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The South Huckleberry Stewardship Project is part of an ongoing contract Plateau Archaeological Investigations has with the Spokane District Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The South Huckleberry cultural resource survey included over 1,100 acres in south Stevens County. The survey took place over the summer of 2013.
The BLM contracted Plateau to complete the cultural resource survey of the South Huckleberry Stewardship Project in the Huckleberry Mountains of Stevens County. The BLM has been conducting forest health and restoration practices within the project area since 2006. The cultural resource survey is intended to consider potential impacts to existing historic properties and to identify new cultural resources prior to the implementation of forest health restoration practices under the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
The project area covered over 1,100 acres in the very steep Huckleberry Mountains. The Huckleberry Mountains have a history of mining that dates to the late 1800s. Plateau performed a background review and conducted pedestrian survey of the project area. One previously recorded site, the Queen Seal Mine (45ST447), was found within the project during the background review. Plateau re-visited and assessed the current condition of the Queen Seal Mine, and identified 26 new historic mining-related sites.
Plateau identified a total of 136 new mining features within the Project Area. This includes 34 prospect pits, 24 prospect cuts, 19 trenches, 13 shafts, 11 prospect trenches, 10 structural remains (including collapsed structures and concrete foundations), six adits (including two cave adits), six cuts, five historic trash scatters, three waste rock piles, two improvement tunnels, one pile of milled lumber, one spring development, and an ore cart. Several of these mining features were identified as spatially related to the Queen Seal or Germania mines and are indicative of the scale of previous mining activities within and surrounding the Project Area.
Only the Germania Mine’s complex of sites was recommended eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places due to its contribution to American History during the first half of the 20th century. The mine’s ownership began with the Germans, who shipped the tungsten ore back to Germany to make munitions leading up to World War I. The US Government took over ownership during the war and then it traded hands a few times with General Electric owning the mine in the run up to World War II.
Location: Stevens County, Washington
