In northeastern Oregon in the southwest of the Blue Mountains is the Grant County gold belt. This area was prospected after the big strikes in Baker County. There were some rich discoveries along Canyon Creek, Granite, Greenhorn, North Fork, Quartzburg and Susanville. There was a million ounces of gold or more recovered from Grant County.

Bates

Northwest of Bates by 18 miles, down the middle fork of the John Day River, is the Susanville District. This district produced over 50,000 ounces of Oregon gold.

The Middle Fork of the John Day River

Along Elk Creek and north of the middle fork of the John Day River, there was some extensive placer operations which were the main source of gold in the district. On the south side of Elk Creek, about 2 miles above its junction with the middle fork, in township 20S range 33E and section 7 on the S1/2, is the Badger Mine. The Badger Mine was the principal lode producer in the district. Other mines in the area include the Chattanooga in Sections 5 and 6. The Daisy Mine in Section 5, the Golden Gate (Poorman) in Sections 7 and 8 east of Badger Mine and north of Elk Creek.

Canyon City

The Canyon City District produced over 900,000 ounces of gold to date. Along the John Day River and all its tributaries contain rich placer deposits. There was numerous area lode mines. The Golden West mine is located in T14S R31E Section 12. The Great Northern Mine is located  in T14S R32E Section 7. The Great Northern Mine was a rich pocket gold mine that produced free gold. The Haight Mine, near the Great Northern Mine, was also a good producer. The Miller Mountain Mine is located on the northeast slope of Miller Mountain and it was also a very rich producer. Near the Marysville School you will find the Prairie Diggings, this mine consisted of shallow surface cuts into a mineralized belt.

The Golden West Mine on Little Canyon Mountian circa 1935 -Photo courtesy of Nick Sheedy, John Day, Oregon. "The man in the center of that 1935 photo is Isaac "Ike" Gucker, who was a well-known miner who found the Great Northern Mine and mined gold on Little Canyon Mountain for 50 years. Ike Gucker was my great-great-great-uncle, and my family still owns the great Northern & Golden West."--Nick Sheedy

Granite

Along Granite Creek and its tributaries Bull Run Creek and Clear Creek was some very rich placer ground. the John Day River is also rich in this area. Desolation Creek was also a very good producer as well. Every creek and gultch in this area should be checked for placer gold.

Prairie City

Dixie Creek produced over 20,000 ounces of placer gold and all of the creeks around Prairie City contain placer gold to some extent.

In 1861, Henry Griffin discovered gold in Griffin’s Gultch and the great finds of Baker County began. Baker County is responsible for two thirds of the gold found in Oregon. Extremely rich placer deposits and discoveries of near-by lodes have generated over 2,000,000 ounces of gold produced in Baker County.

The Connor Creek District

Connor Creek district produced over 100,000 ounces of  lode gold and 10,000 ounces of placer gold to date. Along Connor Creek you can find some very rich placers. Also on Connor Creek you will find The Connor Creek Gold Mine which produced free gold associated with pyrite.

The Connor Creek Mine in the 1930's

Auburn

In Blue Caynon, there were some rich early day placer gold deposits.

Baker

If you go south of Baker a few miles you will find Griffin Gulch. This was the site of the first gold discovery in Baker County. The Baker District alone produced over 37,000 ounces of gold. Half of that came from placers.

If you go southwest by 4-6 miles from Baker you will find the Dale Mine in the west 1/2 of section 22. The Dale Mine produced free milling gold. In upper Washington Gultch, in sections 20 and 29, you will find The Stub (Kent) Mine which produced lode gold.  At the south end of Elkhorn Ridge in most stream gravels you will find some placer gold.

West of Baker by 6 miles in Township 9S and Range 39E you will find Salmon and Marble Creeks. These creeks had rich early placers, especially by the Nelson Placer. On Salmon Creek, above the Nelson placer diggings, in the SW1/4 section 8 you will find the Carpenter Hill Mine. This was a large producer lode mine. In NE1/4 section 7, in McChord Gultch you will find the Paine-Old Soldier Group of mines (Yellowstone). These mines had a total production of 100,000 ounces of lode gold.

East of Baker by 10 miles, near Virtue Flat, you will find the Virtue District. This district produced over 100,000 ounces of lode and placer gold. All area gultches leading up to the Virtue Mines and White Swan Mines containing abundant placer gold. There are a lot of other productive mines in the area. e.g. (the Brazos, Flagstaff, Hidden Treasure, Carroll B. Cliff, Cyclone, ect.)

Northwest of Baker about 15 miles on the north side of Elkhorn Ridge in upper drainage of Rock and Pine Creeks is the Rock Creek District. The district produced over 60,000 ounces of gold. On the North Fork of Pine Creek, you will find the Baisley-Elkhorn mine. This mine was a principal producer discovered in 1882, with over two miles of underground workings. Two miles west of the Baisley-Elkhorn mine  in the Rock Creek drainage is the Highland and Maxwell mines, which were also major producers of lode gold. The Chloride Club, and Western Union mines were all minor producers.

Copperfield

The Homestead district is located on the east end of Route 86, 67 miles northeast of Baker. The Homestead district is on the Snake River. Here you will find the Iron Dyke Copper Mine which has a total gold production of around 35,000 ounces of gold as a byproduct of the copper mine.

Durkee

23 miles southwest of Baker on US  30, you will find the Burnt Creek District. This district had a total production of at least 50,000 ounces of  lode gold and 3,500 ounces of placer gold. You can find gold in all Burnt River tributary streams and gulches. Shirttail Creek was especially rich.

Southeast of Durkee by 6 to 12 miles, you will find the Weatherby District, straddling US 30 along the Burnt River. North of the highway, along Chicken  and Sisley Creeks was some very important placers and lode mines to Oregon gold mining history.

If you go Southwest from Durkee about 15 miles to the ghost town of Rye Valley, at the heads of  Basin Creek and the south fork of Dixie Creek you will find a very rich area that produced over 200,000 ounces of gold out of both placer and lode sources.

Greenhorn

Fifty miles west of Baker you will find the Greenhorn District. This is located near the ghost town of  Whitney in the east part of the Greenhorn Mountians, with some overlap into Grant County. This district produced over 90,000 ounces of lode gold and 15,000 ounces of placer gold. Most of the streams and gultches around Winterville, Parkerville, and McNammee gultches have had productive placers.

Halfway

52 miles east of Baker on Route 8, near the old ghost town of Cornucopia at the head waters of Pine Creek there was over 300,000 of lode and placer removed. Pine Creek and tributaries are very rich.

Hereford

36 miles southwest of Baker on Route 7, the upper Burnt Creek District, produced about 10,000 ounces of  lode and placer gold. All tributaries to Burnt Creek are very rich.

Medical Springs

18 miles northeast of Baker on Route 203, you can find many very rich streams. Big Creek, Eagle Creek, Powder River, Clover Creek, Balm Creek and Goose Creek all had very rich placer operations at one time.

Richland

40 miles east of Baker on Route 86, along the west drainage of the Snake River between the mouths of the Burnt River and the Powder River you can find some rich Oregon placer gold areas.

Sumpter

Sumpter area is by far the richest placer ground in Baker County. Over 300,000 ounces of placer gold came from the PowderRiver area and tributaries. The Powder River Valley was completly dredged 8 miles by 1 mile wide by bucket dredges. Cracker Creek, McCully fork has extensive placers as well. Buck and Mammoth gulches were very rich. There are thousands of old lode mines in the area, some at elevations of 8,000 feet.

The placer deposits indicate the extent of the gold belt of Eastern Oregon, being widely scattered over the whole area, from the sands of the Snake River on the east to the gravel bars of John Day River on the west. They were the first deposits discovered by the pioneer miners and yielded millions in the early days.

Extensive gold mines had been worked in Southern Oregon since 1849. The placer mines of the Rogue River had yielded tens of millions of dollars of the precious metals, and many of them were profitably worked. Eastern Oregon, since 1862, had closely followed, if , indeed, it had not exceeded Southern Oregon in gold productions. The mines of Grant and Baker Counties had ranked among the best of the whole Pacific Coast during the 19th century.

Though the old placers were considered practically exhausted in the late 1800’s, new ones from time to time were discovered, and a very large amount of gold was annually produced from them. In addition to placer mines, quartz gold mines and silver mines were worked, and there was a large output of gold and silver from them.

Old-timer panning on a stream

Approximately three-fourths of the gold produced in Oregon has come from lode and placer deposits in the Blue Mountains geomorphic province, which occupies much of the northeastern part of the state. The deposits lie in a region named by Lingren (1901) “the gold belt of the Blue Mountains.” The belt is about fifty miles wide and a hundred miles long, extending from John Day on the west to the Snake River on the east. The principal mining areas are in Baker and Grant Counties, and in adjacent parts of the Malheur and Union Counties. All the lode deposits are in pre-Tertiary rocks believed to be associated with Jurassic-Cretaceous dioritic intrusions.

Oregon’s Best Kept Little Secret

The northeastern quarter of Oregon is, without a doubt, Oregon’s best-kept little secret. The area is lush in scenic beauty and gold mining history and, is richer in mineral wealth than most people know it to be. Oregon has produced in excess of $250,000,000 worth of mineral products since 1850.

The Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge mined $4,500,000 in gold at the price of $35 per ounce. The irony is most of the gold is still there.

Canyon City has a wonderful history behind it, and better than that it has gold! Gold was first discovered on June 7, 1862 on a stream near the John Day River. An estimate of twenty six million dollars worth of oregon gold was taken from the area. Please keep in mind that these were not based on the present price of gold. In 1862, gold sold for just around twenty dollars an ounce and held pretty steady for two hundred and seventeen years at that price.

Whiskey Gulch and Canyon Creek was estimated to be one of the most concentrated places of gold in one place within the whole State of Oregon. At it’s peak, the area produced five million dollars worth of gold per year. Humbolt drive, the area between the present day town’s of John Day and Canyon City was once priced at five hundred dollars a square yard. It is said that a single pan could hold as much as seven ounces of gold. Much more history can be found at the current day museum located at Canyon City.

Many other mining towns sprang up around the area and this is a good area to start looking for that Oregon Gold.