Anybody know the history of Hemet?

interesting thread I was born in Hemet in 47 my dad was a ranch foreman at the time in Alpine.
 

Mackaydon said:
The page referenced below lists 20 mines within 30 miles of the New Hemet Bell Mine:
http://www.mountainpeaks.net/index....at=33.6155815&lon=-116.5816803&elevation=5561
Good hunting,
Don...
Click to expand...

Don,
I followed your link, I noticed the Cabazon Shaft mine. On googlemaps, it looks totally abandoned, and the tailings are visible from the freeway. I am curious if anyone has any info, google and yahoo have proved to be less than helpful. A topographical map shows that it is just on the edge before Morongo Indian lands. Interesting stuff.
 

I don't see a metal detecting topic in the california section, and since I live in Hemet, I'll say this here.

I'm frustrated. I keep pulling out my metal detector, and I have found everything under the sun EXCEPT a single coin.

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. With one swipe over the object it will tell me it's a nickel. Then, it's foil, then it's a penny, and then it's a fifty cent piece. So, I dig it up, and it usually ends up being a piece of rusted metal. Like a nail. It also always makes the same stupid noise.

Anyone have tomorrow off, and want to go detect somewhere? I could probably learn a lot from you. There's tons of old land out here in Hemet that used to have houses on them. Many of them, I have never tried. I'll check this tomorrow and see if anyone responds.
 

Bummer, I only have Friday free. I was thinking of going back to Bautista Canyon that day. What metal detector do you use? It doesn't show one on the side of your post.
 

IF you have a valid hunting or fishing license, you don't have to buy a pass to be there. first paragraph DFG Lands Pass - California Department of Fish and Game

A DFG Lands pass is required to access DFG-managed lands where a fee is required for non-hunting recreational purposes, such as bird watching, hiking, etc. A DFG Lands Pass is not required for any person who possesses a valid California sport fishing, hunting, or trapping license. Passes must be redeemed at the point of entry for an entry permit. Passes are not area-specific and can be used to access any of the following DFG-managed lands which require a fee:​
 

treasurechest said:
I don't see a metal detecting topic in the california section, and since I live in Hemet, I'll say this here.

I'm frustrated. I keep pulling out my metal detector, and I have found everything under the sun EXCEPT a single coin.

I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. With one swipe over the object it will tell me it's a nickel. Then, it's foil, then it's a penny, and then it's a fifty cent piece. So, I dig it up, and it usually ends up being a piece of rusted metal. Like a nail. It also always makes the same stupid noise.

Anyone have tomorrow off, and want to go detect somewhere? I could probably learn a lot from you. There's tons of old land out here in Hemet that used to have houses on them. Many of them, I have never tried. I'll check this tomorrow and see if anyone responds.
Click to expand...

Have you tried adjusting your sensitivity and discrimination? Monkey around with it a little bit to see what works best. I would also try placing a piece of foil and a nickel on the ground. Swing over them a couple times to make sure the detector is working right and try to use it to optimize your settings.
 

No, I haven't custom12x. I started going to school, and today is the first day off in a month, that I've had between work and school. I haven't had time to do anything.
 

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treasurechest said:
Hey Custom,

This looks cool, I just found it online yesterday, I want to go visit it.

Hike Every Day: Hemet Bell Mine

and this site tells you how to get there. I'm going to try to find a way where I don't have to walk on a private road to get there before I go.

Butterfly Peak (Desert Divide) : Climbing, Hiking & Mountaineering : SummitPost
Click to expand...
Did anyone ever make it up? After a few weekends of hiking earlier this year....we made it to Hemet Belle Mine and found other neat places too. FYI we park at the end of the "Private Road" and hike in from there. Nobody ever had a problem with us.
 

Nuggets4me said:
Did anyone ever make it up? After a few weekends of hiking earlier this year....we made it to Hemet Belle Mine and found other neat places too. FYI we park at the end of the "Private Road" and hike in from there. Nobody ever had a problem with us.
Click to expand...


How was it? can you go in the mine? was there anything interesting up there, or was it just another hole in the ground?
 

treasurechest said:
How was it? can you go in the mine? was there anything interesting up there, or was it just another hole in the ground?
Click to expand...

It was interesting as far as historically. We never did do much detecting. We were having fun looking around. We hit 3 mines. Yes you can go in them. Some aren't very deep. The Hemet Belle had water in it when we went up so we didn't go inside. Not far anyway. Another was a vertical shaft. Needless to say we didn't go in there! It is actually a cool area to go hiking. The only thing we found of interest was an old horseshoe and some rusty acme and other types of beer cans. Inbox me if u need more info...and I have pics too. :)
 

Customx_12 said:
Just curious of the history out there. Train stops? Mines? Anybody know what they were known for?
Click to expand...

I've been living in Hemet since 1995. There's a city museum located at the old Santa Fe R/R station on Florida & State Streets. The mine people are talking about is located on the west side of Hemet Butte, which is the tallest peak within city limits, 2250' in elevation. I can see it right out my living room window. At the base is a drinking water tank and next to that is a newly constructed tank to hold recycled water. Just north of there is the Phoenix House which is a half way house. All the farm property in that area is mostly owned by the McSweeny family. The main family house is located on the west side of State Street. They along with the Domenigoni, Searl families have have been in this area forever. The very visable mine on the west side of Hemet Butte is called Hemet Silica Mine. There's huge tailing outcroppings. Wife and I hiked up to the top of Hemet Butte around 1997, starting at the water tanks and stopped off at the mine. Though hike! As with hiking around this area, use caution during the warm months because there's a lot of rattle snakes. Doing an Google search, it's listed as a pure white silica (quartz) mine that went into the hill for about 200'. The opening is caved in. I do remember seeing tons of white quartz. There's a old road leading to it from the north side, near the Phoenix House which is a half way house for parolees. Doubt if you can drive it. We've been to that ruin foundation in the valley on the back side of the butte. The south end of that valley is all blocked off by private properties. There's a really nice tree house back there too. My mom and aunt came out to Hemet valley around WWII and worked in the fields harvesting apricots & peaches, which was the main crops back then. There's lots of prospect holes dug all thoughout this area of Riverside County. Lots of Indian grinding holes in the granite boulder fields too. On State & Oakland, there's the historic Hemet Stock Farm. Very old horse track which is still standing but all private property. Cheryl Crow did a rock video there in the early 90's too. Would be great to get permission to metal detect that area but doubt if you can get permission. There's lots of old historic ranch houses in the area.
 

treasurechest said:
I live in Hemet.

The train was here to ship oranges out of town to Riverside. If you haven't seen Massacre canyon yet, take State st. North until it becomes Gilman springs road. just past the Scientology center, there's a very short bridge, park on the side of the road, and walk up the canyon. There's old fireplaces and a teepee (teepee is on the left side of the canyon about 1/2 mile in) It's made of bricks and rock. not hard to find if you're looking for it.

Just past Mt. San Jacinto, there's an old park right before you reach the river on the right. I'm going to MD that area soon.

I know of a place out towards Sage on Cactus Valley rd. (I think it's called cactus valley rd.) anyways, take State st. south, eventually it will turn left. Follow it until you see the stop sign. Go straight through the stop sign, and follow the road until it turns left again. On the left, you will see a very crudely made fence (last time I was out there) go through it (I could get my truck through last time I was out there) and follow the dirt road. Go back, and towards the right, and there's some old Indian grinding stones on the ground right before the HUGE ditch. Don't try to drive through that ditch, It took an F250 with four wheel drive , and winch to get me out of there. I got STUCK!! I want to MD that area too.

Also on State st. right after you turn left off of Domenigoni PKWY, look to your right. See those water towers? Above them is a tailings pile. It's easy to see. There's a mine shaft and a tunnel up there, but the tunnel doesn't go very far in. Still neat to walk up to see.

Don't try to sneak into the waterfalls off of Hwy 74 going towards Idyllwild. you'll get arrested. my friends learned that the hard way. If you don't know where they are, I'm not telling you, but you can find them on google earth :wink:

Anyways, if you're into Shooting guns, I know a place to go. Pm me if there's anything else you might be interested in. I might know. I might not. :)
Click to expand...

Just curious about the story behind "massacre canyon" and also about the waterfalls you mention, why you can't go to the waterfalls? Who owns the falls? Why don't they want people there?
 

LarryS said:
I've been living in Hemet since 1995. There's a city museum located at the old Santa Fe R/R station on Florida & State Streets. The mine people are talking about is located on the west side of Hemet Butte, which is the tallest peak within city limits, 2250' in elevation. I can see it right out my living room window. At the base is a drinking water tank and next to that is a newly constructed tank to hold recycled water. Just north of there is the Phoenix House which is a half way house. All the farm property in that area is mostly owned by the McSweeny family. The main family house is located on the west side of State Street. They along with the Domenigoni, Searl families have have been in this area forever. The very visable mine on the west side of Hemet Butte is called Hemet Silica Mine. There's huge tailing outcroppings. Wife and I hiked up to the top of Hemet Butte around 1997, starting at the water tanks and stopped off at the mine. Though hike! As with hiking around this area, use caution during the warm months because there's a lot of rattle snakes. Doing an Google search, it's listed as a pure white silica (quartz) mine that went into the hill for about 200'. The opening is caved in. I do remember seeing tons of white quartz. There's a old road leading to it from the north side, near the Phoenix House which is a half way house for parolees. Doubt if you can drive it. We've been to that ruin foundation in the valley on the back side of the butte. The south end of that valley is all blocked off by private properties. There's a really nice tree house back there too. My mom and aunt came out to Hemet valley around WWII and worked in the fields harvesting apricots & peaches, which was the main crops back then. There's lots of prospect holes dug all thoughout this area of Riverside County. Lots of Indian grinding holes in the granite boulder fields too. On State & Oakland, there's the historic Hemet Stock Farm. Very old horse track which is still standing but all private property. Cheryl Crow did a rock video there in the early 90's too. Would be great to get permission to metal detect that area but doubt if you can get permission. There's lots of old historic ranch houses in the area.
Click to expand...

Hi Larry, I didn't know so much about that mine. I do know that the front side of the mine by State St. IS NOT caved in. I walked to the end of it a month ago. I've been up there quite a few times. I've also gone back behind that hill the mine is on several occasions. You can walk from Simpson park on top of the hill, and take numerous ways off the hill I usually take the trail that leads me to Santa Fe st., because I live there. I have never seen the tree house, and I've been all over that hill. Where is it? I also found some rocks that were carved on. Indians? Teenagers? Who knows. It's carved like connecting diamonds like on a rattlesnake. I asked a few people on here what that meant and they said there would be water nearby. Sure enough, I found running water on a hill that's dry EVERYWHERE. It's difficult to find , but there's water!
 

Story of Massacre canyon is that the indians from Temecula, forced all the indians from Hemet into that canyon, and murdered most of the tribe back over crops. You can go back there. It used to be a really pretty canyon, until a bunch of punks tagged up almost every rock in the canyon. There's three sets of waterfalls back there.

The other water falls I was talking about are owned by the water district. They're near bee canyon. They won't let anyone back there because... They suck. That's why.
 

Hi Treasurechest. The treehouse was behind one of the homes off Gibbel Road. If I recall, it was quite a ways behind (north) the house, otherwise we wouldn't have climbed inside. It was well built. It was off the dirt road that went from Gibbel and into the valley where the ruin foundation is. Remember the property owner had a bunch of black labs barking at us. Do you remember the quality of quartz at the mine? I'm a rockhound and have all the diamond saws & grinders, make cabochons etc. Was the white quartz solid, free of cracks & pits? If so, may be worth hiking back up there and slice some of it up. I'm currently doing a lot of research on Hemet & local Indian history. The Cahuilla had 6 main villages in the Hemet/San Jacinto valleys. And the largest is suppose to be at Big Springs Ranch, which use to be just west of the Ramona Bowl. It's all housing now but I guess all the boulders behind the homes has one of the largest concentrations of grinding holes in Riverside County. And there is no "spring" listed on the old or new TOPO maps. The Cahuilla lived in the villages, usually 75-200 people in each village and they would only hunt/gather within 5 miles of their village, avoid other village properties. They respected each others hunting areas. Even the oak trees were individually owned for harvest. The villages were permenant and always near water. The grinding holes were personal, family owned. And it was voodoo to walk near the petroglyph, pictrograph sites because that was sacred areas just for the shamen (sp?). Cahuilla were one of the more advanced Indian tribes in CA. Many CA tribes not only used the typical agate/jasper arrow heads but many of the tips were made out of hardwood. Some tribes used metal arrow heads given to them from earlier Spanish. But I found no info on Cahuilla using them. We live in the Santa Rosa mobile home park on State & Thornton. Across the street is a large open field with a mound of dirt with euclyptus trees, near State & Chambers. Use to have this large concrete bunker with 2' thick walls, roof. They tore it out a couple years ago but we always wondered what it was. We were even getting ready to metal detect the area. Went to the museum last week and found out is use to be a dynamite storage bunker for the old Gibbel Hardware store located at State & Florida, north/east corner where the pizza shop is, dating in the late 1800's. Also if you do your research, many one room school houses were used in the whole area. They were constantly moving them around, depending on the local population. Some burnt down and not rebuilt. Sage, French Valley, Winchester, East Benton Road, everywhere out there.
 

Hi Larry. I stumbled across this post. I think you would love to visit my parents house on Pachea Trail next to Ramona Bowl. They have a bunker with 1' walls and ceiling built into the hill. There is writing on the column that says" Jim _____ came here on Dec 7, 1941" They also have huge boulders with carvings in them. Also a bunch of other rocks with metate looking bowls. My Mom and Dad would love to know the History of their land. Let me know..
 

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