El Marmol shipping route

I took photos of the onyx blocks still at Santa Catarina in 2017. It's in my trip report, #4.
There are photos of the port in action from 100 years ago, too. When auto roads improved, then they switched to trucks. 1940s I would guess. The mine shut down in 1958.

Her my El Mármol article on Baja Bound, published a few years ago: https://www.bajabound.com/bajaadventures/bajatravel/the_onyx...

From that article:
The process of mining the onyx was simple compared to the difficulty of transporting the heavy blocks to San Diego. The blocks were originally taken by mule train to Puerto Santa Catarina, some 50 miles away. At that point, trucks with solid rubber tires would replace the mules. Once they arrived at the beach, the blocks then were ferried through the surf to ships. As roads in Baja continued to improve, the blocks were eventually trucked from the El Marmol all the way to San Diego.



[Edited on 9-22-2017 by David K]

[Edited on 3-18-2022 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by gueribo

part 6 Derrick being used to lift onyx blocks into boats The next stop was St. Augustine, twelve miles from the quarry. Here could be found good drinking and cooking water. The water at the onyx quarry generally had such a high soda content that we used the water at St. Augustine -- hauling it back to camp in large wooden buckets. The first view of the El Marmol onyx quarry was impressive. As you came over the summit of the surrounding hills a picture unrolled that was hard to describe. The brilliant sunlight shining on exposed onyx transformed the great quarry into a field of glittering white. In the village, a tiny place, the hundred or more employees were housed in buildings constructed by the company. When we were there we lived in a house built of onyx until the big house was made ready for us. The actual quarrying was the simplest part of the process in getting onyx from the quarries into a bonded yard at San Diego. The method used was called the "wedge and feather." While much of the onyx lay exposed upon the surface a greater part was eight or ten feet underground buried beneath masses of earth and rock, the accumulation of centuries. When this deposit had been removed holes would be drilled about every six inches and wedges inserted in them. Upon driving in the wedge the block would split along the line of the drilled holes and could then be lifted by the derrick and placed in position to be squared up. Transporting the enormous blocks of onyx to the beach was a difficult and tedious haul. At first this was accomplished by means of mules. Sixteen mules to a wagon could haul ten tons of onyx to the beach, returning with a cargo of food from the boat or perhaps coming back empty. A journey of one hundred and ten miles, it took five days. Because of the unfavorable coastline at Santa Catarina, vessels could not anchor close to shore so the onyx had to be conveyed out to them by means of surf boats for a distance of some fifteen hundred feet. The huge blocks were taken from the pile at the beach and loaded onto hand cars and pushed out to the end of the pier. Here the derrick came into use again by lifting blocks from the pier into ten ton lighter boats called pongos by the Mexicans and built especially for this purpose. Pasqual Cajames was the best surf man my father had working for him. He was always in charge of the surf boats, as he knew how to count the waves and how to pass through them. Even in calm weather the surfing is a perilous task. Strong currents and high seas can stop the work for hours. In fair weather the average loading is one-hundred and seventy-five tons in seven hours. A ship usually carried about six-hundred and fifty tons, so days would be spent at the beach. When the onyx arrived in San Diego it was met by United States custom officials. Each block of onyx was unloaded, measured and consigned to the bonded yard where it remained until sold. The bonded yard enabled the Pedrara Company to export to Canada, Australia and Europe as well as to the United States. In the Spreckels Theater in San Diego, the entrance, lobby, walls and ceiling are entirely of Pedrara onyx. The soft glowing light shining through the translucent onyx brings to mind childish dreams of a fairy palace -- forgetting all the hard work involved in quarrying and bringing the onyx here. My travels in Baja California bring many things to mind. The long horseback rides over miles of untraveled country, the lovely wild flowers after a rain, the strange cacti and trees to study, the rattlesnakes to make excitement, the gold, silver, copper, and onyx mines to learn about, the desert winds, the wild surf and cool sea breezes to enjoy. One would look up at the golden moon and wonder about all that is good, getting nearer to God and to nature and knowing there are many things which make one glad to be alive. The poet Rudyard Kipling perhaps said it best: "Something hidden, go and find it. Go and look behind the ranges Something lost behind the ranges Lost and waiting for you -- Go!"

Quote: Originally posted by Sr.vienes

Several years ago I read part of one of mine manager Browns daughters family story that I believe she had written for one of the San Diego historical Society's or something. Does anyone have a link to the complete story, it was fascinating and I would like to reread it.

Quote: Originally posted by Pablito1

In the early 1970s, probably 1971 I was at Papa Fernandez camp visiting and doing some diving. One morning there was a 3 axel truck parked at the cantina. The truck had high sideboards, just a typical Baja truck of those times. Anyway in the truck was a large piece of marble. I didn't speak much Spanish at that time so I never found out about the cargo at all of where it came from or where it was going. On the right side rear axle the wheels had been removed because I suppose due to the heavy load the axle was bent. Even to this day that is one thing that I still wonder about. Where did the marble come from and how did that axle bend? Regards, Pablo

It was onyx (in Spanish there is no different word, so marble "mármol" is what is used.

There is an onyx mine near Gonzaga off the gulf road. See it shown here on the Cliff Cross 1970 map, arrow added to point it out:



Plus, onyx is being created just west of Papa's. You can see the big white area from the beach by Rancho Grande where the mineral (soda/onyx) springs are. There are (were) chunks of onyx there.

We read about this "Salt Spring" in the January 1959 issues of Desert Magazine, page 9: http://swdeserts.com/index_htm_files/195901-DesertMagazine-1...

As seen from the beach, view west:



When I was there in 2002, view east:



[Edited on 3-18-2022 by David K]

The food at Papa's was better than Okie's Landing, perhaps? The truck most likely drove south from the mine and not north, because of the steep, grades north of El Huerfanito, that probably prohibited passage with such heavy loads. Bouncing and overloaded was why an axle bends, I would think?

Great chicken story!
Near Okie Landing was a spring, Agua del Mezquitito, just a half mile up a canyon from the main road... Did you check it out?

I pointed it out on this map, as it was mentioned in one of the old Lost Santa Isabel Mission stories (the lost mission was 12 miles from the spring, per the story and enforced our search at El Volcan arroyo back in 2011)...



Here was Agua del Mezquitito in 1974...


[Edited on 3-18-2022 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by PaulW

So -- what is the access to the discussed Onyx mine like now that we have a superhighway with fencing?

Hopefully, I will have this info for you in a couple of weeks.