry Diggings, a tent and dugout camp. Supplies came in from Goler and water from El Paso (Willow) Spring. At least two prospectors from the Summit Dry Diggings, Frederic Mooers and William Langdon, ventured south to explore the Rand Mountains in 1894.
Finding only traces of gold, they returned, content at the time to work what seemed to be richer earth. Frederic Mooers never forgot what he found on Rand Mountain, and a year later was startled into taking a closer look at his earlier find. A group of miners, displeased with the scant returns from their present claims, were talking of looking into that ground on Rand Mountain that he and Langdon had discovered earlier. Concerned with the thought of outsiders cashing in on a find that was his, Mooers planned his own trip.

The Yellow Aster Mine, originally known as the Olympus Mine, was located in April, 1895, by John Singleton, Fred Mooers and C. A. Burcham. Other discoveries soon followed and hundreds of claims were staked. The town of Randsburg grew at the center of the new gold district. The rich ore from the Yellow Aster Mine was at first, shipped, but within a short time the proceeds from the mine were sufficient to allow of the erection of a 30-stamp mill which began operations early in 1901. A 100-stamp mill was completed the same year. The 30-stamp mill leased operations in 1913, but the other continued to operate until temporarily closed down in 1918. Since then, a few stamps have operated occasionally on leasers' ore.
In 1897 the Santa Fe Railroad constructed a branch line from Kramer to within two miles of Randsburg, where Johannesburg is now located.

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