Mistake Mine

Named on Santa Rita Peak 7.5' quadrangle at N36° 18.725; W120° 32.799 at 3865 feet. This is an open pit Chromite mine discovered by Jack James in late 1951. His partner, a mining engineer named Andy Thickstun, filed the claim on the mine as a placer claim. When Joe Holman leased the mine in 1952, they learned that they had a rich vein of chromite and change the claim to a load claim. It was named the Mistake Mine because it should have been filed as a load claim in the beginning.

The Mistake was the largest producer of Chromite in Fresno county and one of the largest in the state. The mine was originally known as the James-Thickstun mine and later became known as the Butler Estate mine in 1955. The ore was trucked to the Holman Mill site on White Creek and then trucked to Coalinga where it loaded on rail cars and shipped to the Government Purchase Depot at Grants Pass, Oregon. During its first year, 1952 the mine shipped 25 long tons of lump ore. The mine closed in June 1958.