^Lot 1375 Defiance Mining Company $20 Demand Note CA - Darwin,Inyo County - c1875 - Numismatic

Possibly Unique, $20 scrip, unissued, printed by the Coso Mining News. There are green under print vignettes of cattle, and a large “20.00”. The Defiance was the largest and most important mine at Darwin. At one point in the 1870s through the early 1900s the company was so large and having so many employees that separate small employee bunk houses were constructed all over the hillside, below the mine, and in the upper part of Darwin. This note is so rare that is was unknown to most of Inyo County collectors until now. The mine was probably discovered in the 1860s, during the activity at Coso and Cerro Gordo about 1863. By 1875 the mine was the largest producing mine in Darwin with major mining and milling works. It is most likely from this period around 1875 that this scrip was issued. Uncirculated, uncertified. Ex Fritz Weber, June 1970. From the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection.