The stone walls of Panamint City are many and varied. Some are little more than piles of rubble, whereas others evince the influences of a very skilled mason. It is a shame we have no records of who those masons were.

All of the walls are constructed of the local stone, including white dolomite, quartzite, and brown and black metamorphic rock that are common in Surprise Canyon. The dressed stone in the largest and finest walls, however, is pink granite porphyry that crops out in the Little Chief stock between the head of the Surprise Canyon and the crest of the Panamint Mountains.