NOTE: The Cherry Creek Mine Mill, built in 1967, operated only a few years. Since these pictures were taken in 1993 the entire structure has collapsed. Here are some pictures taken in 2014 by Ikan Mas.

The following information adapted from Mineral Resources of the Emigrant Basin Primitive Area, California, 1970 (PDF) starting on page G54 under Whittle Property heading.

The Whittle property (also known as the High Sierra or Cherry Creek mines) consists of 21 lode claims and 2 placer claims located in secs. 27, 33, and 34, T. 4 N., R. 21 E. The claims of the group are: Tamarack, Marlyn, Marie Whittle, Jan Cavanaugh, Francis Finley, Garnet, Ventura, Airola 1 and 2, El Venado, Michael, Tungsten Hill (claims 1 through 4), Gladstone, Mary Whittle, Bussy, Donna, Pleasant View, and Angie Whittle lode claims, and Horse Meadow 1 and 2 placer claims. A small production of tungsten from the Whittle property was reported to the Bureau of Mines in 1955,1956,1962, and 1967.

The claims were located by Harry W. Whittle, Donald R. Whittle, and associates in 1954 and 1955. They are contiguous and are located on both sides of Cherry Creek from Horse Meadow, the headwaters of Cherry Creek, west-southwest to the Cherry Creek mine in sec. 33, T. 4 N., R. 21 E., near Sachse Monument. In September 1967, the property was under lease to the Cherry Creek Mining Company of San Francisco and was being developed for production under the supervision of the late Mr. John Loring.

The property is reached by a restricted-access road branching from State Highway 108 at Leavitt Creek about 3.2 miles east of Sonora Pass. This narrow road has several steep grades and many switchbacks and crosses the summit at an elevation of 9,700 feet; for these reasons it can be negotiated only by vehicles with a short wheel base and four-wheel drive. The road follows the Mono-Tuolumne County boundary in a southerly direction to Emigrant Meadow and past Grizzly Peak to Summit Meadow, the headwaters of Cherry Creek.

In Summit Meadow the road forks; the left fork leads to the Montezuma mine near Snow Lake, a distance of about 1 mile, and the right fork leads in a southwesterly direction along the East Fork of Cherry Creek for about 3.7 miles to the Cherry Creek mine where the road ends.

Mineral occurrences at the Whittle property are generally typical of all of the tungsten deposits in the Bigelow Peak roof pendant. Discontinuous lenses and beds of limestone have been metamorphosed to marble and to garnet-epidote tactite at or near the contacts of the roof pendant and the granitic rocks. The pendant rocks are tightly folded, and the limy beds have locally been squeezed, distended, and separated into pocllike masses of unpredictable shape.

At the Cherry Creek mine, an opencut 60 feet above the adit exposes a pod of disseminated tungsten ore in tactite that is about 20 feet wide by 20 feet long at the surface and may extend to a depth of 40 or 50 feet. Scheelite crystals as much as 1 1/2 inches long and 1 inch across are not uncommon in the ore.

The quartzite, hornfels, and marble beds associated with the tactite lens appear to dip steeply and regularly to the east, but the tactite layer was not found in the adit below the ore outcrops.

Other scheelite occurrences in the Sachse Monument area are directly related to the abundance of silicated limestone (tactite) in the roof pendant host rocks. These sparsely mineralized tactite bodies commonly crop out as narrow, steeply dipping, iron-stained pods and lenses that are interlayered with much thicker beds and lenses of massive white to buff quartzite, white marble, and black to rusty brown hornfels.

Their lenselike character and their common occurrence as saddle-shaped pods at the apices of minor folds makes it virtually impossible to predict their continuity either in depth or along the strike in covered areas.

At the Whittle property the extension of the ore shoots to depth has not been determined. The downward extension could be limited for one or more of the following reasons: (1) squeezing out of the limestone bed during the intense folding that preceded metamorphism, (2) a decrease in tungsten content with depth (the grade of tungsten ore shoots is commonly erratic), and (3) termination in depth of the tactite lenses at the contact of the underlying granitic mass.

The Jan Cavanaugh, Francis Finley, Garnet, and Tamarack claims on the western end of the Whittle property contain isolated tactite bodies that appear to be tapered masses that project downward into the granitic rocks. The four claims have been prospected more thoroughly than the rest of the claims in the group. The open cuts where samples were taken are shown in figure 12.

The four claims were checked at night with an ultraviolet lamp; concentrations of the fluorescent scheelite were marked by flags and, where justified, samples were taken later during the daylight hours. The flags were placed in a manner that made it easy to map and sample the entire surface exposure. All samples were cut from zones showing scheelite, but some scheelite zones were not sampled when evidence indicated that only a small pod or thin fracture coatings were present. JAN CAVANAUGH CLAIM

This claim consists of four open cuts and an adit 110 feet long. The adit was driven 60 feet below the discovery cut in granitic rock that contains local concentrations of quartz and epidote. Chip samples were taken from three open cuts in scheelite-bearing tactite zones (fig. 12).

The assay results were 1.24, 0.27, and 0.34 percent W0₃. A small tonnage of selected ore was produced, chiefly from the discovery cut on the claim, and was shipped to the Union Carbide Corp. plant near Bishop, Calif.

The tactite zones exposed on the claim may constitute a potential for future production of tungsten ore. It is estimated from sampling and the exposures in the pits and on the surface that possibly several thousand tons of tungsten ore of a grade approximating 0.6 percent W0₃ are present.

A mill with a planned capacity of 100 tons of scheelite ore per day was built on the claim in 1967 (fig. 13). The mill equipment includes a 12- by 20-inch primary jaw crusher, an 8- by 24-inch secondary jaw crusher, a set of 4-inch crushing rolls, screens, and two wet gravity concentrating tables. Electric power for the mill is furnished by two 30-kilowatt generators powered by diesel engines. From all appearances, only a small tonnage of ore has been milled.

Most of the ore produced from the Whittle property probably came from the Jan Cavanaugh claim; however, the exact quantity of ore produced is not known. FBANCIS FINLEY CLAIM

Development work on this claim consists of three open cuts. During preliminary examination with an ultraviolet lamp, two scheelitebearing tactite zones were observed and sampled. A character sample containing 0.79 percent WO₃ was taken from one zone. A chip sample was taken across the widest part of the second zone. This zone consists of a tactite-scheelite lens ranging from less than 1 inch to more than 5 feet in width and having a strike length of 80 feet. The sample assayed 0.64 percent WO₃. About 1,000 tons of tungsten ore assaying 0.6 to 0.8 percent WO₃ is estimated to be present, but no ore has been produced.

GARNET CLAIM

Development work on the Garnet claim consists of two open cuts. The discovery cut exposes a scheelite-bearing tactite zone approximately 4 feet wide, 30 feet long, and at least 50 feet thick. A sample from one cut assayed 0.98 percent WO₃. A grab sample from three places in a bulldozer cut averaged 0.20 percent WO₃. A small tactite zone, 3 by 6 feet in surface area, in the southeast section of the claim (not shown on fig. 12) contains stringers of scheelite. Only a few hundred tons of ore-are inferred, and no ore has been produced.

TAMARACK CLAIM

The Tamarack claim lies on a relatively flat topographic bench about 20 feet above Cherry Creek, which generally follows the north line of the claim. A sample from a small pod of scheelite-bearing tactite assayed 0.15 percent WO₃. A sample from a northerly striking tactite zone 2 inches or less in width and 40 feet in length assayed 0.93 percent W0₃. A 5-foot chip sample taken across an open pit assayed 1.09 percent W0₃. The extension of these small lenses to depth is unknown.

At several locations on the claim a thin veneer of scheelite also occurs on fracture faces, but such showings did not warrant sampling. On the basis of the small size and discontinuity of the tactite zone and the sampling, the Tamarack claim has no apparent potential for development. Other small tactite zones are exposed near the Tamarack claim and are estimated to have a potential of several hundred tons of ore. Additional exploratory work would be required to evaluate their importance.