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Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company records
LSC.1993
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company records
source:
Wilderness Land Trust
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1993
Physical Description:
23.4 Linear Feet
(4 doc boxes, 2 half doc boxes, 1 flat box, 3 oversize flat boxes, 9 oversize map boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1889-1991
Date (bulk): bulk 1908-1922
Abstract: The Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company was formed by Herman Henry Kerckhoff in Los Angeles in 1912. The company owned 2,450-acres
of mining property in the Avawatz Mountains, located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County. In 2011 the Wilderness
Land Trust, a Colorado non-profit corporation, purchased the Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company and donated the land to the United
States Bureau of Land Management for preservation. The collection contains a rich assortment of corporate document books,
ledgers, and stock books; geologic and economic reports; mining-related government publications and newspaper articles; and
geologic, structural, property, and railroad maps, tracing the history of this early southern California mining enterprise.
Materials date from 1889 to 1991, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1908 to 1922.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
This collection was donated by the Wilderness Land Trust in 2012.
[Identification of item], Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company records (Collection 1993). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
Processed by Courtney Dean in 2012 in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Jillian Cuellar.The
processing of this collection was generously supported by
Arcadia
funds.
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UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9971089673606533
The Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company was formed in June of 1912 by Herman Henry Kerckhoff, a member of the prominent Los Angeles
Kerckhoff family. Avawatz Salt and Gypsum was the final amalgamation of several earlier companies including the Death Valley
Chemical Company (1908-1911), Avawatz Salt Company (1911-1912), and Avawatz Gypsum Company (1910-1912). The company owned
2,450 acres of land on the northeast edge of the Avawatz Mountains, at the southern end of Death Valley. This included, as
of 1917, 50 mining claims and mineral deposits of gypsum, rock salt, and celestite. Kerckhoff intended to transport gypsum,
the main ingredient in cement and wall plaster, from the Avawatz mines to nearby Los Angeles where it could be utilized in
the ongoing building boom. To this end, the Amargosa Valley Railroad Company was formed in 1917 to construct a sixteen mile
line connecting the Avawatz mines to the main railway leading to Los Angeles. Despite the Avawatz Company's large investment
in engineering reports and land surveys, the outbreak of World War I made securing financing for the railroad difficult and
it was never completed. Without the railroad connecting the remote mines to Los Angeles, Avawatz Company activity was for
the most part halted. In 2011 the Wildness Land Trust, a Colorado nonprofit which buys and protects wilderness land, purchased
the Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company from the Kerckhoff family and subsequently donated the land to the U.S. Department of
the Interior Bureau of Land Management. The land is now part of the Death Valley Wilderness Study Area and falls within the
boundaries of land which will be permanently preserved by Senator Diane Feinstein's pending California Desert Protection Act.
This collection contains an assortment of corporate document books, ledgers, stock books, legal documents, and occasional
correspondence from the Avawatz Salt and Gypsum Company and its separate but related corporations - the Death Valley Chemical
Company, Avawatz Salt Company, Avawatz Gypsum Company, Avawatz Sales Company, and the Amargosa Valley Railroad Company. Also
included are mining-related government publications and newspaper articles; and a wealth of large geologic, structural, property,
and railroad maps illustrating Avawatz land and the proposed Amargosa Valley Railroad. Particularly notable are several Avawatz
commissioned economic and geologic reports featuring financial projections, photographs of the land, and detailed maps. Materials
date from 1889 to 1991, with the bulk of the collection dating from ca. 1908 to 1922.
The collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Business records, 1889-1991
- Series 2: Reports and resource materials, 1908-1989
- Series 3: Maps, 1911-1989
Series 1 is arranged chronologically by creating agency. Series 2 and 3 are arranged alphabetically.
Bodie Consolidated Mining Company Collection. California Department of Parks and Recreation, Sacramento, California.
Mining Companies Miscellany, California State Library. Box Number: 930-933
Patterson Mining Collection- Maps, 1848-1936. The Society of California Pioneers.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Wilderness Land Trust