The Union Democrat, leading paper of the Motherlode Sonora, CA Thursday, December 11, 1997 "Church[sic] reopens old Tuolumne mine"
by Lenore Rutherford "A branch of the Church of Scientology is turning a Gold rush era mine in Tuolumne into a vault.

The Church of Spiritual Technology has been blasting at the Lady Washington Mine, 18749 First Avenue, for several weeks and recently finished gunniting about 108 feet of tunnel.

Plans filed with the Tuolumne County Building Department show a 15-foot-wide, 250-foot-long-tunnel. The first 98 feet from the entrance are improved, with a 10.5-foot domed ceiling. At the end of the 98 feet is a 10-foot-long storage room. The plans show the rest of the tunnel to be unimproved.

The value of the finished project, according to the building permit, is $210,000.

The church has also applied for a permit to build a generator building, but that permit has not yet been approved.

The Lady Washington Mine and two houses on 26.23 acres were purchased in 1988 by William and Donna Daniels. They bought six parcels in all. Part of the land was sold by William Trimmer, and the rest by Drew Reeves.

In 1988, the Daniels gave the property to Norman Starkey, trustee of "Author's Family Trust." Starkey gave the property to the Church of Spiritual Technology in 1993.

The Church of Spiritual Technology functions as an archivist for the works of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, according to a story published in the Los Angeles Times on June 24, 1990.

The Los Angeles Times story said the Church of Spiritual Technology "is using state-of-the-art technology to protect Hubbard's writings, tape-recorded lectures and filmed treatises from natural and man-made calamaties, including nuclear holocaust."

The Times story said the church has a staff, but no congregation, and its fiscal 1987 income was $503 million, according to court documents filed by the church.

The organization has purchased rural land in New Mexico, Northern California and the San Bernadino Mountains to store the Hubbard gospel.

Church of Scientology The relatively new and sometimes controversial church with its roots in Southern Califonia has grown to world-wide prominence and claims some of Hollywood's biggest stars as members, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Critics call it a cult.

Hubbard was long known as a writer, novelist and explorer, but it was the 1950 publication of "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" that initially focused world attention on him. The book's success led to his founding the church in 1954.

According to the "Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography,"

Hubbard began to receive as much as $100 million a year in sales and donations, and by 1966 he had taken refuge on a large yacht and became ever more elusive in his whereabouts and motives.

In 1980, according to Cambridge, the Internal Revenue Service challenged the tax-exempt status of his church.

Rumors continued to swirl around him in his final years. His followers regarded him as a brilliant prophet and therapist, and his detractors [see] him as a conman and charlatan.

Go Back