In 1906, gold created Skidoo in Death Valley and drew 700 residents; after producing about $1.5 million, the mining town was finally abandoned in 1942

Skidoo began after an accidental gold discovery. In 1906, during the rush to the Harrisburg gold discovery near Death Valley, miners Harry Ramsey and 'One‑Eye' Thompson got lost in fog a few miles from that camp and were forced to make camp near a spring for the night. When the fog cleared the next morning, they found themselves standing amid promising rock ledges and staked their claim on the spot. According to the National Park Service, it is the claim made in 1906 that made Skidoo known and turned the barren Panamint Range into a mining area.

The post office that was established here in 1906 under the name Hoveck, reportedly after Matt Hoveck, who managed the Skidoo mine, was officially renamed Skidoo in 1907, according to the National Park Service's project record on the Skidoo Historic District. The nickname, however, is commonly linked to the American slang phrase '23 skidoo', an expression for making a quick, timely exit, though its connection to a booming new town that would soon add a bank, school, and newspaper is more likely a case of a popular catchphrase being borrowed for its ring than a literal comment on the settlement's prospects.

Exactly how the number ‘23’ became part of the camp’s name is uncertain; it may relate to the 23 mining claims in the initial discovery, 23 miles of pipeline, 23 blocks in the surveyed townsite, or even to a specific date. A mill was constructed in 1907 for processing the ores, and soon the town developed all other features, such as a post office, telephone service, weekly newspaper, school, and even a bank.


A roughly 21-to-23-mile pipeline powered the region's only water-driven mill

The challenge of bringing water to Skidoo was more difficult than the problem of finding gold. There was only one spring of water within 21-23 miles of Skidoo near Telescope Peak; there is some disagreement about the exact distance. It was a considerable challenge to build the pipeline across such a distance and elevation in one of the driest areas of North America. Once constructed, however, the pipeline enabled the use of water power for the mill at Skidoo, as opposed to steam or gasoline power, which was the norm in other parts of the area. Once the water was assured and the mill operating, Skidoo expanded rapidly. The National Park Service's project records put Skidoo's peak population at around 700 residents, supported by mining jobs and businesses such as saloons, restaurants, and boarding houses. In terms of facilities provided, this small town could match some of the large mining towns in California.

The only recorded lynching in Death Valley took place in Skidoo in 1908

One particularly grim event is a part of Skidoo's history. On April 19, 1908, a bartender and saloon keeper known as Joe ‘Hootch’ Simpson shot and killed a popular local merchant, Jim Arnold, and took approximately twenty dollars with him, according to 'The Arnold-Simpson Affair,' David Wright's history of the incident published on DeathValley.com. The same agency's account confirms this was the only hanging to take place in Death Valley, noting that Simpson was arrested and that an official investigation ultimately attributed his death to strangulation at the hands of unknown parties. One popular version of the story says Simpson was exhumed and hanged again for a photograph that arrived too late for a local newspaper photographer, but that detail comes from later oral tradition and magazine articles rather than 1908 news reports.

The mine produced about $1.5 million before most residents left by 1917

The mines at Skidoo were especially productive among those of the Death Valley camps. According to that same account, between 1906 and 1917, Skidoo was the biggest mining operation in Death Valley, with the district's mines together producing an estimated $1.5 million in gold; a separate, more specific National Park Service mining history narrows this to the Skidoo Mine itself, estimating its output at about $1.34 million between 1907 and 1917, once the mill had come fully online.

However, once the richest ore was exhausted, the end came fast for Skidoo. By 1917, most of the operations were closed down, while most of the inhabitants of the camp moved away in search of new opportunities. This left behind buildings that, only a decade earlier, had been homes to hundreds of people.

Sporadic mining kept Skidoo alive until its final abandonment in 1942

According to the Historic American Engineering Record report on the Skidoo Mine, mining and milling at Skidoo continued intermittently for decades after the main 1906-1917 boom, with smaller operators working the property into the mid‑twentieth century. The population, which had numbered several hundred just years earlier, dwindled to zero, while the remaining structures gradually crumbled under the impact of desert winds and sun. Today, the Skidoo stamp mill is among the best‑preserved mining ruins in Death Valley National Park and a rare surviving example of an early twentieth‑century mining camp in the region, as noted in the National Park Service’s Historic Resource Study of Death Valley.