GARLOCK, CA

William Henry Schmidt was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in 1871 and subsequently came to California in 1894. He prospected around Kern County finally establishing several claims in the El Paso Mountains near Last Chance Canyon. There was no convenient way to get his ore to a transportation center at Mojave or to the mills in Randsburg or Garlock. Thus in 1906 he began digging a tunnel thru Copper Mountain to provide access to the Garlock Mills. He hired out to ranchers in the Kern River Valley to get enough money to support his digging. At some point during the several years of his digging the tunnel became less mission oriented and more of an obsession.

In 1920 a road was completed from Last Chance Canyon to Mojave. At this time he could have quit digging but as previously noted the tunnel was now an obsession. He continued tunneling until 1938 when daylight was finally observed at the far end of a more then 2000 foot tunnel. By this time he had manually moved 5800 tons of rock to complete his work. He never used the tunnel to move his ore. Instead, he sold the tunnel to another miner and moved elsewhere in the El Paso Mountains. He died in January 1954 in Ridecrest, CA and is buried in Johannesburgs cemetery.
 

In the 1940's Ripleys Believe it or Not recorded his efforts. They wrote, "Wm. H. Schmidt spent 32 years boring thru a mountain. The greatest one man mining achievement in history.".