When the Chinese imperial court fell, this mine fell with it.
The Himalaya at Mesa Grande was one of the famous tourmaline mines of San Diego County, alongside the Tourmaline Queen, the Tourmaline King, the Stewart Lithia and the Pala Chief. Their fortune rested on a single customer. Much of the pink and red tourmaline coming out of this county was shipped to China because the Dowager Empress Tz'u Hsi was especially fond of the colour, and craftsmen there carved it into snuff bottles and other pieces to be set into jewellery. The San Diego Natural History Museum puts it bluntly: literally tons of gem-quality tourmaline went to China from this small corner of the world.
Then the customer disappeared. The miners had become so dependent on the Chinese trade that when it ended the American tourmaline trade collapsed with it, and the Himalaya stopped producing in any volume. The two sources date the ending slightly differently: the museum says demand stopped in 1911, while GIA ties the collapse to the fall of the Chinese government in 1912.
The stone itself is worth the trip in a museum. Tourmaline may occur in as many as 700 colours, and the local mines produced crystals in dark rich rose shading down to paler pinks and into greens, including the bicolour crystals the Himalaya is known for.
Mining did not stop here entirely. Gem-quality tourmaline is still found sporadically around Pala, and the county still yields kunzite, a striking lavender to pink spodumene that can grow in very large crystals, along with morganite, topaz and garnet.
One man connects most of this. Kunzite was named in 1903 after George Kunz, a buyer and officer of Tiffany and Co. in New York, who came west and involved himself heavily in finding and marketing local gemstones. Kunz also identified morganite here, the pink beryl named for the financier J.P. Morgan.
Its screening tailings run as a PUBLIC fee-dig by reservation, you sift the mine dumps for gem crystals.
Tourmaline
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
