Green Mill Trail

Dogs No Dogs

Features Historical Significance · Spring · Wildflowers

There is no shade along this trail so be prepared with sun protection and plenty of water, especially if you do this hike in the summer months. The old cabin is filled with pack rat litter and may thus harbor Hanta virus. It's safest to just look at it from the outside or through a window. There are no open mine shafts in this area.

This is a short run to see the remains of the Greene-Denner-Drake Mill.

The trailhead is a small dirt pull-out along the south side of the Emigrant Canyon Road about 0.5 miles southeast of the dirt parking lot for Journigan's Mill (which can be identified from the road by 2 prominent old water tanks and a NPS information plaque).

From the dirt pull-out, a fading doubletrack road goes gently uphill for a mile to the crumbling remains of a mill, a cabin, and the rusty remains of a 1946 Pontiac. The old trail, although overgrown in spots is not hard to follow as it just goes straight up the canyon.

This site was originally developed in the early 1950s by a prospector named Thad Greene, possibly to process tungsten ore he discovered around Skidoo. This ore was, however, too poor to process onsite, and the mill was later sold, first to Erwin Denner, then John Drake. It never witnessed much activity and was probably abandoned around 1970.

Old photos show a two-story mill building but it has now partially collapsed into one rickety story. Much of the machinery within it was removed a while back. Nearby sit the remains of a 1946 Pontiac Streamliner, an old pickup truck, a two-room cabin, a two-seat outhouse, and water tanks.

The cabin features a large living space and a separate bathroom (with a real toilet and bathtub). Shelves line one wall; bunk beds and two upholstered chairs remain, a 55-gallon drum served as a wood stove, and a refrigerator sits on the back porch. They had hot running water from a wood-fired water heater and electricity from a generator.