Wood Road History Walk #1
- 📏 4.62 miles
- ⬆ 650 ft gain
- Moderate
- Out and Back
This scenic walk will take you to the historical heart of the park. The entrance is reached by driving up to the summit of Hicks Road, where your hike starts at an altitude of 1,400 feet.
The parking area is your first waypoint and is worth a look around. Then find the trail to begin the walk itself. The first 0.5 miles takes you through a wonderful variety of habitats, beginning under full cover of mostly live oaks, crossing a stretch of chaparral, then emerging into rolling grassy hills. The next waypoint should soon be visible, an oddly flat area by the trail. I used to think there must have been a house there, but the truth is more interesting. Further along, you will pass a very odd pointy baby hoodoo on your left, your next waypoint. Things get interesting as you approach the rotary furnace. Note the bamboo and pampas grass left over from cultivated areas, and look for the "Hanging Tree" waypoint on your right. The rotary furnace area itself is fenced off and is in bad shape, but still one of the most impressive structures in the park, and houses two waypoints in one.
Continue straight to Waypoint #6, the Hidalgo cemetary, then backtrack and take the Kitty Monahan (formerly Yellow Kid) trail to English Camp. On the way you will pass the site of the Main Tunnel, Waypoint #7, then emerge at English Camp where you will find three more sites. The last site, Mine Hill, is all around you at this point.
Backtrack to the parking area to complete the hike.
Points of Historical Interest
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Parking Area and Wood Road
This was once the site of buildings to administer the collection and delivery of wood.
The "wood" in the road's name refers then to the fact that it was the route used by the wood-haulers that brought timber and firewood from the surrounding Santa Cruz Mountains. The road continues on the other side of Hicks and heads up towards the forested areas on the slopes of Mt. Umunhum, where the wood was harvested.
The wood was a crucial part of mining operations, needed to run the furnaces and retorts (examples of which you will see later) and to shore up the shaft walls. At the peak of the operations, around the 1880s, the furnaces consumed up to 300 cords of wood per month. That corresponds to about 20 tons of wood a day, or 10 full wagons – every day of the year - continuously from about 1852 until well into the 20th Cencury. A small oak might yield one cord with the largest yielding 10, so the 300 cords would need about 100 substantial trees a month or 1000 per year!
This parking area then sits at a natural divide between those higher timber-rich slopes and ridges and the mining operations. Historically, this area where you parked today served as a staging ground where the wood stacks could be organized before being moved to the mining areas, along the very trail we will be hiking on today.
There were a number of buildings built in the shade of the larger oak trees, here and throughout the park, which the wood cutters would have left. Look around and try to imagine where they may have been, here, along Wood Road and throughout the park. If you see a large oak, there was likely a building in its shade, before being removed during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps, who were tasked with clearing abandoned and hazardous structures throughout the park area.
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Mine Fill Flat
This area was once a hill that was flattened when material was removed to fill mine shafts in the 1980s.
Immediately after the county took over the area in 1976, a massive effort was undertaken to make the trails safe before opening them to hikers. This work initially involved sealing off the mine entrance. Then a few years later, in the early 1980s, geologists and engineers, including Michael Cox who still leads history walks in the area, worked to professionally seal deep vertical shafts and air vents to prevent people from falling in and to manage mercury vapor and water runoff. This work required large amounts of fill that was taken from this flat area, which was once a small hill. Looking at old maps, I believe they moved that part of Wood Road to access the site.
Washington ShaftSite of a very deep shaft. The entrance tunnel has collapsed but the remains are still visible.
The Washington shaft was primarily used for ventilation and as a secondary hoisting shaft to transport miners and ore from the deeper levels of Mine Hill. It reached a depth of approximately 1,100 to 1,500 feet, connecting with various horizontal drifts (tunnels) that branched out toward the main ore zones.
Washington Shaft site c. 1885 (Click for larger image).
Notice the absence of the cube on top of Mt. Umunhum. (From DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University)As the workings of Mine Hill reached deeper and more complex levels, for example with the Buena Vista shaft that reached the 2100 foot deep level in 1884, the air quality became a significant safety hazard due to "bad air" (low oxygen) and the potential for mercury vapors, requiring extra shafts for ventilation. The shaft was one of three such vertical openings (including the Randol and Santa Isabel shafts) that sunk for that purpose.
It did also provide an alternative point of entry and exit for the workforce, reducing the time it took for men to reach the deeper northern sections of the mine, and was used for hoisting machinery needed for the removal of ore and waste rock.
Originally named the Garfield Shaft, the ore from the shaft was highly unusual, being very rubbery and difficult to drill, most likely due to volcanic activity.
When President Garfield was shot, the shaft was renamed for Washington, to humor the Cornish miners (many of whom were deeply superstitious Cornish "Cousin Jacks") who considered the name "Garfield" to be a bad omen—essentially a "death shaft." But problems with the shaft continued and had to be closed around 1885 due to persistent flooding and poor market conditions at that time.
Today all that you can see is a strange-looking orange-colored mound that was once the side of a tunnel. Looking around the area, you can just make out how it might have looked. The material is largely silica-carbonate, a rock closely associated with the cinnabar deposits.
Hanging TreeRumored to be the site of hangings.
Look for a tree with a solid branch at a convenient height for the purpose. Local lore suggests the tree was used for extra judicial hangings of criminals—specifically murderers and "claim jumpers"—during the mining boom of the mid-to-late 19th century. Apparently an execution occurred in the late 1800s when a man who had killed a girl was hanged. It is also alleged that after a hanging passers-by would toss a small rock under the tree to show their distaste for the crime. But the historical record is thin on the specifics — who was hanged, when exactly, and under what circumstances. I can't find any documented hangings. The tree is getting old and continues to lose branches, so it may well have been much more impressive when "in use".
The Hanging Tree today.
Rotary Furnace and Rossi retortThis fenced off area is visible long before you reach it, standing several stories tall. Here you will see a number of buildings associated with the production of liquid mercury from the cinnabar ore.
This area has the best remaining features of the mining activity in the park. Rotary Furnace:The large tube and strange pipes are part of a Gould furnace, named after its inventor H.W. Gould. It was installed around 1940 and operated sporadically until the mines finally closed in 1976. So the area was the last major production site, with the hacienda furnace shutting down in 1916, followed by the closing of the Senator Mine The site in 1924. It was began production around 1940 and was the first time a large furnace plant was put at the location of the mine. At that time a large 100-ton Gould furnace went into large-scale production supplying mercury for the war effort, before closing down at the end of 1945. Then in 1956, a local businessman named Andy Camilleri refurbished the site and installed a smaller 30-ton-per-day furnace to process ore brought in by small-scale miners who were still working the hills. The smaller version worked best when processing about 35 tons of ore at a time. That furnace operated from about 1956 until November 1975, when Mine Hill was acquired by the County of Santa Clara for open space.
The Gould furnace today.
So this furnace was the "final chapter" of the story—representing the transition from the massive industrial operations of the 1800s to the smaller, high-tech scavenging of the mid-20th century, when much lower grade ore, and even tailings, could be processed economically than in earlier years.
As a rotary kiln, it was a major advancement over the older static brick furnaces. It featured a long, rotating metal cylinder that tumbled the crushed cinnabar ore while heating it. This movement ensured the ore was heated more evenly, which was essential for processing the lower-grade ore found toward the end of the mine's life. You can still see the large, zig-zagging condenser pipes nearby. These were used to cool the mercury vapors released during the roasting process, turning the gas back into liquid "quicksilver" which was then collected in iron flasks.
Over to the left side of the area you may see some rusty boxes arranged on a slope. This unit is a two-tube inclined retort known as a Rossi Retort, named after Louis Rossi, who arrived at New Almaden in the 1920s and constructed a reduction plant based on his own patented design. The retort's angled configuration allowed for the rapid extraction of mercury from high-grade ore.
During operation, each cylinder was loaded with up to 400 pounds of crushed ore, sealed, and then heated for anywhere from 8 to 24 hours. As the ore roasted, mercury sulfide vapors rose through two condenser pipes, where they cooled and converted back into liquid mercury. These pipes emptied into rubber buckets filled with water, while sulfur gases — a byproduct of the roasting process — vented upward through a chimney mounted on top of the bucket cabinet.
Ore was stored in a dump-truck bed positioned directly above the retort. A knife gate mechanism controlled the flow of material, allowing only pieces smaller than three inches to pass through. From there, a triangular apron at the base of the truck bed funneled fresh ore down into the retort tubes.
Information was taken from this page on the retort.
Hidalgo CemeterySite of a Mexican cemetery. Note the cypress trees, which in some cultures lead the way to a burial ground.
The cemetery was established in 1879 to serve the Mexican mining community. It replaced the older Guadalupe Cemetery (also known as the Spanish Cemetery). The people buried here were primarily the laborers and families from Spanish Town, one of the three main mining settlements on the hill (the others being English Town and the Hacienda). The site was chosen for its location near the mining operations but also for its peaceful, elevated views of the Almaden Valley.
Note the rows of Italian Cypress trees, which can be seen long before you reach the area. These trees were often planted in Mediterranean and Mexican cultures to mark or lead the way to burial sites.
You won't see any headstones or crosses in the Hidalgo Cemetery today as the remains of those buried here were exhumed and moved to Oak Hill Memorial Park in San Jose in 1933. While it was a formal relocation, there is concern that not all the remains were recovered, leading to the park's decision to continue maintaining the site as sacred ground.
Site of the Main ShaftWhere it all began — the original shaft that launched the mining operations at Almaden Quicksilver.
This area is where cinnabar was first extracted by native Ohlone and then the first miners. The modern story begins in 1845, when Andrés Castillero — a captain in the Mexican Army and an amateur mineralogist — visited Mission Santa Clara and noticed the vivid red pigment the Ohlone people used to paint the mission walls. The Ohlone had long known these hills as a source of cinnabar, the brilliant red ore of mercury, which they ground for body paint and traded widely. Castillero recognized its commercial value immediately. The Ohlone had actually been mining cinnabar here for thousands of years and would show him a "Red Cave" or tunnel that extended roughly 50 to 60 feet into the hillside. Castillero tested a sample and produced liquid mercury from it and quickly filed a mineral claim with the Mexican government. His company began small-scale extraction at the "Santa Clara" mine in early 1846, starting mercury production in the park area that would last over a century.
There have been several tunnels and openings since the "Red Cave", most of which were up on the hill to the right of this location as you are Coming down the trail from English Camp. I believe there was also an opening a few feet to the left, down the slope, but like the others, it is now filled in and not visible.
Map showing location of Main Tunnel.
English CampCenter of the main camp for the English miners and settlers who worked the mine.
English Camp, or as it was known in its day, Englishtown, is one of the most significant historical sites within Almaden Quicksilver County Park, representing the peak of the 19th-century mercury mining era in the Santa Clara Valley. Unfortunately, most of the original town is long gone, cleared away by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Established in the 1860s, Englishtown was one of the three main settlements on "The Hill," alongside Spanishtown and the Hacienda. While Spanishtown was largely home to Mexican and Chilean miners, English Camp was settled by immigrant miners from Cornwall, England. These Cornish miners were highly sought after for their deep-shaft mining expertise. By the late 1800s, the camp had grown into a bustling community of approximately 1,000 residents. It was a self-contained village that included a schoolhouse and a church (located on Church Hill), along with a company store and a doctor’s office, and a "map house" for tracking the hundreds of miles of tunnels beneath the surface.
One can get a feeling for daily life in the camp from Wallace Stegner's famous 1971 novel, The Angle of Repose, where he describes the Cornish camp (English Camp). He captures the distinct atmosphere of the community, including Mother Fall’s, a boarding house and social hub for the miners. The book also highlights the cultural divide between the Cornish miners and the residents of the other settlements.
English Camp (Church Hill) ChimneyAll that remains of the English Camp Mine Office.
The English Camp Chimney is one of the few pieces of brick ruin that remain, standing alone as one of the most recognizable landmarks in the shaded clearing of the camp. While much of the village was removed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s, this structure remains as a silent monument to the daily lives of the Cornish mining families. The chimney belonged to the English Camp Mine Office. The Map House (attached to the Mine Office) contained the master surveys of the hundreds of miles of tunnels. If those paper maps got damp from the Santa Cruz Mountain fog, they would rot or warp. The fire in that chimney was needed to keep the air dry and protect the "brain" of the mining operation.
The chimney is built from local red brick, likely fired in the kilns that once operated nearby. Its sturdy construction is the reason it survived the 1930s clearing efforts that claimed the surrounding wooden structures. Today, the chimney is surrounded by a dense, second-growth forest of oak and bay trees. This is a significant change from the 1870s; historical photos show the area was almost completely clear-cut for fuel and timbering the mine shafts. The fact that the chimney now stands in a lush, wooded area is a testament to how the land has reclaimed the site since the mining era ended.English Camp School SiteBuilt in 1864, the school taught grades 1 to 8 until 1907.
Like most buildings from the mining days, the English Camp Schoolhouse no longer exists, having been removed by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s. As recently as 20 years ago one could view a one-roomed building next to the Schoolhouse Marker, but that was likely an unrelated building.
A school was first built in what was known then as Englishtown in 1864. It was simple one-roomed building, painted white, and featured large windows to let in light in the days before electricity.
The school grew to a peak of over 250 students in 1886, taught by four teachers. The school went up to eighth grade and accepted some students from the one-room schoolhouse of Spanishtown for the higher grades, once they had learned enough English. In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic that they learned up until grade eight, there was vocational training available after that where the boys were taught carpentry, blacksmithing and mechanics, and the girls learned cooking and sewing and other domestic skills.
In these early days, the building served as a community gathering point and was used as a Methodist church on Sundays. The desks would be cleared every Friday afternoon ahead of Sunday services. It wasn't until later in the camp’s development that a more formal, dedicated church structure was established nearby, which is why the area is still historically referenced as Church Hill.
The English Camp Schoolhouse closed at the end of 1907 for lack of students.
English Camp schoolhouse soon after completion in 1864. Note the absence of landscaping. (click for large version).
Mine HillThis hill was once home to an entire town that grew up around the mining activity.
The area known as "Mine Hill" covers much of this part of the park, although it is hard to get a good view of it once you are on it. It was the heart of the original mercury (quicksilver) mining operation in New Almaden, where most of the richest ore bodies were concentrated. As such, it was the center of action with several townships around it. Englishtown or English Camp - home to Cornish miners who had been recruited for their specialized skill in deep-shaft mining; Spanishtown - home to the Mexican and Chilean miners who provided the bulk of the manual labor in the early years; Gabbottville - a residential area for upper-level staff and foremen, chosen for its location higher up the ridge, which offered slightly better views and air quality, away from the dust of the lower trails; and Deep Gulch - home to a small community of miners who wanted to live closer to the tunnel entrances in that canyon.
Ore bodies of Mine Hill as surveyed in 1885, together with today's park trails (click for large version).
Notes and sources:
- Image and some of the content was obtained from https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=52816. I photographed the physical marker to get the image and made adjustments in Adobe Photoshop and Google Gemini.
- I heard about the flattening of the hill from Michael Cox, who leads history walks at the park.
- Image obtained from https://digitalcollections.smu.edu/digital/collection/wes/id/2635/. Information sources for this and other waypoints include:
1. M. Lanyon, and L. Bulmore, "Cinnabar Hills: The Quicksilver Days of New Almaden". Village Printer, (1967).
2. J. Schneider, "Quicksilver: The Complete History of Santa Clara County's New Almaden Mine", Zella Schneider, (1992).
3. K. M. Johnson, "The New Almaden Quicksilver Mine". Talisman Press, (1963). 4. E. H. Bailey, and D. L. Everhart, "Geology and quicksilver deposits of the New Almaden district, Santa Clara county, California". Vol. 360. US Government Printing Office, (1964).
Mention of the renaming can be found here. - One source is H. Campbell, "From Cinnabar to Quicksilver", New Almaden Quicksilver County County Park., New Almaden., (2009), which seems to be taken from a piece in the San Jose Merury New, September 29, 2007. An extensive web search has failed to turn up a single documented case. I found that in general, historians are skeptical of hanging tree designations.
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Information on Gould Furnaces and Rossi Retorts are readily available, including in the Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum. Details of the installation and use of them in New Almaden can be obtained from the references in Item #2.
I found an image on Facebook that shows a similar photo from 1963 taken by "the mother of Mark A. Ritch". But this one is clearly later, as you can see damage to the structure already.
In addition, details on the Rossi Retort were taken from this marker page. - Information on the Hidalgo Cemetery can be found in Schneider's book, see above. Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.
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The map of the ore bodies is "Ore-Bodies and Topography of Mine-Hill, New Almaden," authored by George F. Becker, with contributions by F. Reade in 1885." It is available online. I extracted the trail layer from the park pdf and overlayed.
The Mine Hill photo is from " E. H. Bailey, and D. L. Everhart, "Geology and quicksilver deposits of the New Almaden district, Santa Clara county, California". Vol. 360. US Government Printing Office, (1964), page 186.
The facts are widely known and covered in most historical accounts of the early days of the park. - As with the Mine Hill discussion, there are many accounts of English Camp / Englishtown, found in all the references above.
- Many accounts of English Camp chimney, found in all the references above. Photos from the 1800s show the mapping office building and its location.
Photo of chimney found online due to Jean-Claude Latombe. -
The schoolhouse site and details are well documented in the above references. The first image was obtained from Western Mining History and colorized using Gemini Nanobanana Pro plus Adobe Photoshop, taking care to preserve all details other than the color.
The second image was found here, and treated similarly. -
As with the discussion of the Main Tunnel, the map of the ore bodies is from "Ore-Bodies and Topography of Mine-Hill, New Almaden," authored by George F. Becker, with contributions by F. Reade in 1885." It is available online. I extracted the trail layer from the park pdf and overlayed.
The Mine Hill photo is from " E. H. Bailey, and D. L. Everhart, "Geology and quicksilver deposits of the New Almaden district, Santa Clara county, California". Vol. 360. US Government Printing Office, (1964), page 186.
The facts are widely known and covered in most historical accounts of the early days of the park.
