As quickly as the townsite was founded, Lee was abandoned. Because wood was a precious commodity in desert mining towns, nearly all buildings were moved to other promising mining towns. Scattered trash marks the old townsite, where house pads that were carved into slopes can still be clearly seen. From a distance, little sign of the townsite remains, and a casual inspection of most of the townsite suggests that recovery may be complete except in sites where housepads were cut deeply into soils, exposing caliche (pedogenic calcium carbonate horizons). Sites at low elevation in the Mojave Desert, where Larrea-Ambrosia assemblages are present, recover relatively quickly in comparison with slower recovery rates in the more complex, higher-elevation assemblages. (Dominic Oldershaw)