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}} The historic Burro Schmidt Tunnel is located in the El Paso Mountains of the northern Mojave Desert, in eastern Kern County, Southern California. It is a mining tunnel dug entirely by hand over a 38-year period by William "Burro" H. Schmidt (1871–1954). in the El Paso Mountains of eastern California. The tunnel is below the summit of a mountain. Its southern adit (portal) overlooks the Fremont Valley, Koehn Dry Lake, and the ghost towns of Garlock and Saltdale. ==History== "Burro" Schmidt, mining gold in the El Paso Mountains, was faced with a dangerous ridge between his mining claims and the smelter to the south in Mojave. Schmidt said that he would "never haul his ore to the Mojave smelter down that back trail" using his two burros. Thus, he began his tunnel in 1900. The tunnel was about tall and wide. It was cut through solid granite bedrock and required little shoring. However, Schmidt was trapped many times by falling rock and injured often. He eventually installed a mining cart on rails. In 1920 a road was completed from Last Chance Canyon to Mojave, eliminating the need for the tunnel, but Schmidt claimed to be obsessed with completion and dug on. By 1938 he had achieved his "goal", having dug through nearly of solid granite using only a pick, a shovel, and a four-pound hammer for the first initial section, and carefully placed dynamite with notoriously short fuses for the majority portion. It was estimated that he had moved 5,800 tons (5,260 metric tons) of rock to complete his work. Interestingly Schmidt never used the tunnel to move his mine's ore. Instead, he sold the tunnel to another miner and moved away. A ''Ripley's Believe It or Not'' cartoon celebrated the feat, calling him the human mole. Schmidt's cabin, down below in Garlock, has been largely abandoned and stands as it was in the 1930s, preserved by the dry climate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Burro Schmidt Tunnel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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