The expedition crew members include Americo DiSantis, Eric Drummond, Jack Duggins, Jesse Feldman, Josh Feldman, Zach Schoose, John Self, and Chad Watkins. The season is underway and airs on Sundays at 10:00 PM PST. As far as gold mining locations, this is a very interesting area, but time will tell to see if the expedition meets with success or failure. I love all the recent shows about gold mining and with this show a twist, because they are not ruling out the possibility of finding gemstones or diamonds. This is entertainment television that makes a guy like myself thirst for adventure and hunger for that elusive treasure.

UPDATE: The television season is now over, and the team found a ruby deposit which they plan to mine this coming summer.

REDMOND — A few years ago, James Harness had nothing.

“I had tried to save a failing business that I had started. It got to where I couldn’t even work, my pain levels were so high. I had no doctors, no medication. And I just folded. All the walls came crashing in and I was down to nothing,” he said.

Harness, 55, is faring better now, having become a star on the Discovery Channel reality series “Gold Rush,” which follows a group of men from Sandy as they hunt for gold in Alaska.

Just a couple of years ago, it was a far different story. “I was on my last legs. Didn’t have a lot of money. I had applied for disability (compensation).”

He was living in Sandy, where he was presented with a chance to be on the show.

“I was mainly doing stuff for the Hoffmans just to have a place to stay. And then they came up with this other deal, going gold mining. Because they knew I was down and out, they offered it to me, and I didn’t have a lot of other choices,” Harness said. “They came to and asked me, ‘Can you build this stuff?’”

If you’re familiar with “Gold Rush,” you know who the Hoffmans are: Todd Hoffman, who secured the claim at Porcupine Creek and is the leader of the mining project, and his spirited father, Jack Hoffman, who mined gold in Alaska in the 1980s.

Harness knew the men for about four years before heading to Alaska with them and other members of the crew.

In spite of chronic back pain — partly from being rear-ended in a car accident — he went. Harness would be the crew’s mechanic, playing a crucial role in building and keeping machinery functioning.

Because Todd Hoffman had reached out to a production company looking for reality show ideas, the venture would become the Discovery Channel reality series “Gold Rush Alaska,” condensed to “Gold Rush” for the just-concluded second season.

According to the Discovery Channel, it’s the No. 1 show in the 9 p.m. time slot on Fridays — that’s including both cable and broadcast TV — scoring especially high ratings among men.

In Alaska, the Hoffmans and crew found some gold over two seasons, falling just shy of a stated goal of finding 100 ounces this year.

A third season has been announced. Harness has no plans to be part of it.

The Bulletin met with Harness two days before the airing of a “Gold Rush” special titled “Revelations.” A teaser clip Harness had seen hinted at someone’s departure and left him very concerned about how the show may depict his exit.

“It insinuated that Todd fired me, which never happened,” Harness said. “It shows him making a comment that ‘I guess this is where we part ways.’ Yet I’m not in the frame. I’m not there.”

Harness and the rest of the cast don’t see episodes before they air, and Harness said he had no plans to watch “Revelations.”

In fact, he said, he hasn’t watched a full episode since the series premiere in December 2010, so different was it from the reality he remembered.

“It truly is not the way I remember it, and it distorts my memories … I get mad, because it’s different from what I remember. The real important things I feel should have been in there weren’t.

“For every 40 hours of filming, you might see two minutes of it,” he added. “And sometimes it’s what you leave out that’s important.”

Christo Doyle, the executive producer of the show, told The Bulletin, “We capture the story and tell it as 100 percent honest as we can, and that’s what plays out (in the special).”

“Throughout season two, Harness and the rest of the Hoffman crew had a lot of fallings out. There was tension there, and what we do is we capture the story as it unfolds.

“They were not getting along, there (were) a lot of issues there. We captured those issues, and what you’re going to see in the special … is those issues play out.”

Doyle and others associated with the show are often asked if “Gold Rush” is scripted. The answer is no, he said. “We do not script a single thing. We’re a fly on the wall telling the story here.”

Yet, Harness said, “I don’t care if it’s falling down or killing yourself, they want to see it again and get two shots of it. … It’s really hard to have a competitive business and put everything into that — trying to make a profit you built out of the ground — and yet try to do a TV show at the same time. They collide constantly. It slows you down so much, there’s no way to succeed. You’re doing two different things at the same time.”

No matter how it’s put forth on the program, Harness is adamant that his departure was by choice. He’s not coming back for a third season because, he said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

James Harness

This confirms what Jimmy Dorsey told OregonGold.net in a recent interview and backs up other evidence that OregonGold.net has uncovered.

“I made $30000 gold mining last summer in four months! Gold rush… you guys are a joke!” found on his wall.

“I made 30k last summer in four months, Gold mining. Dorsey won.” posted on the Gold Rush wall. He then went on to say in the comments of that post “Did they censor me yet? There is the proof.”

He even wrote to Greg Remsburg: “I got more gold and more money than u did mining this last summer. U lose”

As a friend of many of the players on Gold Rush Alaska, and as the webmaster of oregongold.net, I am not playing sides and I always enjoy people finding the gold. The Hoffman crew did much better from the previous season. Personally I want to say “good job”. I have been following everybody from the show the best I can and Jimmy Dorsey has improved himself as gold miner. The fact that he made $30,000, while the Hoffman crew made $8,000 per share shows just that. It probably makes Jimmy Dorsey feel a lot better after they basically made him look bad in season one of the show. I don’t blame him for wanting some vindication.

Jimmy Dorsey nows works in hardrock mines.

Jimmy Dorsey claimed he would get “more gold” in the coming summer, when he was interviewed in the now famous interview with OregonGold.net claiming the show is scripted. It was Greg who broke his ribs in his final episode.

The only recorded gold claims that I could find is found in Buckhorn Canyon between Sisters, Oregon and Terrebonne, Oregon at approximately Lat. 44.33233 Lon -121.33835 Please don’t go claim jumping. I only mention the coordinates to give you a place to start if you plan on doing some prospecting in this county. Please respect the claim owners rights.

By Finn J.D. John — Posted with permission from the Author. The Author has a very interesting website at www.offbeatoregon.com

After a former Oregon farmer found gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, people from Oregon raced southward to start grubbing it out of the ground. The next year, people from the East Coast raced westward with the same idea.

By the year after that, it was getting to be hard to find a good patch of “pay dirt” that didn’t already have a miner or two working it. New prospectors might spend years poking around little mountain creeks before finding one worth working, and prospecting was hard work.

Increasingly, people started to realize there were actually several different ways a fellow could work the diggin’s:

One could look for gold the old-fashioned way, of course. But one could also go into business selling stuff, at inflated prices, to prospectors; many Oregon farmers got very rich this way.

There was another way, too. One could simply make a five-dollar investment in one of those new-fangled .44-caliber Colt Dragoon revolvers, then go find a successful miner and rob him.

Meet the Triskett Gang

There was one particular group of frontier rowdies who opted to follow this path. They were known as the Triskett Gang. This name sounds a bit like a Disney movie from the late 1960s — maybe as a sequel to The Apple Dumpling Gang? — but in reality, these guys were anything but lovable. They were named not after a yet-to-be-invented Nabisco snack cracker, but rather after brothers Jack and Henry Triskett. In their little band were three other thugs: Fred Cooper, Miles Hearn and Chris Slover.

The story of the Triskett Gang’s last day is a bit fuzzy. I haven’t been able to track down a solid source for the details. A visit to the Josephine County Historical Society in Grants Pass would probably be very helpful in firming up the details. But here’s the gist of the story:

Desperados on the run

In early August of 1852, the Trisketteros were on the run. They’d robbed a few people in California, as guys like them are wont to do, and were heading north with some armed, angry citizens on their tails, trying to lose themselves in the wilderness for a while.

They arrived one afternoon in a little town called Sailors’ Diggins, which today is a ghost town known as Waldo. About five miles north of the border with California near the present-day town of Cave Junction, Sailors’ Diggins was essentially an overgrown mining camp, but it was booming; at a time when the entire state of Oregon had fewer than 10,000 occupants, Sailors’ Diggins was home to several thousand. The mountains nearby were especially rich, and on that particular day, almost every able-bodied man was out working them.

The five bandits quickly found the saloon, went inside and started drinking their stolen gold. After a time, nicely sozzled, they wandered out onto the street. Probably they were contemplating the need to get out of Sailors’ Diggins immediately; a town that size would be the first place the posse would check when trying to get a fix on them.

Maybe it was this thought that made Fred Cooper snap. Bandits aren’t known for self-discipline. Maybe he wanted, more than anything, to hang around that saloon all afternoon, leisurely drinking and flirting and maybe hiring some female companionship for the evening — all those things that bad guys dream about doing with their ill-gotten gains. Maybe he was standing there outside that nice little saloon just getting madder and madder at having to leave, plunge into the woods and start poking around for a tree to sleep under.

Maybe. Nobody knows, really. What is known is that instead of heaving a heavy sigh and heading for the city limits, he pulled his pistol and, without a word, gunned down a random citizen who was walking down the street minding his own business.

Gunning down innocent bystanders

The rest of the gang leaped into action, if that’s the right word. The five of them stormed down the street simply killing everyone they saw. At least two women were raped as well.

Then, as they were leaving town, they paused, hustled down to the assaying depot and cleaned it out — roughly $75,000 worth of freshly mined gold. This they loaded onto two stolen horses and left town.

A mob of angry citizens takes up the chase

Now, Sailors Diggins was right in the middle of the mining action. Many of the miners could hear the gunfire and knew something was very wrong. By the time the Triskett Gang was leaving town, they were starting to arrive, probably with loaded weapons in hand. The 17 dead bodies still bleeding in the streets were their wives, children and aged relatives. You can imagine how they reacted.

All it took was one well-hidden survivor to yell, “They went that-a-way!” and the posse was off.

Weighed down with almost 250 pounds of gold, the bandits weren’t moving very fast, and the posse soon caught them up. The gang members must have been surprised by how quickly the angry citizens got on their trail. After a short pursuit, the bad guys turned at bay on the top of a little hill just outside O’Brien.

Gunfight to the death; but where was the gold?

I haven’t been able to learn much about the ensuing firefight. Presumably at least a few of the miners were killed; after all, the Triskett Gang were professional gunmen, and were able to pick the place where they made their final stand. I also don’t know if the bad guys tried to surrender. It’s certainly possible they didn’t; all they had to look forward to was humiliation and hanging.

In any case, when the shooting stopped, four gang members were dead, one was dying — and there was no sign anywhere of the 250 pounds of gold dust they’d hijacked from the depot.

To this day, that gold has never been recovered — or, rather, if it has, whoever found it was remarkably discreet about it. Treasure hunters still come to the O’Brien area to look for it. Most of them assume the gang hid it somewhere on the hill where they made their stand.

But it’s far more likely they squirreled it away earlier, when they first realized they were being pursued. It’s a lot harder to run from an angry posse when you’re leading a pack horse.

If that’s the case, it could be almost anywhere in the woods between Waldo and O’Brien, probably within a few dozen yards of the road. The stash would be worth about $5.5 million today.

(Sources: http://www.gwizit.com/treasures/oregon.php; http://www.josephinehistorical.org; Marsh, Carole. Oregon’s Unsolved Mysteries (and their “Solutions”). Peachtree City, GA: Carole Marsh Books, 1994; Friedman, Ralph. In Search of Western Oregon. Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1990)

Miners mentioned in the above posted Bering Sea Gold videos are named… Steve Pomrenke, Shawn Pomrenke, Vernon Adkison, Zeke Tenhoff and Scott Meisterhiem.

When I returned in the summer of 2005 I noticed a “No Trespassing” sign, blocking all access to where I wanted to go, which was on up the forest service road that cuts through the townsite. I did however notice many changes in the area, including the land looked like it was ripped up from one end to the other and changes were apparent. The area was obviously bulldozed and some harvesting of some of the tree’s had been done in the area. I did not venture too far because of the No trespassing sign, but I could see some of the changes from the road.

David Ross Nonnemaker

The Gold Mining Con Man is now known as David Ross Nonnemaker, who ran under the business names of “Western Sand and Gravel” and “Western Mining”. People who have met him says he is a fast and very smooth talking man. This obviously wasn’t his first scheme. Nonnemaker had allegedly obtained money from investors to develop mining operations and harvest timber in the Quartzville area, but had no authority to harvest or mine there. He was a claim jumper in other words.

He apparently came up with this scheme and planned it all from prison, collecting information from the internet. He found that the owners of the old townsite were “Absentee” owners. Victims included people from Nevada, Missouri, California, New York, Oregon, Alaska and as far away as Germany. Not only did he try to mine the area, he also sold off the timber from the site, making as much as $1,000,000 from timber sales from Weyerhaeuser, who did not connect the dots. Other timber companies also bought from him. He definitely made more from timber sales, than what he ever found in gold.

He had what appeared at first, to be proper documents and permits, but eventually his over-jealous and ambitious scheme got the best of him, as his operation drew the attention of law enforcement and of the USFS. Once the so-called permits and paperwork were checked up on, the truth was known and the arrest was made.

The amount of money collected from investors was enough to buy the large equipment he needed for the operation. The impact that he had on the people he came in contact with is the sad side of the story…the people he stole from. He was convicted to five years in prison. He was ordered to pay restitution of over $300,000 to people caught up in the scam and $900,000 to two victims in theft cases. The whole scheme was a very ambitious operation and will go down as one of, if not thee most infamous gold mining schemes in Oregon history.

The interview was conducted the week he left the show on television. Gold Rush Alaska is on Friday nights on the Discovery Channel. I am still contemplating publishing the full interview. The evidence is mounting that Gold Rush Alaska is scripted. I am actually withholding even more information that I may save for another time.

Here is a snippet:

To back up Jimmy Dorsey’s claims are the townfolk of nearby Haines, Alaska who were given lines to read as the camera’s rolled.

The following excerpt is from the Chilkat Valley News

When the question was put to borough facilities director Brad Maynard, he was enthusiastic. “I said, ‘I think it’s great.’ I kind of came up here on a pig in a poke. A lot of people came up here like that,” Maynard recounted.

Crew members then told Maynard that’s not what they wanted to hear and the interview was re-shot. “So I told them, ‘I think their chances at success are miserable and I think they’ll fail,’” Maynard said. “They had their own lines they wanted me to say… They pretty much had it scripted.”

Another piece of evidence is a post that has since been deleted from Dakota Fred Hurts Facebook page:

Fred Hurt: “What has America become? A crowd of blind haters, sucked into the contrived, misrepresented portrayal of “Reality TV”? The editors should be held accountable for altering words, and, deleting critical information that sheds a whole new light on the facts. Before the season started, I voiced great concern about how I was portrayed last year, and insisted Discovery clarify WHY the Hoffmans were going to the Yukon. 99% of that clarification was deleted from the show. The Hoffmans asked to be released from their lease. The owner, embarrassed both personally and professionally by the Hoffmans, immediately put the claim up for sale. He had 3 offers to buy the claim. Had Discovery aired this filmed sequence, and divulged what the Hoffmans knew, the public would have a totally different opinion. I am only giving out this information, possibly in violation of my aggreement with Discovery, because of the serious nature of death threats to me, both direct and implied. If the FBI has to get involved, so be it. This is what America has become. A crowd jerked around by overzealous editors, eager for ratings. You are focusing on the wrong person. I have NO control of the way it gets edited.”

Click here for the original interview

Click here for Todd Hoffmans reaction

Also check out a recent article I wrote about Dakota Fred Hurt and his purchase of the Porcupine Creek claim.

Edwin Waters, oregongold.net

Dear Recreational Placer Miner:

All recreational placer mining authorizations will expire January 1, 2012. It is now time to submit your year-end report for the 2011 season. Reports must be received by December 31, 2011.

After January 1, 2012, you may go online (www.statelandsonline.com) to apply for the 2012 season. Renewal of your authorization will require submission of a completed 2011 report.

You may submit the report electronically – go to www.oregonstatelands.us and click on Recreational Placer Mining Report under Current Information. For a paper form, call David McGraw at 503-986-5294.

Even if you did not do any placer mining last year, the year-end report must be filled out and submitted. Just enter your information and put “0” for the volume.

Information from the reports allows the Department of State Lands to keep the placer mining General Authorization available for your use. Every year we must report to the State Land Board the waterways where work is being done and the amount of material moved in each waterway.

Thank you!

Jo Ann Miles
Support Services Supervisor
Wetlands & Waterways Conservation Division
Oregon Department of State Lands
Ph. (503) 986-5277
e-mail: joann.b.miles@state.or.us
——————————————————————-

I filled out a report but when I filled it out it does not verify that the form was submitted.

After Mattie Collins found the nugget, he lived in constant fear of being killed and robbed until he hired a fellow countryman of his by the name of Dorsey to help him transport the nugget out of the Althouse. With the nugget hidden in a sack on Dorsey’s back and Collins taking up the rear armed with a double barreled shotgun, the two men trekked down the old Althouse Trail (which still exists in places to this day, and upon which this writer has walked) and spirited the hunk of yellow metal out of the district under the cover of night. Every twenty or so feet, the two men would stop and peer into the darkness, mistaking every other stump or some other object for a highwayman, until finally, certain that it was a trick of the eye, Collins would tell Dorsey to go forward. Local legend has it that after selling the big yellow marvel to the smelter at Jacksonville for $3500, that awash in wealth, Mattie Collins celebrated his discovery until he drank himself to death.

Today, the Collins Nugget would be valued at about $375,000, though a gold nugget of this size and notoriety would certainly carry a hearty premium.

Other notable large nuggets found in Southern Oregon include:

The Vaun Nugget which was discovered on Slug Bar, near Browntown, also on Althouse Creek. Weight: Approximately 40 ounces.

The Oscar Creek Nugget, discovered in 1892 by Boardman Darneille. It weighed over 18 ounces. Three additional large nuggets were discovered on Oscar Creek around the same time, weighing respectively 12 ounces, 6.25 ounces and 5.75 ounces.

The Klippel Nugget, found in 1904 on McDowell Gulch, weighing approximately 25 ounces.

The Burns Nugget, discovered on Brimstone Gulch at the Stovepipe mine near the site of Leland in 1934, weighed 34.47 ounces.

Also in 1934, Ed Prefontaine discovered a piece of quartz float on Foots Creek that contained 13.63 ounces of gold.

Several large nuggets, one weighing almost 15 pounds were also taken from Sucker Creek which is due east of Althouse.

The crew at the famous Bunker Hill Mine on Silver Creek show off a two week clean up. The man at far right is pioneer Galice area miner, John Robertson. Photo courtesy of Sharon Crawford, who is the grand daughter of Orval Robertson, who discovered the Bunker Hill with his partner Ted McQueen in 1926.

Numerous discoveries of rich gold “pockets” which Southern Oregon is famous for have dotted the mining maps of this area, not limited to the fabulous Gold Hill Pocket discovered in 1860 by Thomas Chavner and partners which some say contained over 250,000 ounces of gold, the famous Revenue Pocket (2500 ounces) discovered on Kane Creek by Enos Rhoten, the SteamBoat Pocket in the Upper Applegate drainage and the famous Briggs Strike of 1904, as well as a rich discovery by Orval Robertson and Ted McQueen at the Bunker Hill Mine on Silver Creek exceeding some 5000 ounces in 1926. One piece of nearly solid gold ore from the Bunker Hill was so heavy that when it fell from the side of the tunnel, it broke the leg of a miner named Bill Mitchell who was operating a drill. The piece of ore was only a foot long, 6 inches wide and 3 inches thick, but it contained nearly 20 pounds of free milling gold. There was so much gold in this vein of ore that Mitchell called it the “Ham and Eggs Vein”, because of the amount of ham and egg breakfasts he had been able to buy with his share of the gold.

As recently as a half decade ago, a couple of pound sized nuggets were taken from a small tributary of the Applegate River, proof that the “big ones” are still out there if you are willing to work hard to find them.

~ Kerby Jackson

Josephine County, Oregon

Todd Hoffman: All my interviews have to run through Discovery. Your story with Dorsey was not only false but totally uncool. Take care.

Edwin Waters: Todd, I did my interview with Dorsey over the phone and I recorded it. Everything that I wrote on the site, was from his mouth, word for word. I still have the recording. If you would like to set the record straight, I would certainly like to hear your side of the story. Most of the questions asked during the interview were questions formed by gold miners on facebook, as I took a poll before the interview was conducted. I, myself, I have a neutral stance about the show, but I dont miss an episode. If Dorsey said things that are false I think the record should be set straight, and if you would be interested in doing that, I would like to help you set the record straight. God bless.

Todd Hoffman: I can’t tell my side of the story because the real story would hurt him and Im not interested in a pissing match, I don’t need it. If your going to post trash like that more power to you. You can read a good article by Garret
coming out in the prospectors magazine that I did recently. Good luck to you.

Edwin Waters: I understand and I respect your decision. Good Luck to you too.

—-End—-

Todd was referring to an article by Garret Romaine who is a frequent writer of a column in Gold Prospectors magazine.

First of all, I just conducted the interview. I am sorry if Jimmy Dorsey lied (if that is the case), but you cannot blame the guy conducting the interview. It sounded to me like Todd has a little animosity towards me or at least towards this website. I think it is good that Todd Hoffman decided to take the high road and not get into a pissing match as he called it.

It very well may be true that Todd Hoffman is right. The only way the truth would be known is if Jimmy Dorsey fessed up and withdrew his earlier statements conducted last year. I still have the recorded interview between myself and Jimmy Dorsey, to prove that what was posted came straight from his mouth and was not something that was made up by myself or to promote this website with false information.

I still challenge Todd for a interview. If he wants to keep Jimmy Dorsey’s name out of it thats fine…lets talk about the show. I am not going to hold my breath. By the way, I have been on television myself doing the exact same thing…finding gold in Alaska, and yes I found some.

The original interview conducted with Jimmy Dorsey can be found here: Jimmy Dorsey Interview

All new season of Gold Rush Alaska. Premiers on Friday October 28th at 9 o’clock on the Discovery Channel.

Gold was first discovered in Cornucopia in 1884 by a man by the name of Lon Simmons. Old timers would say that some of the ore was so rich that large nuggets would fall right out of the rocks. There were plenty of High-graders. High-graders were men who worked for the mining companies, who just so happened to have gold fall into their shirts or boots. High-grading was common. More than sixteen mines riddle the area and produced 300,000 ounces of gold. Like many mines during world war II, Cornucopia was closed down because it was deemed non-essential mining in the fight against Japan and Germany. Cornucopia in Latin means “Horn of Plenty,” but miners named the town after Cornucopia, Nevada.

Today, there is some newer dwellings among the ghost town, but it has plenty of older buildings that still remain from a time not so long ago. Old tailing piles from placer operations are piled along the creek banks. There is old rusting machinery and plenty of still-standing buildings. The buildings take a toll each winter. Here snow has been known to get up to 15 feet deep. Several big gold booms happened between 1884-1886. Cornucopia had several amenities including a store, two saloons and two restaurants. As far as mining towns go, Cornucopia was rather orderly. There were only a few killings over the years.

A bunk house for the Cornucopia Mine that still stands.

Over 30 miles of tunnels are scattered over the adjoining mountains in the Cornucopia area and over 6,000 feet of shafts (some of the longest shafts in the United States). The larger mines are known as the Union-Companion Mine, the Last Chance Mine, Queen of the West Mine, and the Red Jacket Mine.

The Last Chance mine was a pocket gold mine. The Union-Companion was a very good producer and was said to have been on the vein itself. In the old days, horses were used to move the ore, but then the railroad was laid and the invention of the pneumatic drill helped the miners to do much better than they did previously. In 1922, the Cornucopia mines received electricity and a twenty-stamp mill was put into operation. It is said that the 20 stamp mill could crush 60 tons of ore per day.

One of the most important things to note was that the Cornucopia Mining Companies employed over 700 men in the early 1900’s. At it’s peak,  the Cornucopia Mine was the 6th largest mining operation in the United States. In all, it is estimated that over $20,000,000 in gold was taken at gold prices at a mere $20 an ounce. It is estimated that 80% of the gold ore body still remains.

The Cornucopia Mine "Then"

Cornucopia Mine "Today"

FEDERAL LANDS
Mining claims on Federal land are not open for gold panning unless permission has been
granted by the owner. However, four areas have been set aside on Federal land in Oregon
for recreational gold panning:

Area 1. Quartzville Recreational Corridor:
Located in the Western Cascades, Salem District, Bureau of Land Management (free
site). The Salem District Office address is 1717 Fabry Road SE, Salem, OR 97306, phone
(503) 375-5646.

Area 2. Butte Falls Recreational Area:
Located in southwestern Oregon, Medford District, Bureau of Land Management (free
site). The Medford address is 3040 Biddle Road, Medford, OR 97504, phone (541) 770-
2200.

Area 3. Applegate Ranger District:
Located in southwestern Oregon, Rogue River National Forest (four fee sites where there
is a charge of a dollar a day for panning in areas adjacent to campgrounds). The
Applegate Ranger District address is 6941 Upper Applegate Road, Jacksonville, OR
97530, phone (541) 899-1812.

Area 4. Wallowa-Whitman National Forest:
Located in northeastern Oregon (free sites). Forest Supervisor is located at PO Box 907,
Baker City, OR 97814, phone (541) 523-6391. Recreational gold
mining in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest are listed below:

Most campgrounds and major roads are withdrawn from mineral entry in order to keep people from tearing them up or destroying them. Currently they do not have an area specifically set aside for mining but there are lots of places on the forest service lands that are open and checking with your local Forest Service office would be a great place to start.

Camping, but “no mining” within the camp sites themselves:

a. Eagle Forks Campground, 9 mi northwest of Richland, T. 8 S., R. 44 E., Pine Ranger
District, Halfway, OR 97834, phone (541) 742-7511.

b. McCully Forks Campground, on McCully Forks Creek just west of Sumpter, T. 9 S.,
R. 36 E.; Deer Creek Campground, on Deer Creek north of Phillips Lake, T. 9 S., R. 38 E.

b.1. Powder River Recreational Area, on the Powder River just below Mason Dam, T.
10 S., R. 39 E.; all located in the Baker Ranger District, Baker City, OR 97814, phone
(541) 523-4476.

c. Antlers Guard Station, on the Burnt River, T. 11 S., R. 36 E., Unity Ranger District,
Unity, OR 97884, phone (541) 446-3351.

In addition, gold panning is permitted on nearly all streams and rivers running through
campgrounds on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and USDA Forest Service (USFS)
land in Oregon.
Maps showing locations of campgrounds may be obtained from local BLM and USFS
offices; from the Nature of the Northwest Information Center, 800 NE Oregon St. #5,
Suite 177, Portland, OR 97232, phone (503) 872-2750; or from the BLM Oregon State
Office, PO Box 2965, 1515 SW First, Portland, OR 97208, phone (503) 952-6002.

When operating a mine, anything that reduces wear and tear on your back and equipment is a great idea.  That is why for many mining operations, large or small, blasting makes sense.  In many cases, from tunneling to moving large boulders, there is no other feasible way of doing it.  You can blast too, you just have to do it legally and do it right.

The fastest way to get your blasting done is to hire a professional to come in and do it for you.  That is a great way to learn what explosives to use and what they can do to improve the efficiency of your operation.  Explosives used correctly will be one of the best and most productive tools you can use.  Use explosives incorrectly, and your friends will be standing over your grave saying things like “too soon.”

Here are a few basics of what you need to know before you start your own blasting operation:

A five ton boulder is fractured in a training class with 1.5 pounds of dynamite in three boreholes.

Keeping it Legal

Explosives used in the United States are regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF).  After a criminal background check, an interview from an ATF Agent and a $100, you can have a Type 33 Permit that will allow you to purchase, store, transport and use explosive materials.  Larger operations may choose a Type 20 License which also allows the manufacturing of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO).

If your mine is a commercial operation in the United States, it will also fall under the jurisdiction of Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).  Commercial mines are loosely defined as lode or placer operations that use heavy equipment to load (beyond feeding by hand), trommels, sluice boxes or rock crushers.  This means additional training and safety equipment will be required including access to mine rescue teams for underground operations.  Through an interagency agreement, MSHA Officers also represent the ATF in the field to ensure safety and compliance with the use of explosive materials.

Know your Caps and Powder

Explosive materials used in mining operations are reasonably straight forward.  Once you are issued an ATF permit or license, you will be legal to purchase commercially manufactured explosive materials from logging-mining supply stores from brands including Austin Powder and Dyno Nobel.

The first part of an explosives sequence is the blasting cap initiator.  The blasting cap detonates dynamite or other explosive materials.  Based upon the application, blasting caps will be initiated by either a fuse (pyrotechnic), electric wires powered by a blasting machine (electric), or caps connected by thin plastic tubing know as shock cord (non-el).

One of the primary explosive materials used is Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil (ANFO).  This is ammonium nitrate prills (pellets) mixed with a low percentage of diesel or fuel oil.  ANFO is commonly used because it is safe, inexpensive and its low detonation velocity is ideal for heaving rock.  It is sold pre-mixed in 50 pound bags or delivered by mixing truck for larger operations.  It is insensitive and safe to handle as it is classified as a ‘blasting agent,’ because a blasting cap will not initiate it.  ANFO requires a booster (another explosive charge) to detonate.  Boreholes filled with ANFO include a stick of dynamite or an RDX cast booster that includes a blasting cap to initiate the booster which then detonates the primary ANFO charge.

Although there are more modern and stable emulsion based explosives, after 140 years dynamite is still the low cost choice for many miners.  Dynamite is a simple wax paper roll of sawdust or diatomaceous earth used to stabilize nitroglycerin.  Sticks are sold by the weight and percentage of nitroglycerin.  Sticks come in various sizes and strengths; a common size is a half-pound stick at 60% nitroglycerin.  Another useful material is an RDX cast ‘shape charge.’  These small cone shaped charges focus energy downward to more effectively crush rock.

One half pound stick of dynamite with blasting cap

RDX ‘Rock Crusher’ shape charge with blasting cap

A student and I run a pneumatic drill at an Oregon gold mine.

One-pound dynamite sticks loaded into boreholes cutting a tunnel in a Colorado gold mine.

Pneumatic Drills

For explosives to work, the material needs to be loaded in the rock.  Small operations use hand-held vertical or horizontal pneumatic drills about the size of a jack hammer.  These air drills are powered by a portable air compressor and can easily cut a 1.5 inch borehole horizontally or a 3 inch borehole vertically.  Boreholes are packed with up to two-thirds explosive material and the rest backfilled (stemmed), with dirt and gravel to compress and focus the explosive energy into the rock.

Keeping Explosives Safe and Secure

Using explosives is an awesome responsibility.  If you use them correctly, no problems, but a mistake can kill you.  Security is also a big issue as there is no shortage of bad guys who would like to relieve them from you.

Explosive materials are stored in steel, wood lined secured and locked boxes called magazines.  Two magazines are required, one for blasting caps and one for powder.  There is a ‘Table of Distances’ chart from the ATF that will help you place magazines at a safe distance from occupied buildings and roadways based on the poundage of materials stored.  Magazines need to be carefully inventoried and inspected at least every seven days, so no storing explosive materials over the winter or at non-occupied mining sites.

Used correctly, explosives will get you to your pay-streak quickly, just take the responsibility to use them correctly, safely and legally.

Jack W. Peters is a long time gold mining enthusiast and the director of the Northwest Explosives Academy out of Springfield, Oregon.  Email: nwexplosives@yahoo.com

Useful links

Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives  (ATF)

www.atf.org

Blaster’s Tool and Supply, resource for tools, equipment and storage magazines

www.blasterstool.com

Mine Safety and Health Administration  (MSHA)

www.msha.org

Northwest Explosives Academy, explosives and blasting training school in Oregon

www.nwexplosives.com

Type 2 storage magazine courtesy of Tannerite Explosives

Photos by Michael Fuller

The truth is…aside from a few bozo’s, most miners care about the environment more than most of these so-called self proclaimed environmentalists who never even step foot into the great outdoors . They just want to protest and be in the in-crowd, without educating themselves on the subject they protest.

Anyways…the Eastern Oregon Mining Association and the Waldo Mining District have been continually fighting the regulations that these wacko’s keep trying to impose on us. They have a lot of court costs and fee’s. They are doing a fundraiser. There are many great prizes in addition to the half pound of gold that can be found on their websites. I figured with the six hundred plus people visiting Oregon Gold everyday that we should be able to support this cause collectively. It is important and we should all get involved and try to do our part if we are able to do so.

For contest information please visit here… Gold Contest (or click on the image)

Also the  GPAA Gold Show is coming up on April 2-3, 2011 in Salem, Oregon and last minute tickets can be bought there to support this very good cause and to get in on the drawing. That is where I will be buying my tickets.

Oregon Gold : How has the response been on the street after appearing on the show?

Jimmy Dorsey: I think overwhelmingly positive. A lot of people want to know what I am doing next and want to know what is happening with my family.

Oregon Gold : Do you think you were portrayed poorly or wrong in the edit of the show?

Jimmy Dorsey : I understand the need for creating a character. I think my inexperience in mining and the construction field is not something that they created. You never see me actually turn a wrench. They cut out about ninety percent of the positive things I do.

Oregon Gold : Was the show scripted?

Jimmy Dorsey : Sure. Every formatted documentary is scripted. It is scripted from the beginning. They knew exactly what they wanted to see out of the program. Even me leaving was scripted, but in the way in which it happened was not. The plans were made, but the footsteps were ours. They actually direct you into these situations. It became very real. That is why I actually got my ribs broke. There was a fight…not even a fight…I was assaulted by Greg. He broke my ribs. That was very real, but it was also in the script for episode four which ended up being episode six, that I would end up leaving the show. They kind of push you towards, making these things happen. They would tell me to say ” We’ve got get gold in seventy hours” so I say “We’ve got to get gold in seventy two hours”. Then they would say “What are you going to do if you don’t get gold in seventy two hours?” And I am like “I don’t know you just told me to say seventy hours.” Then they said “What are you going to do if you don’t get gold?” They push you towards saying I was going to leave if we did not find gold. It was never my intention to leave. My plan was staying the entire summer and seeing it out.

Oregon Gold : Was it more about making the show or was it about getting the gold?

Jimmy Dorsey : You cannot really separate the two. I did not think we had a good show unless we got gold and I was not making very much money from the show; nothing substantial, so for me I did not think we would get a second season once we got gold and I did not think I would be able to feed my family once we got gold. It was very real for me. Real Estate has really devastated me in the last year.

Oregon Gold : Do you consider yourself pretty good at gold panning?

Jimmy Dorsey : At this point yeah. When I first started gold panning I did not even classify any of the material. So yes, I have gotten gold and I now have panning down. I did some mining after I left the mine.

Oregon Gold : Are you a better miner now, than what you appeared to be on the show?

Jimmy Dorsey : Yes, now I am taking classes in Nevada at a school of mining. I am learning about gold mining. I am not done with gold mining.

Oregon Gold : A lot of miner friends who are on my Facebook page want to know about the equipment. Was that equipment made to not work for the purpose of the show, or was it just poorly constructed equipment?

Jimmy Dorsey : It was poorly planned. The shaker was bought from a auction for fifteen thousand dollars. There was some incompetence there to modify that shaker. These guys were kind of playing around with it… It was a pretty old machine. I think it was built in 1967.

Oregon Gold : Do you think there would have been a better outcome if the group would have invested in better equipment from the start?

Jimmy Dorsey : Absolutely. I said from the beginning…I was actually at Sandy airport saying “Why are we taking this thing to Alaska?” I did not understand why they would want to go on the Discovery Channel with such poor equipment… We also did not have enough water to be running the equipment properly. The equipment demanded eighty gallons a minute and we had about thirty.

Oregon Gold : On your website you state that you are going mining again. Are you going to Alaska?

Jimmy Dorsey : I don’t know. I am looking at a mine up north. There a couple hard rock mines in Oregon that I am looking at. We are performing assays and I am talking to investors right now.

Oregon Gold : Did you receive any money for appearing on the show?

Jimmy Dorsey : The deal with Todd Hoffman was one thousand dollars per episode. At the time of me leaving he had paid me a total of three thousand dollars.

Oregon Gold : How do you feel about Todd?

Jimmy Dorsey : To be honest, today I feel sorry for him. I feel sorry that he threw away a lot of relationships that he has ruined in his pursuit of fame and gold.

Oregon Gold : Do you think that Todd should have done more research on even the most basic principals of mining?

Jimmy Dorsey : Absolutely. One thing I have learned from my studies in Nevada and working with lots of miners is that representative sampling and assaying is key… Finding out how many ounces per ton, is what you do first. Then you decide…what machine you are going to use for that material… Porcupine has gold that is forty to sixty mesh size and you need to have the right machines to get that size of gold out.

Oregon Gold : There is one episode that sticks out in my mind when the equipment is being loaded onto the flat bed and the chain snaps. You made the comment “that could have killed somebody” and Todd went off on you and told you to keep your mouth shut. Was that scripted or was that Todd?

Jimmy Dorsey : That was Todd. That was him… A lot of it was about camera time. When you put a camera in front of people, they get jealous.

Oregon Gold : A majority of the public think that the family members should have stayed at home. What do you think of that?

Jimmy Dorsey : We were going to church across the river and there were a lot of kids that grew up in that valley, so I will agree that we should not have had the kids that close to the operation…that we built our house in the wrong spot…the day I decided where to actually the build the house, I went for a walk…and there was a really big black bear grazing right where I wanted to put my house. So that was too far way. We were in a pretty remote area…this was an area where people have not lived in many years. Plus there is safety in numbers. We packed everybody in real tightly. As far as my family. I plan on bringing my family next year. I don’t leave my family. There is no reason to.

Oregon Gold : Is there anything else you would like to share with the public?

Jimmy Dorsey : …The platform this has afforded me is huge. My family is going to show the face of the mining industry. We can change things by opening natural resources here in Oregon and Alaska. I want to show how mining can be good for people…that is my plan…We need to show that mining can be safe and it can help our economic problems here in Oregon. I am getting pretty involved in the mining community.

Special thanks to Jimmy who took the time to do this interview. Please take the time to visit his website located here:

http://www.goldminingrealityshow.com

New episodes of Gold Rush Alaska can be seen on the Discovery Channel Friday nights at 10PM

Coyote Creek

Coyote Creek was first settled and mined around the 1840’s by white prospectors. The gold was very fine and made it hard for the men who worked the area to make a decent salary. When news of other strikes reached those working the  diggings, the area was abandoned for other areas including new strikes in Idaho. When white men left there were around thirty primitive cabins perched on upper Coyote Creek. Most miners did not stay long because it was a hard living.

Edwin Waters at Golden, Oregon

For ten years, from 1862-1872, Chinese worked the area.  Five Hundred Chinese men had moved into the area under the supervision of a contractor who had possession of the claims. The Chinese laborers made ten cents per day plus rice. Don’t feel too sad for the Chinese. This was actually a decent living at the time. A lot of gold was reported to be recovered by the Chinese, until they were driven out by white men who returned to the area in 1872.

Merchantile at Golden

White men returned to the area and started using hydraulic means to recover the fine gold. William Ruble was struck at how efficient the process was and bought up most of the land around Coyote Creek. In 1879, large parcels of land was sold to William Ruble, both a minister and a miner. His family was struggling, so he decided to build a town. Golden was first called Goldville. The first post office was established in 1896 with Schuyler Ruble as the first postmaster. William Ruble is known to have stated “You know there is gold right under your feet , but without a more powerful way to extract it your dream will die.”

The Ruble’s could not move soil fast enough to make a profit and during the summer when the water levels dropped they could not work at all. Rather than giving up William and Schuyler Ruble invented and patented an invention known as the Ruble Rock Elevator, which increased gold production.

Golden is reported to have been a town with a population of as many as two hundred souls and there was no drinking allowed. It was a close knit and religious community. In 1900 the Bennett store was erected and in 1915 a stamp mill was built. The post office closed in 1920.

The town of Golden is now owned and managed by the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation. The former mining area has been transformed into a natural wetland and is owned by Josephine County. I do not know if you are allowed to mine at Coyote Creek. The town itself is registered as a historic site.

There has been a bit of confusion by some who have visited oregongold.net. OregonGold.net has no ties to Black Cat Mining, other than I do shop there frequently and I do advertise for them.

Eathan Mertz is the small business owner who owns Black Cat Mining and BlackCatMining.com

Eathan Mertz of Black Cat Mining

I bought my Proline dredge through his store, where he let me make payments until I had it paid off. I also bought a Garret Ace 250 metal detector from him as well, not counting all the smaller items I have acquired. He carries several books and the Mining Journal Magazine. I have nothing bad to say about Black Cat Mining. Eathan is a very trustworthy guy.

I recently did a in-store interview with Eathan of Black Cat:

OG: How did you become involved with gold prospecting?

Eathan: I am originally from southern Oregon and my family had claims on Graves Creek. I found my first nugget when I was around eight. There was always vials of gold and black-sand in my Mothers hutch and I found it interesting. When I was older I was doing internet consulting and I really liked watching the gold shows, and I started going out.

OG: What is the best selling item this time of year? (December)

Eathan: This time of year it is rock tumblers and rock-hammers. Sluice boxes sell also, but tumblers are the most popular.

OG: What model of metal detector do you use?

Eathan: I have three. I have a older White’s Goldmaster V-SAT, a Garret Ace 250 and a Tesoro Lobo Supertraq. I bought my first detector after saving up my spare change for a couple of years. I thought it was irony to save my change to buy a metal detector to find more change.

OG: What is your preferred method of prospecting?

Eathan: I absolutely love taking a gold pan out and going crevicing, but dredging is pretty amazing. Just being out there in the outdoors and in the wilderness is half of it. Going home with some gold  is good too.

The gold nugget Eathan found when he was around eight years old.

If you happen to stop by Black Cat Mining tell them that Oregon Gold sent you. If your not in the neighborhood they do have online sells as well, just click the banner at the top of this page.

The Beeman-Martin House, home of the Gold Hill Historical Society’s museum. The museum is located at 504 1st Avenue in Gold Hill, Oregon and is open Thursday – Saturday, from Noon til 4 PM. For more information, please contact the society at: P.O. Box 26, Gold Hill, OR 97525, Phone: 541-855-1182

The Gold Hill Historical Society has done an excellent job preserving the mining history of the famous Gold Hill Mining District through their museum which is located in the Beeman-Martin House on First Avenue in downtown Gold Hill, Oregon. The house was originally built in 1901 by Josiah Beeman who leased and later purchased the well known Lucky Bart Mine which was located on nearby Sardine Creek. The Lucky Bart was first discovered in 1890 by Bartholomew Signorritti and Joe Cox. Beeman obtained the mine in 1892 and did well enough that he was able to build a fine two story home (which had the first indoor plumbing in Gold Hill), and was to stay in his family until 1993 when his descendants offered it to the Gold Hill Historical Society for the purpose of establishing a local museum. According to the society’s official history, the old building is presumed to be haunted after several members of their staff reported hearing heavy footsteps upstairs and there were numerous instances of the opening and closing of doors, objects being moved and pictures being “thrown” off the walls. The society affectionately refers to their ghost as “Willie”, but he did not introduce himself to me.

In addition to the usual things we see in local history displays, the Gold Hill Historical Society, has devoted a more than usual amount of space to local mining history. Though this is not only fitting and probably to be expected of such a famous gold mining district, it is not by any means typical of local historical societies here in Southern Oregon, many of which seem to regard mining as little more than a novel curiousity, if not a dirty little secret. Yet even in a town where some residents have actually began to organize against what little small scale mining does take place within their community, the volunteers here seem to take great pride in explaining how Josiah Beeman built this house with the gold he took out of the hills above Sardine Creek and how much gold was actually recovered from the nearby streams and hills. In Gold Hill, mining history finally takes center stage and although the displays
and efforts of these volunteers is still very much a work in progress, in no other place open to the public in Southern Oregon will you see as many local mining relics gathered together in one place. Admission is free, but I’m sure they appreciate donations.

Starting on the first floor of the Beeman House, we are gradually given a taste of local mining history with a set of pocket scales from the 1860’s here, an old vial of gold there and a photo here and there, but once we reach the gift shop, we are instantly confronted by all sorts of trinkets pertaining to local mining, ranging from gold panning concentrates to old photos of mines, from post cards to refrigerator magnets and right up to square nails that were saved from some old ore carts that must have rotted away on a nearby hillside somewhere. A look on the gift store book shelf and what we actually find is that the majority of their offerings have something to do with mining. For example, you can buy copies of Tom Bohmkers books on gold mining in Oregon here in the shop, booklets on panning gold and mining history, as well as copies of the Diary of Charles Anderson who was a placer miner on Foots Creek in the 1880’s.

In the stairwell (which Willie is said to frequent), we can find a number of revolving kiosks that are stuffed with local information hand outs that visitors are free to take home to study. Included are maps of the old Gold Hill Mining District, handouts on gold panning, a brief overview of local mining history, tidbits about old mining camps and much more.

From here, we head downstairs into the basement and are met with a large mining display that looks more like an old timers basement than it does a historical display. Unlike other museums, you can actually touch a lot of this stuff. Included are old mining tools, rusty gold pans, framed location notices, mining claim maps, mineral samples, miners lights and helmets, old photos, gold dust bags, a reproduction of a gold brick which was found locally and more. In one display case, there’s even a pretty nice mounted nugget that was taken from a local creek.

From here, we can go outside onto the back porch and get to the really good stuff, including the ore cars, the chilean mill, an ore crusher, several monitors, rocker boxes and of course, the 5 stamp mill from the famous Lucky Bart Mine. A brief tour follows.

Chilean Mill

The Chilean Mill or “Trapiche”, was an improvement of the arrastre. This one was manufactured in California around 1910 and was used at the Brush Creek Mine near Downieville, California. The Rue Family brought it to their mine on Butte Creek near Eagle Point, but never used it. It is powered by electric engine and belt, seen at lower left. This machine may be the only one of its kind in Oregon. A look inside the Chilean Mill. Heavy weights were attached to the chains which were drug across the ore and slowly ground the mineralized quartz into a fine powder so that the gold could be easily separated by washing. These machines were not very efficient and worked very slow, making them suitable only for small operations.

This ore crusher was a big improvement on the arrastre and far more portable than a stamp mill.

Rocker Box. The hopper appears to have originally been a fruit box.

The builder of this homemade ore car ingeniously used rounds of wood (possibly cedar) for wheels. The body looks to have been hand-hewn with a from from local timber.

The ore car from the Pack Rat Mine is a little more modern.

Ore buckets were lowered into mine shafts, filled with ore and then hoisted up top where the material could be processed. These served the same purposes as ore cars which were used to transport ore from an adit or tunnel.

This 5 Stamp Mill from Josiah Beeman's Lucky Bart Mine may be the only surviving and intact stamp mill in Southern Oregon. This one was manufactured by Union Ironworks of San Francisco in 1892 and was shipped to Oregon that same year. Built of heavy timbers that are about one foot thick, the mill is a truly imposing structure nearly 20 feet tall.

View of the mill battery. The round rods are called “stems”, while the spool shaped pieces are called “tappets”. The curved “fins” beneath the tappets are the “cams”. The bar with the horse-shoe shaped tip that is at an odd angle appears to be a “latch finger” (four more are laying at the base of the mill, uninstalled). The latch fingers, also called “lifters”, “latch bars” or “finger bars”, are used to “hang up” the tappets into place when the millman wished to stop the machine. To accomplish this, he would take a “cam stick”, which was a wooden wedge with a piece of belt on its upper side (to prevent slipping) and grease on its underside, and he would place this on top of the cam. This forced the cam to rotate at the top, which would raise the tappet higher. Once the tappet reached its peak, he would push the latch finger into place underneath tappet. This stopped the stamp from dropping without shutting the engine down and he would then repeat this process with the remaining stamps. (Note that the tappets are in the down position). As you might imagine, millmen could often be easily identified among mining crews just by counting their fingers, because if he wasn’t careful it was very easy to get his fingers or an entire hand pinched off while locking the tappets into place!

Stamps that crushed the ore to release the gold.

Unlike other stamp mills, this one did not rely on amalgamation plates and mercury was apparently not used at the Lucky Bart. (This is supported by DEQ reports on the site of the Lucky Bart, which have yet to turn up any mercury in the soils). Once the ore was crushed to powder, it was washed down the metal slickplate and then onto what appears to have been an early shaker table which was powered by a belt and pulley. A set of belts and wheels (which are really pulleys) make the stamps rise. Gravity makes them fall, crushing the ore.

Though this stamp mill was probably originally powered by a waterwheel, later on, this John Deere tractor engine provided the power. This engine was manufactured in 1936, so long after Josiah Beeman gave up his interest in the Lucky Bart in 1916, this stamp mill was still hard at work. When you consider that this is a tractor engine and that the top of its smokestack is about 5 feet high, it gives you a little bit of an idea of the size of this stamp mill.

All in all, a visit to the Gold Hill Historical Society is well worth the trip and a fine way to spend part of your day.

Kerby Jackson

Josephine County, Oregon

BACKGROUND: Back in 2005, right after Oregon DEQ issued their new 700-PM permit for suction dredge mining, a coalition of 3 environmental organizations (NEDC et al.) filed a challenge against the new permit in the Oregon Court of Appeals claiming among other things that the new permit wasn’t restrictive enough. Shortly thereafter, the Eastern Oregon Mining Association (EOMA) filed to intervene in the NEDC challenge, and, filed a challenge of their own against the permit; claiming it was the wrong permit in the first place.

EXPLANATION: DEQ’s suction dredge permits (i.e.; the earlier 700-J and the 700-PM) are issued in part under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pursuant to Section 402 of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and are “National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System” (NPDES) permits. These types of CWA permits are required for any discharge from a point source that causes an “addition” of “pollutants” to the “waters of the United States”; and are typically required for such facilities as municipal sewage treatment plants and other large-scale industrial plants that discharge into waters.

However, under the CWA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has jurisdiction over the discharge of “dredged materials” through their Section 404 permitting program. Add to this, the CWA clearly states that if one is permitted by or under the jurisdiction of the USACE, no EPA Section 402 NPDES permit is required (i.e.; one or the other, but not both). This concept was most recently decided in June of 2009 by the U.S. Supreme Court when they ruled in the case of COEUR ALASKA, INC. v. SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION COUNCIL (Nos. 07-984 and 07-990) 486 F. 3d 638:

“…a two-permit regime is contrary to the statute and the regulations.”

So which is the legally correct permit? We believe that if the discharge from a suction dredge or other forms of in-stream mining even falls under the CWA (which is doubtful), then it would be under the jurisdiction of the USACE, and not the EPA; for the following reasons:

1. There is no “addition” of anything. 100% of everything being discharged by a suction dredge is already present in the water. The courts have consistently ruled that for a discharge to be an “addition”, it must come from an outside source (such an onshore operation discharging into the water). Nor does the dredge change, in any way, the bottom sediments passed through the dredge (i.e.; the dredge does not cause the turbidity – the turbidity is caused by the movement of the streambed material and is present before the material and water even enter the intake nozzle).

2. Streambed sediments, when returned to the stream they came from, are not “pollutants”.

3. Many if not most all small streams, creeks, gulches, etc. are not “waters of the United States” but instead are waters of the State of Oregon.
THE 2009 COURT OF APPEAL RULING: On December 23, 2009, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled on EOMA’s challenge to the 2005 700-PM permit in EOMA’s favor. The court declared the permit invalid, because it did not specify what discharge was being permitted by the permit. The court stated that the discharge from suction dredges consisted of streambed sediments, and water. The court stated that discharges of streambed sediments were under the jurisdiction of the Army Corp, not the EPA . . .
And then they defied all logic (and the U.S. Supreme Court June 2009 ruling) and said that suction dredges also discharged turbid wastewater, and those discharges were under the jurisdiction of the EPA! The court ended by saying that suction dredging needed both a 402 and a 404 permit!

EOMA promptly filed a Motion for Reconsideration, which was promptly denied. EOMA then filed a petition for review of the Appeals Court decision with the Oregon Supreme Court. On September 17, 2010, the Oregon Supreme Court agreed to hear the EOMA appeal (and, unfortunately, the NEDC appeal too); with briefs due in a matter of weeks, and a hearing scheduled for mid-January 2011.

However, on September 27, 2010, the State filed a Motion to Dismiss the EOMA & NEDC appeals on the grounds that the 2005 700-PM permit had expired and had been replaced, making all appeals moot. EOMA then filed arguments against the State’s motion to dismiss. At this time, we are waiting to hear from the court to see if they will dismiss the case, or not.

MINERS CHALLENGE THE NEW 2010 700-PM PERMIT: On September 27, 2010, the Waldo Mining District (WMD) et al. filed a petition in the Oregon Court of Appeals challenging the new 700-PM permit on the grounds that it too is another NPDES permit. On the same day, EOMA et al. filed a petition in the Circuit Court of Baker County challenging the new 700-PM permit on the grounds that it is a NPDES permit; that DEQ failed to properly consult with the affected parties while drafting the permit as required by state law; that DEQ failed to recognize the use of water for mining is both a beneficial use and a public necessity, and that such use is “granted” (under state law); plus several other reasons.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Folks, the WMD and EOMA need the financial support of every suction dredge miner in Oregon. We are fighting for YOUR RIGHTS to mine… not just ours! DEQ says there are (or were) approximately 2,000 permitted suction dredge miners in Oregon. If each of you donated just 2 dwt of gold, or $100.00, we would have more than enough funds to see us through this litigation. WE (WMD & EOMA) are actively fighting to keep what happened in California from happening in Oregon (i.e.; a prohibition on dredging).

PLEASE DONATE WHAT YOU CAN….. THANK YOU!

DONATIONS CAN BE SENT TO:

Waldo Mining District
P.O. Box 1574
Cave Junction, OR 97523

Eastern Oregon Mining Association
P.O. Box 932
Baker City, OR 97814

Help us win…. Or forget dredging in Oregon!

Chena Creek District:

One of those areas is the little known Chena Creek District which was active around the period of 1900. Located in Eastern Clackamas County, this old mining area is said to be the northern most area of the Cascades Mountain range to contain gold. During its height in the mid 1890’s, about a hundred claims were located in the area, mostly concentrated on Cheeney Creek (formerly called “Chena” Creek) and the Salmon River (reffered to in those days as a “creek”). By 1903, only about twenty of these claims were actually active, as the road situation into that area was quite bad and most of the effort seemed to be focused on improving roads.

The only major mine in the area was that of Northern Light Mining and Milling Company based out out of Portland. Their mine was said to be located upon Huckleberry Mountain, near the mouth of the Salmon River where it enters the Sandy River (and is probably the source of what little gold can be found in that river). Development of the Northern Light, sometimes reffered to as the Cheeney Creek Prospect, consisted of an 87 foot shaft and 400 foot foot long tunnel. The equipment was powered by water. In addition to gold, the deposit also contained silver, copper and lead.

This old mining district is located due south of Mountain Air Park near the town of Welches on Highway 26. Most of the area is inside the Mount Hood National Forest and under the management of USFS and appears to have been completely withdrawn from mineral entry (ie. no claim filing). Due to the recent closure of nearly 2000 miles of roads and trails to vehicles inside the Mount Hood National Forest, I imagine that access could be an issue in this area.

Rock Creek District:

Not to be confused with the mining district of the same name in Baker County, this little known mining district was actually located in Eastern Clatsop County. As any experienced prospector can attest, this rugged coastal forest is hardly an ideal geological setting for gold country, but apparently, nobody ever told that to the early settlers in that area who decided to look for the illusive yellow metal anyway.

On May 25th, 1885, J.M. Weed filed a placer claim on Rock Creek called the “Gertrude”. Subsequent claims were located not only along Rock Creek in Clatsop County, but even extended all the way to the mouth of the Nehalam River, near the town of Veronia in Columbia County. Weed Creek, a small tributary of the North Fork of Rock Creek, is named for J.M. Weed and was probably the location of his claim.

By July of 1889, so much gold mining was going on this area that the Rock Creek Mining District was formed. Bill H. Braden was elected not only the Secretary, but also the President of the district. Some of the claims filed in the district during the early years included the “Protector”, “Defender”, “Elkhorn”, “Bonanza”, “Mountain” “Last Chance” and the “Rolling”.

By 1894, the whole thing suddenly petered out. Nothing more was heard about the area and in fact, the reality that gold was ever discovered in that area was removed entirely to the old history books.

Incidentily, most of Rock Creek is now located amongst private timber lands, while the majority is under management of the State of Oregon as the Tillamook State Forest and is therefore, not open to filing claims.

Gold Creek District:

Some miles west of the Rock Creek District is the old Gold Creek Mining District which is also located in Clatsop County.

It was here along the Nehalem River in Cruiser’s Gulch, that in 1901, a man named Sebastian Glaser filed a number of lode claims about two miles from the small town of Elsie. The site of his discovery lies in 4 North, 8 West and right on the line between Sections 1 and 2.

No other records for this mining district exist.

Though the name “Gold Creek” came to be attached to the locality of Glaser’s discovery, it should be noted that the current name of this waterway is George Creek.

Kerby Jackson
Josephine County, Oregon

So what do you do if you are asked by an agent for a 700 permit and you don’t have one?

Here is a great response from Kerby Jackson on the Oregon Gold Hunter Forums:

“Well, if you choose not to go the permit route (your choice), I would inform them of/or ask the following if ever confronted:

1. What permit? The Oregon Supreme Court deemed the 700 PM permit illegal back in December. Are you asking me for an illegal permit in defiance of a state Supreme court’s decision? (Carry and present a copy of the court decision) I think you had better get an attorney to inform you about the legal penalties of ignoring a court decision.

2. Put your authority and jurisdiction pertaining to mining in writing and sign it, along with your employee ID # for my legal representation. (They have NO jurisdiction and authority over mining with the exception of the Dept. of Interior (ie. BLM) who have authority to insure that an orderly fashion of claim filing is maintained).

3. Are you SURE I am doing something wrong? Do you know that it’s a crime in the State of Oregon to interfere with a legal mining operation? I would sure hate to be you if you’re wrong. I think you had better get an attorney.

4. The 1866 and 1872 Mining Acts say that the “Public Domain is free and open to prospecting”. Are you defying an Act of Congress? I think you had better get an attorney.

About threats to seize gear:

1. See #3 above. If you are not certain I am doing something wrong and you so much as tamper with my gear, you can be prosecuted for Mineral Trespass, which is a crime in the State of Oregon. I would sure hate to see you go to jail just because you aren’t very sure of the law. I think you had better get an attorney.

2. Here in Josephine County, it’s a crime for ANY government employee (regardless of their jurisdiction) to deny you your right to due process and it is the obligation of the County Commisioners to prosecute the employee. Question: Do you have a warrant? If you have no warrant and you seize my property, you are denying me my right to due process and that is a crime in this county. I think you had better get an attorney.

You could take this on and on and on if you know even very basic mining law – which they themselves do not know. Therefore, it is important that you understand all that you can.

Obviously, if you get a real @%#hole, he is just going to nail you (as happened to Cliff Tracy) simply because he is on a power trip, but 99% of agency people get very edgy when they begin to realize that you do not fit the stereotype of a “dumb miner” and that maybe, just maybe, there is a risk that they might be putting themselves on the line.”  ~Kerby Jackson

Oakridge is a very scenic area

The Fall Creek District had very low historical production numbers, but when I visited the area I did find some color after several minutes of sampling. The gold I found was very small, but got my attention enough to want to return at a later time; when I have more time to prospect.

The Fall Creek District is located in sections 13, 18 and 19. A good creek to check for placer gold is Christy Creek, besides Fall Creek itself. Two historical mines in the area were the Ironside Mine and the Golden Eagle Mine.

Click here for more metal detector videos MineLab Owners TV

Greetings fellow prospectors, I am Bill from South Douglas County in South West Oregon. I have been prospecting for the last 40+ years and have used just about every piece of prospecting equipment you can imagine.  Now that I am getting up in my years the days of the old pick and shovel are pretty much behind me.  Now I haven’t given up prospecting I just had to find a way to do the heavy work without all the manual labor.

Back in late 2007 or early 2008, I was reading an article about an Arizona prospector how used a gas powered vacuum to suck up material from cracks and off bed rock. It sounded interesting so I went looking for one.  They were out there but with a price tag of $400.00+ I needed to find a cheaper way to get my hands on one.  Then the thought struck me, I already had a generator, why not use an electric, industrial sized, wet/dry,  shop vac at a quarter the cost.

Here I am using my vac cleaning off some bed rock. The water in the hole is a bit of a nuisance but it does loosen the gold trapped in the mud atop the rock and in the cracks.

The location I do most of my prospecting now-a-days is loaded with shallow and exposed bed rock.  I tried using a regular wet/dry vacuum but the small diameter hose clogged far too quickly and I found myself moving a lot of smaller cobble. I graduated to an industrial sized vac with a 2 ½ inch hose and found that I could move three to four times as much material with far less clogging. A major problem, when working in wet material, is the wet material will begin to build up on the inside of the hose. This will soon reduce the suck power of the unit and eventually clog the hose. To remedy the problem one should occasionally suck some water through the hose to wash the restricting material through. The vac does work best in dry material.

The bed rock you see in this picture is under water when the river reaches flood stage. Note all the moss on the rock, the vac works very well on this also.

The material I collect with my vacuum is classified to ¼ inch and then run through my recirculating high banker or my Mountain Goat Trommel.  The vac is fun and easy to use plus it is quite effective, (see photo below).

The larger bottle contains smaller flakes, as seen in the pan, while the little bottle contains pickers.

Special Thanks to Bill Hagan for submitting this article to oregongold.net

Miners Flag - Created by Edwin Waters

Miners Flag - Created by Edwin Waters

While we are fighting for our God given rights to mine, it occurred to me that we need a banner and a symbol to be united under. I have long known about the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. I remember creating a original version of the flag out of construction paper in elementary school for a class project. In recent years, I think of the National Rifle Association, and the fight to keep the Constitutional rights to own and bare arms. The new version that I have created, now known as “The Miners Flag” includes a pick and shovel being closely guarded by the rattlesnake. Meaning that miners and prospectors will “Not” give up our rights to mine without a fight, especially those rights to mine on federal land.

The original flag is known as the Gadsden flag and was a patriotic symbol carefully warning the creation of bigger government and regulations that restrict personal freedom. There are two variations of the Miners Flag, as seen above. Either one may be used for personal use.

“I observed on one of the drums belonging to the marines now raising, there was painted a Rattle-Snake, with this modest motto under it, ‘Don’t tread on me.’ As I know it is the custom to have some device on the arms of every country, I supposed this may have been intended for the arms of America.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

I like to think that the original flag represents all freedoms and privileges granted to us by the United States Constitution. Federal laws created by men who had no hidden agenda or making shady deals behind closed doors. The original fathers thought long and hard and they knew that mining was essential for our economy.

The rattlesnake is found only in America. The rattlesnake has sharp eyes, and “may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance.” “She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. … she never wounds ’till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.”

This is very detailed look into the twisted views and agenda’s of many of America’s environmental movements and organizations, along with the agenda’s set forth by the United Nations and elitists in our country. In order for there to be a one world government, “they” know they have to bring America down to a equal level with other nations of the world.

Here is the site. Let me say this: “You” really need to pay attention to this one. Stop, take some time and absorb the information. A quick glance will not suffice.”

Taking Liberty

Another great catch from one of the members of the Oregon Gold Hunters forums

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

This basically means this…

The states’ constitutions and laws should not conflict with the laws of the federal constitution and that in case of a conflict, state judges are legally bound to honor the federal laws and constitution over those of any state.

Federal law trumps State Law, including the State of Oregon.

The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads like this:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

For our sake let’s remove the word immunities from the above passage. I am sure it is important, but I am trying to get at something. Let’s now take another look at it.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We have already established that federal law is the supreme law of the land and that State judges have to honor federal law over State laws. Privileges are grants given from the federal government, usually in the form of laws, such as the Bill of Rights, but equally important is the Federal Mining Act of 1872.  See some of those laws HERE. This was a previously written piece submitted by Old Gold Miner.

Conclusion:

Environmental groups are hell bent on repealing our rights and are right now trying to find a way to repeal the Mining Act of 1872. There main complaint that minerals taken from federal land is untaxable. However, this part of the liberties that our forefathers gave to us. It is hard work to find and extract minerals. Living wages are hard to find in this field. Yet the environmentalist like to conjure up an image of a fat cat sitting back behind a desk racking in millions of tax free dollars. That’s a joke! When in reality they just want the masses to donate to their “so called” non profit organizations. Anybody who knows anything, knows that these organizations have  their ways to profit.

They also claim that hundreds of thousands of mines need to be cleaned up and will cost the government billions of dollars to CLEAN. These so called hundreds of thousands of mines include placer claims (surface mining) where prospectors would take dirt, run it through a pan or sluice box (Long Tom), and return that dirt and rocks to the ground. So in other words they are saying that they want to clean the dirt and make it cleaner? In the end you still have “just dirt”.

Countless scientific studies have been done (as to the impact of sluicing, highbanking and suction gold dredging), but environmental groups still want to spread lies and evil propaganda to feed their own pockets and money making schemes under the guise of “non-profit.” Evil politicians making shady deals behind closed doors with these radical anti-American groups; try to bend the law and try enforce unlawful permits and unlawful regulations under the guise of a State government that has no lawful say in the matter.

Mining is the first step of American Industry, productivity and economic stability. In case, you haven’t seen the unemployment numbers, we could use some productivity in the State of Oregon.

Remember Federal Law supersedes State Law!

Including unlawful fraudulent permits fee’s and forms!

If federal law grants a privilege, no State shall make nor enforce a law to abridge or deny your privileges!

Don’t be fooled and know your rights!

The site where Browntown once stood.

Today nothing remains of the early Southern Oregon mining camp once known as Browntown, but in its time, this early town, which along with its suburb of Hogtown, once sat along the banks of Althouse Creek and was described as “the most colorful mining camp in the West”.

Recently, I was able to finally tour the site of this once booming and important mining camp in the Althouse Country, due only to the generosity of local miner Tom Kitchar. In addition to being the President of the Waldo Mining District and possessing a wealth of knowledge about the early mining history of Althouse Creek, this historic mining location also happens to be located within Mr. Kitchar’s network of mining claims in that area.

Located roughly two miles south of the old community of Holland, Browntown was first established in 1853, almost immediately after the discovery of gold in the area by the Althouse Brothers, to serve the needs of miners who were working the rich placers which had been located along this creek, as well as nearby Sucker Creek and Bolan Creek.

The camp itself was named for “Webfoot” Brown, an early miner in the area, who established a store near the mouth of Walker Gulch. Some sources suggest that Webfoot also owned a butcher shop at this location. Though little is actually known of Brown’s background, his nickname “Webfoot” indicates that he had been in Oregon from an early date, as the term “webfoot” was a slang name used by early Californians to refer to Oregonians in a somewhat derogatory fashion. It is however known, that by 1858, Brown had relocated to Yreka, California, where along with J. Tyson, he became the publisher of the Yreka Weekly Union. One of his associates, Herman F. Reinhart, writing in his memoirs, “The Golden Frontier”, remarked that Brown was: “one of the spiciest, most sentimental and humorous writers we ever picked type for”.

In his manuscript, Reinhart mistakenly refers to Browntown as “Brownsville”, only adding to the routine confusion between Browntown, the old settlement of Brown City (which was due south of Takilma, located on the Illinois River somewhat upstream the mouth of Page Creek) and Brownsboro (near Eagle Point, in Jackson County).

There appears to also be some confusion about Webfoot’s background. Reinhart refers to him as Henry H. “Webfoot” Brown. The Library of Congress, in reporting on the early publication of the Yreka Weekly Union, lists the editors and publishers as H.H. Brown and J. Tyson in 1858. However, in his monumental work, “The Centennial History of Oregon: 1811-1912”, Joseph Gaston gives a detailed history of a Brown family living in Jackson County who had been in Oregon since 1852. In particular, Gaston details two brothers, J. Frank and R. Henry Brown, who immigrated to Southern Oregon from England via Wisconsin, as well as several of Frank’s sons. Gaston writes that this R. Henry Brown came to Jacksonville in 1853, which certainly puts him in the area when Browntown was established. It’s also important to mention that Frank Brown, who came to the area in 1860, like Webfoot, was a merchant and butcher by trade and co-owned a store with his brother R. H. Brown at Eagle Point and a butcher shop at Jacksonville. Meanwhile, Frank’s son, Royal H. Brown, later worked as the editor of the Yreka Union, just as Webfoot had once done. Gaston goes on to remark that the community of Brownsboro, Oregon (near Eagle Point) was named for R. Henry Brown. Obviously, the similarities between R. Henry Brown and Henry H. “Webfoot” Brown are relatively startling, especially when one considers the relatively small population of Southern Oregon in those days. It seems likely that if Webfoot and R. Henry were not one and the same, that there was likely to be a relation in some way.

By 1858, over 500 miners were said to live in or near Browntown, while another smaller population lived at nearby Hogtown, which was located somewhat upstream of this location. At the time, hundreds of miners traversed the famous Althouse Trail which once connected this area to Happy Camp, California. As these men roamed the area in search of golden prospects, they frequented the varying mining camps which were located along the trail, including Browntown, Althouse, Grass Flat, Frenchtown Bar, California Bar, Allentown, All Hours and others, not to mention others on the California side. Of these camps, Browntown was likely the largest.

As early as 1853, Browntown was said to include “ten to twelve stores, several saloons, and a good hotel”. By the following year, it had grown to “two bakeries, ten stores, four hotels, a bowling alley, seven saloons, three blacksmith shops and two dance or fancy houses”. One of these two “fancy houses”, may very well have been Browntown’s “Opera House” which was considered a rarity in such a place. Browntown was also home to Belt Lodge #26 of the Order of Free Masons, which was later consolidated with the Western Star Lodge #18 in 1864 to create the current lodge still standing in Kerby, Oregon today. Over a hundred cabins existed up and down the creek nearby, signs of which, very little to anything remains today.

It is also known that some sort of fort was constructed at Browntown following an Indian attack on several miners who were prospecting what is now known as Deadman Gulch. The miners (some say two, others say, there were three of them) had set their guns down while they worked the creek. Several Indians silently crept up behind the group, stole their weapons and shot and killed the group of miners with their own guns. As this gulch is located close to Browntown, the miners felt it necessary to establish some type of fortifications in their community to repel a major attack, which during the mid 1850’s was a very real threat.

It is possible that the majority of Browntown may have been constructed in a way that was somewhat less than permanent and may have been little more than a tent or shanty town, for even as late November of 1858, a Father Croke wrote of his journey through the area in an effort to raise money for a Catholic church. He said little of Browntown, merely mentioning that he left his horse there and went on to Grass Flat on foot. While he describes Grass Flat as a “trading post”, he uses the word “town” in regards to Browntown rather loosely, as if to indicate that it had very little resemblance to a civilization.

In addition to many Euro-American miners, quite a large number of Chinese also made their way into Browntown. Living in terrible, cramped cabins and existing frugally on mainly tea, rice, Skunk Cabbage and Miner’s Lettuce, the Chinese were very patient, methodical miners who often uncovered large deposits on claims previously thought to have been worked out.

If there were ever any peaceful times at Browntown, they have long been over shadowed by its rougher element, which often punctuated the dullness of day to day life with drunken brawls, shootings, less than harmless practical jokes and other types of skull-duggery. Located miles from county government, the miners themselves were their own law and though they tolerated the likes of brawls, pistol duels and things of that nature, one thing they did not tolerate much was high-grading. Theft of gold from unattended sluice boxes was a particular problem in the vicinity of Browntown and did much to raise the ire of miner’s courts in the area, though there is no clear indication if they ever located the perpetrators or how they were dealt with if they did catch up to them.

Among its many establishments, Browntown had one of the only “Opera Houses” in Oregon at that time, which occasionally hosted traveling stage acts. Among those who performed at Browntown was child starlet Lotta Crabtree who starting in 1853 began touring the mining camps of the Siskiyous. This tiny, six year old girl with red hair had been professionally trained to dance, sing and play music in San Francisco and was as famous during her time as Shirley Temple would be decades later. At Browntown, the girl sang and danced jigs as the miners clapped and stomped out a beat for her. The men were so appreciative that they promptly showered Lotta with gold coins and nuggets, which her mother Mary Ann would pick up off the stage and tuck into her apron. A decade later, at the age of sixteen, Lotta played Browntown for a second time in 1863, and was not so well received when she began to belt out patriotic songs declaring her loyalty to the Union. Giving some insight into the political mood of the camp during the Civil War, the crowd of local miners hissed at her and treated her in such a way, that even years later, her manager remarked that Browntown had been “cold and relentless” and that not a single person there had clapped for her.

On another occasion, a local miner left Browntown and married a mail order bride who he had picked up in San Francisco. So woman starved was the camp in its early days, that when their compatriot returned to Browntown, miners from miles away decided to honor the bride’s arrival by amassing at the stage station where they greeted her by firing their revolvers into the air and hooting and hollering like Indians. Terrified, the woman hid inside of the stagecoach, not realizing that the miners were paying tribute to her.

Even the Chinese, who were so noted for their patience, tended to run on the ornery side at Browntown. Webfoot Brown kept the largest store in town and often made deliveries to the more distant camps by way of pack train along the Althouse Trail. On one occasion, he had a delivery so large that he was forced to leave the store in the care of his young daughter for the day. As the day wore on, the store began to grow so busy that the girl became so tired from waiting on customers that she decided to close the store and take a rest. Soon, a large group of Chinese miners looking to purchase supplies appeared at the door and began to mill about while they waited for the store to open. Several hours went by and now the ordinary patient Celestials, began to grow agitated. When one of them peered through a window and saw the girl inside, they began to bang on the doors and the windows for her to open the store. Now terror-stricken, the girl’s unwillingness to open the front door only made the Chinese grow even more irate and well into dark, the group continued to mill about, shouting and swearing, until they finally dispersed and returned to their diggings well after dark.

Like other mining camps, Browntown also had more than its fair share of viscous brawls and killings.

A miner by the name of Tom Ryan was considered to be the terror of Browntown in that he was somewhat famous throughout Southern Oregon for his sour attitude and his enjoyment of brawling. On one evening, an Irish miner by the name of Maxwell was entertaining “the boys” with song as they drank at the bar. This was something that Maxwell often did and having little other entertainment, his singing was much revered by the miners of Browntown. While Maxwell was entertaining those who had bellied up to the bar, Tom Ryan soon grew moody. Awash with drink, the bully picked up a bar stool and then smashed a young miner over the head with it for reason’s still unknown. Seeing this injustice, Maxwell intervened on the teenager’s behalf and he and Tom Ryan took to fighting, proceeding to beat each other bloody until the miners in the room decided to separate them. Seizing this opportunity, Ryan bolted for the door and as he reached it, he looked back over his shoulder and said something particularly tasteless to Maxwell. In a rage, the Irishman promptly picked up a hot lid off the wood-stove that he was standing next to and despite the heat, threw it at Ryan’s head. The hot disc gashed Tom Ryan’s face rather badly and split the man’s lip, nearly killing him. Once again, the miners intervened, taking both away to tend to their injuries – in separate cabins, of course.

On another occasion, a Waldo gambler by the name of Bill Nicholas was challenged to a duel by a gambler from Browntown who’s name has now been lost to antiquity. The two men promptly met in the middle of the street carrying their weapons of choice. The gambler from Browntown carried a revolver, while Bill Nicholas chose a Bowie knife. At that, the two men each grabbed one end of a handkerchief or small scarf with their left hands and with their weapons in their right hands, the duel began. The gambler from Browntown promptly leveled his pistol and fired, only for Bill Nicholas to somehow dodge the pistol ball and to then drive his knife into the shoulder of his opponent. Those who had gathered to watch, promptly separated the two men and declared that the duel was over.

However, the Browntown gambler, the much larger of the two men, was not satisfied with the outcome of the duel and promptly announced that he would beat the living hell out Bill Nicholas the next time he saw him and then turned to leave. Soon after, the Browntown man watched Nicholas walk into a store, where upon he followed him and attempted to pick a fight with the smaller man. Calmly, Bill Nicholas grabbed up a ten pound weight off the store counter and flung it at the man’s head. Dodging the weight, the larger of the two continued to taunt Nicholas, only to be pelted in the stomach by a second weight, which temporarily incapacitated him. Needless to say, he did not bother Bill Nicholas again.

Despite the fact that Browntown was large, its population did fluctuate dramatically. In particular, the number of miners working the area plummeted during late 1857 when word of the discovery of gold on the Fraser River in British Columbia had reached the area. Hundreds of miners working in Southern Oregon left during “the Fraser River Excitement” as it was often referred to. A large number of miners from the vicinity of Browntown ventured to British Columbia only to return to the Althouse broke. As Father Croke noted during his visit to the Althouse in November of 1858, “There are a great deal more miners here than in Allen Gulch (near Waldo), but very many of them are just returned from Fraser River, and are scarcely making their board.”

Still, despite their poverty, they were certainly better off than the many thousands of miners who stayed in the Fraser that winter, many of whom perished from the abject poverty and poor conditions.

As was often done with other mining camps, when a location “played out”, the miners disassembled their camp and moved on to the next rich area they could find. Typically, gulches were mined out for about the first half a mile above their mouth, a process that was sped up with the growing popularity of hydraulic mining in the 1860’s. Browntown was no different, in that by 1876, Walker Gulch had been so thoroughly mined that Browntown was moved upstream to the mouth of Number Seven Gulch, where the new camp was sometimes referred to as “Tigertown”. At this location, hydraulic mining resulted in the construction of eight miles worth of ditch and eighteen miles worth of trails, most of which were built by the Chinese. These improvements allowed for the mining of fourteen “stream miles” worth of ground and even today, contrary to the popular idea that this area is “a pristine wilderness”, extensive tailing piles are very much in evidence throughout the area to illustrate just how much work was done in the vicinity. Having visited most of Southern Oregon’s historic gold mining districts, I must say that of all the areas I have had the opportunity to explore, the signs of past mining in the vicinity of Browntown are the most extensive and much of the ground appears to have been re-worked by several generations of miners since the early days.

Over time, most of the easy gold was mined out of the area and as such, Browntown gradually fell into decline. Though still in existence after 1900, by 1915, the population of Browntown and its surrounding area (possibly including the community of Holland) had dropped to less than 75 people. A few operations continued to mine in the area. In particular, a large drag line dredge was brought in during the 1930’s and worked out a 20 acre bench into the 1940’s. According to local legend, this bench included the town site of Browntown and it is generally believed that any remains of the settlement literally went down the sluice and were gone forever.

However, it is important to point out, that although the site of Browntown today is little more than a long grassy flat dotted with some tailing piles, there are no signs of a drag line dredge having worked this site. When Muriel Wolle, the author of numerous books on early mining camps and ghost towns in the West, most notably her famous work, “The Bonanza Trail”, visited this area in 1950 or 1951 and attempted to locate the site of Browntown, she indicated that she had “noticed a mine dump … on a gravelly meadow” which she believed was the town site. Based on her descriptions, the actual site appears to have changed very little during the last 60 years and she makes no reference to signs of a large dredge working the location. It therefore seems more likely that the ravages of time, not a drag line dredge, had eliminated any signs of Browntown.

By the 1960’s, for a nominal fee, local booster, Elwood Hussey offered gold mining excursions to the site of Browntown. Hussey would provide a pick and a pan and several local old timers would teach the customers how to pan. These excursions were so popular that they were mentioned in many travel and auto club books of the period. Elwood Hussey is perhaps best known for once being the owner of the tract of land which is now Cave Junction, Oregon which he donated to the local community. He was, more or less, the founding father of the above mentioned town.

It is is generally acknowledged that even into the early 1960’s, although nothing remained of Browntown proper, there were extensive remnants of old mining cabins and mining relics scattered throughout the surrounding area. In 1967, a “hippie” commune known as Sunny Ridge was established on an old mining claim on Blind Sam Gulch, which is somewhat near Browntown. At one time, nearly 100 people were said to have lived on the commune (enough so that about half of the native population of the Illinois Valley claims to have been born at Sunny Ridge – a few of them probably were) until they were evicted from the claim by BLM in the late 1970’s or so. It is generally believed that during that decade, many of the original mining structures and relics in the vicinity were recycled by the residents of Sunny Ridge in an effort to put “junk” to some sort of practical use for their social experiment.

Today, nothing much remains of Browntown but a few piles of loose cobbles which appear to have been turned over by successive generations of miners again and again and again in an ever-continuing search for gold. Unlike other areas, apart from the tailing piles, there are no real signs that hundreds of miners once lived there. There are no old tin cans, square nails, rusty hinges, broken pieces of colored glass bottles or other such more-than-a-century-old-garbage lying around in plain site to indicate that anything remotely resembling civilization ever existed in the area. There are no real signs of the amount of wealth that was gleaned from the gravels of this area – an estimated quarter of a million ounces of placer gold alone between 1852 and 1959, roughly equaling better than a quarter of a billion dollars at today’s current spot price. But there is something that remains left from those days and that is the sensation or feeling that something did once go on in that place and that it was something extraordinary.

~ Kerby Jackson, Josephine County, Oregon

Dear Friends,

Oregon DEQ is currently rewriting the 700-PM Suction Dredge Mining Permit for
Oregon. They expect to release the Final Draft for public comment on April 22,
2010. There will be a 35 day comment period, three public meetings (Pendleton,
Portland, and Medford), and they plan to have the new permit approved and adopted by
the end of June, 2010.

Below please find attached (click to open):

1. 700PM GP PREDraft (proposed permit)

2. BMP CrossRef (comparison between present permit and proposed)

3. DEQ – BACKGROUND and Q&A’S

Note that a meeting was held at DEQ Portland on April 13, 2010, to discuss this
proposed terrible permit. At that meeting, approx. 60 or so miners attended from
all over Oregon (plus greenies, and other interested parties). Google “Oregon DEQ”,
and then look for instream mining permits, and somewhere you should find a link to a
recording of that meeting, plus other info on the new permit.

At the meeting, DEQ was not prepared to answer any real questions. Oregon miners
are getting screwed!!!!!!

Currently, we are trying to arrange a consultation meeting (as required by law)
between miners and DEQ. This meeting will hopefully be held in Salem, OR, sometime
after April 22. Space may be limited, so we are looking for representatives from
mining orgs to attend this meeting. If you are interested, please contact me and
let me know.

Tom Kitchar
Waldo Mining District
mythicalmining@cavenet.com

All National Forest System lands which (1) were formerly public domain lands subject to location and entry under the U.S. mining laws, (2) have not been appropriated, withdrawn, or segregated from location and entry, and (3) have been or may be shown to be mineral lands, are open to prospecting for locatable minerals (16 U.S.C. 482).

“Under the mining laws a person has a statutory right, consistent with Departmental regulations, to go upon the open (unappropriated and unreserved) Federal lands for the purpose of mineral prospecting, exploration, development, extraction and other uses reasonably incident thereto.” (See 30 U.S.C. § 21-54, 43 C.F.R. § 3809.3-3, 0-6).

16 U.S.C. § 481, Use of Waters: All waters within boundaries of national forests may be used for domestic, mining, milling, or irrigation purposes under the laws of the state wherein such national forests are situated or under the laws of the United States and the rules and regulations established thereunder.

Riparian “water” is appurtenant to federal “land”, as are minerals. (30 U.S.C. § 21)

The law is well settled by innumerable decisions that when a mining claim has been perfected under the law, it is in effect a grant from the United States of the exclusive right of possession to the same. It constitutes property to its fullest extent, and is real property subject to be sold, transferred, mortgaged, taxed, and inherited without infringing any right or title of the United States. Ickes v. Virginia-Colorado Development Corp., 295 U.S. 639, 55 S. Ct. 888, 79 L.Ed. 1627; Wilbur v. U. S. ex rel. Krushnic, 280 U.S. 306, 50 S.Ct. 103, 74 L.Ed. 445; Clipper Mining Co. v. Eli Mining & Land Co., 194 U.S. 220, 24 S.Ct. 632, 48 L.Ed. 944; St. Louis Mining & Mill Co. v. Montana Mining Co., 171 U.S. 650, 19 S.Ct. 61, 43 L.Ed. 320; Belk v. Meagher, 104 U.S. 279, 26 L.Ed. 735.

This possessory interest entitles the claimant to “the right to extract all minerals from the claim without paying royalties to the United States.” Swanson v. Babbitt, 3 F.3d 1348, 1350 (9th Cir. 1993).

Federal mining claims are “private property” Freese v. United States, 639 F.2d 754, 757, 226 Ct.Cl. 252 cert. denied, 454 U.S. 827, 102 S.Ct. 119, 70 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981); Oil Shale Corp. v. Morton, 370 F.Supp. 108, 124 (D.Colo. 1973).

“Uncompensated divestment” of a valid unpatented mining claim would violate the Constitution. Freese v. United States, 639 F.2d 754, 757, 226 Ct.Cl. 252, cert. denied, 454 U.S. 827, 102 S.Ct. 119, 70 L.Ed. 2d 103 (1981).

Federal Reserved Water Rights
Predates 1909 Oregon Water Code

Organic Administration Act of 1897
30 Stat. 36, Act of June 4, 1897

16 U.S.C. § 481

All waters within the boundaries of national forests may be used for domestic, mining, milling, or irrigation purposes, under the laws of the State wherein such national forests are situated, or under the laws of the United States and the rules and regulations established thereunder. (June 4, 1897, ch. 2, Sec. 1, 30 Stat. 36.)

As this federal statutory mandate and its legislative history clearly evidence, Congress explicitly authorized that water within national forests may be used for mining purposes, as a riparian right appurtenant any valid mining claim situated within a national forest.

Furthermore, waters utilized in placer mining is not a consumptive use; it does not subtract from the amount of water that is available to downstream appropriators. These reserved riparian rights are indefinite in duration and, for the most part, immune from state water laws and therefore, are not subject to diversion and beneficial use requirements and cannot be lost by non-use.

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)

Section 301(a) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Clean Water Act – CWA) provides that “the discharge of any pollutant by any person shall be unlawful.” 33 U.S.C. § 1311(a)

In turn, § 502(12) defines the term “discharge of a pollutant” to mean “any addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source. . . .” 33 U.S.C. § 1362(12)

Thus, the Act prohibits only the addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from a point source.

Those constituents occurring naturally in the waterways or occurring as a result of other industrial discharges, do not constitute an addition of pollutants by a plant through which they pass” (Appalachian power 545 F.2d 1351). “only if the point source itself physically introduces a pollutant into water from the outside world” (Gorsuch 693 F.2d 156)

“Had Congress wanted to use CWA §402 to regulate all sources of pollution, ” ‘it would easily have chosen suitable language, e.g., all pollution released through a point source.’ ” Gorsuch, 693 F.2d at 176.

Instead, Congress chose the word “addition.” The NPDES system is limited to ‘addition’ of ‘pollutant’ ‘from’ a point source.”

Small scale suction dredge gold mining does not “add” any “pollutant” to water.

The only way to acquire a permit is through the Department of State Lands and it’s free.

What type of mining do you plan?
Do you intend to do “prospecting” or “recreational and small scale placer mining?” You may not need an authorization from DSL. Under DSL’s administrative rules (OAR 141-089-0040):
“Prospecting” is defined as “searching or exploring for samples of gold, silver or other precious metals using non-motorized methods from among small quantities of aggregate. Prospecting is limited to the removal from or fill of less than one cubic yard of material at any one individual site and, cumulatively, not more than five cubic yards of material within a designated Essential Indigenous Anadromous Salmonid Habitat segment or State Scenic Waterway in a single year.”
“Recreational and Small Scale Placer Mining” includes, but is not limited to, the use of non-motorized equipment and motorized surface dredges having an intake nozzle with an inside diameter not exceeding four inches, and a muffler meeting or exceeding factory-installed noise reduction standards.”

Note: Prospecting is permitted within State Scenic Waterways without a permit from DSL.

Where do you want to look for placer deposits?
Be sure that you can legally pan, dredge or sluice on the land adjacent to or under the stream where you want to look for placer deposits. Check with the owner to be sure that it is all right for you to be there, even if the land is publicly-owned land. Remember that it is illegal to cross privately-owned land to get to a stream without first obtaining the owner’s permission.

Helpful Hint: You can find information about which of Oregon’s waterways are owned by the State of Oregon and available for prospecting and recreational and small scale placer mining activities at: http://www.oregon.gov/DSL/NAV/navigintro.shtml or request publications on navigability from DSL. You may also want to contact federal landowning agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service for information concerning the availability of streams that run through the land they manage. Parts or all of some streams have been designated to be Essential Salmon Habitat or a State Scenic Waterway, or have been closed to recreational mining. You will need to obtain an authorization from DSL if you plan to look for placer deposits in that part of a stream that has been classified as Essential Salmon Habitat regardless of the amount of material you plan to move. Additionally, it is important for you to know which streams are classified as Essential Salmon Habitat because you will be required to report the amount of material you moved from these streams after you have completed your work.You will find information at the following websites:

• Essential Salmon Habitat, go to:
  http://www.oregon.gov/DSL/PERMITS/counties_ess.shtml
• A State Scenic Waterway, go to:
  http://www.oregon.gov/OPRD/RULES/docs/scenic_waterways_map.pdf
• A closed waterway, go to:
  http://www.oregon.gov/DSL/LW/mineclosure.shtml

What time of the year do you plan to look for placer minerals?
Many of Oregon’s waterways are closed each year for certain time periods to protect spawning fish and their eggs. During those times, you may not be allowed to conduct recreational and small scale placer mining activities in those streams. State Scenic Waterways are closed to recreational and small scale placeer mining. Some waterways have been closed to recreational mining by the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management. Others are closed or use is limited by the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) due to water quality problems.

You will find closure or restriction information at the following:

• Inwater Work timing
• Recreational Mining Closures
• DEQ

Note: DSL cannot issue an ESH general authorization for work in any closed area or where DEQ will not issue a water quality permit.

What equipment will you be using?
The type of authorization you may need to obtain will depend
primarily on the size and type of equipment you use.

This information is important because:

To qualify for a General Authorization from DSL as a recreational and small scale placer miner, the maximum inside diameter of your dredge’s intake nozzle cannot exceed 4 inches. If it does:

• You will not qualify as a recreational and small scale miner for a General Authorization and will have to obtain an Individual Removal-Fill Permit, and
• You may need a 700-PM General Permit from the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission. Please see http://www.deq.state.or.us/wq/wqpermit/ssmining/smallscalemining.htm
• NOTE from oregongold.net:  At this time of this posting DEQ permits are invalid. This may change in the future, so keep your ears and eyes open. For those who want to go ahead and purchase the permit, it is said that if a new legal permit is issued that it will be transferrable. This issue is in the court of appeals, and the court has already deemed the issuing of permits invalid. As long as no ruling has been made, no 700-PM  permit is legally needed.

How much material do you plan to move?
It may not be possible for you to know how much material you will move prior to visiting each location. However, before starting to look for placer minerals, you need to be aware how the amount of material you move can impact the type of authorization you require.

In that part of a stream classified as Essential Salmon Habitat:
What you can remove: Up to 25 cubic yards per year under a DSL General Authorization.

Be aware that the 25 cubic yard amount is the total amount of material you are allowed to remove, alter or fill each year along each stream. For example, you may remove, alter or fill 5 cubic yards from 5 locations, or 1 cubic yard from 25 locations on each stream classified as Essential Salmon Habitat. If you remove more than 25 cubic yards, you will have to obtain an Individual Removal-Fill Permit from DSL.

You can not remove more than 25 cubic yards from a stream segment or more than 5 cubic yards per site within any stream designated as Essential Salmon Habitat.

Current state law does not permit recreational placer mining* within a State Scenic Waterway; however, you may prospect** within a State Scenic Waterway without a permit.

In all other streams or parts of streams NOT classified as Essential Salmon Habitat:

What you can remove: Up to 50 cubic yards annually without a DSL authorization.

If you remove more than 50 cubic yards, you will have to obtain an Individual Removal-Fill Permit from DSL.



Fill Out Application Online

My issued permit

In this segment, a gold miner shows us the adit of a gold mine in Josephine County, Oregon, where there’s still plenty of gold in the ground but the challenge is getting it out. He also shows us one of the best places for gold panning along the Rogue River, but cautions about running afoul of the new regulations. Then a retired state geologist discusses the different types of minerals found in Southern Oregon, and why it’s so difficult for miners to extract them.

This is Part 2 of a 6-part program examining the impacts of state and federal regulations and land withdrawals on the mining industry.

In this segment, we visit the Dawg Mining SummerFest and learn about highbanking and gold panning. Then we visit the site of one of the largest and highest grade silica deposits west of the Rocky Mountains, and learn why it’s taken 24 years to get to the point where the owner of the claim has any hope of mining it.

This is Part 3 of a 6-part program examining the impacts of state and federal regulations and land withdrawals on the mining industry.

In this segment, a gold miner shows us the reclamation project he implemented at a gold mining site in Golden, Oregon, where he established a wetlands with eleven ponds, providing habitat for fish and wildlife and trails for recreation. Then the former owner of the largest mining shop in the US discusses mining and mining regulations, and their impact on the local economy.

This is Part 4 of a 6-part program examining the impacts of state and federal regulations and land withdrawals on the mining industry.

In this segment, an ex-Navy SEAL who has been instrumental in developing the suction dredge technology for placer mining in river beds talks about the environmentalists’ litigation against mining and the recently passed law that bans suction dredging in California. Then the state geologist from the Josephine County office of the Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries discusses how the Dept. of Geology assists miners, and we learn that it is being shut down.

This is Part 5 of a 6-part program examining the impacts of state and federal regulations and land withdrawals on the mining industry.

In this segment, we visit a minig camp where a miner lives with his wife and three children. Then we meet a miner who’s family developed a process for smelting a nickel ladderite ore into a “master metal” from which any grade of stainless steel can be easily produced. He has spent 17 years fighting legal battles to be able to mine his claim.

This is Part 6 of a 6-part program examining the impacts of state and federal regulations and land withdrawals on the mining industry.

In this segment, we learn about aggregate mining, and how important it is to our economy. Then we learn more about the endless litigation tactics employed by the environmental lobbies, and how they manage to manipulate both the courts and government agencies at great cost to the mining industry and the taxpayers.

‘There’s gold in them thar hills.’

It was January of 1852, two mule packers, John R. Poole and James Cluggage owners of ‘Jackass Freight’ were hauling supplies from the Willamette Valley in the Oregon territory to Sacramento, California.

They decided to setup camp for the night along a foothill. Needing water for their animals they found a promising spot and started digging a hole. While digging they noticed color in the hole. Sorting out the debris they realized they had just struck gold. John R. Poole and James Cluggage had accidentally stumbled onto the largest gold strike in Oregon’s history.

Gold Miners in Southern Oregon late 1800s.

Courtesty of Grants Pass Courier.

They immediately filed claim on the land located on Daisy Creek and named it ‘Rich Gulch’. They also filed claims along Jackson Creek, where large amounts of course placer gold (free gold mixed with stream gravel) was found. Once the news got out, over one thousand men from all over the country pulled up stakes, left loved ones behind and moved to Southern Oregon for a chance to strike it rich.

James Cluggage filed a donation land claim on 160 acres and John R. Poole filed claim on 306 acres. With a section of their land the partners then went about setting up a town site, giving it the name ‘Table Rock City.’ Poole and Cluggage became wealthy leaders in their community. Table Rock City later changed its name to Jacksonville.

Soon Jacksonville became the largest town north of San Francisco, California. During the late 1800s C.C. Beekman’s Bank in Jacksonville was the only bank in America known to charge its clients for banking with them and not paying interest on accounts. The Beekman Bank scales weighed in over ten million dollars worth of gold.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Southern Oregon continues to be a summer gathering point for gold panning enthusiasts. The Medford District Bureau of Land Management has four areas that are open to recreational gold mining for the public: Little Applegate, Tunnel Ridge, Gold Nugget and Hellgate Recreation Area.

The recreational mining area starts about 1.4 miles below the bridge located at Glen Avon and ends south at the Horse Creek Bridge. You can use a dredge up to four inches, but no bigger. Dredging is allowed from July 15th to August 30th. The nice thing about this area is it is not too far from Portland to do some Oregon gold prospecting and is a good area for a new, but patient greenhorn to hone his or her skills. The key here is to take many sample pans and don’t give up. Go find some of that Clackamas County gold!

Anyone who pans for gold hopes to be rewarded by the glitter of colors in the fine material collected in the bottom of the pan. Although the exercise and outdoor activity experienced in prospecting are rewarding, there are few thrills comparable to finding gold. Even an assay report showing an appreciable content of gold in a sample obtained from a lode deposit is exciting. The would-be prospector hoping for financial gain, however, should carefully consider all the pertinent facts before deciding on a prospecting venture.

Don't expect to look down and see something like this.

Only a few prospectors among the many thousands who searched the western part of the United States ever found a valuable deposit. Most of the gold mining districts in the West were located by pioneers, many of whom were experienced gold miners from the southern Appalachian region, but even in colonial times only a small proportion of the gold seekers were successful. Over the past several centuries the country has been thoroughly searched by prospectors. During the depression of the 1930’s, prospectors searched the better known gold-producing areas throughout the Nation, especially in the West, and the little-known areas as well. The results of their activities have never been fully documented, but incomplete records indicate that an extremely small percentage of the total number of active prospectors supported themselves by gold mining. Of the few significant discoveries reported, nearly all were made by prospectors of long experience who were familiar with the regions in which they were working.

The lack of outstanding success in spite of the great increase in prospecting during the depression in the 1930’s confirms the opinion of those most familiar with the occurrence of gold and the development of gold mining districts that the best chances of success lie in systematic studies of known productive areas rather than in efforts to discover gold in hitherto unproductive areas. The development of new, highly sensitive, and relatively inexpensive methods of detecting gold, however, has greatly increased the possibility of discovering gold deposits which are too low grade to have been recognized earlier by the prospector using only a gold pan. These may be large enough to be exploited by modern mining and metallurgical techniques. The Carlin mine near Carlin, Nev., is producing gold from a large low-grade deposit that was opened in 1965 after intensive scientific and technical work had been completed. Similar investigations have led to the more recent discovery of a Carlin-type gold deposit in Jerritt Canyon, Nev.

Many believe that it is possible to make wages or better by panning gold in the streams of the West, particularly in regions where placer mining formerly flourished. However, most placer deposits have been thoroughly reworked at least twice–first by Chinese laborers, who arrived soon after the initial boom periods and recovered gold from the lower grade deposits and tailings left by the first miners, and later by itinerant miners during the 1930’s. Geologists and engineers who systematically investigate remote parts of the country find small placer diggings and old prospect pits whose number and wide distribution imply few, if any, recognizable surface indications of metal-bearing deposits were overlooked by the earlier miners and prospectors.

One who contemplates prospecting for gold should realize that a successful venture does not necessarily mean large profits even if the discovery is developed into a producing mine. Although the price of gold has increased significantly since 1967 when the fixed price of $35 an ounce was terminated, the increases in the cost of virtually every supply and service item needed in prospecting and mining ventures have kept profit margins at moderate levels, particularly for the small mine operator. In general, wide fluctuations in the price of gold are not uncommon, whereas inflationary pressures are more persistent. The producer of gold, therefore, faces uncertain economic problems and should be aware of their effects on his operation.

Today’s prospector must determine where prospecting is permitted and be aware of the regulations under which he is allowed to search for gold and other metals. Permission to enter upon privately owned land must be obtained from the land owner. Determination of land ownership and location and contact with the owner can be a time-consuming chore but one which has to be done before prospecting can begin.

Determination of the location and extent of public lands open to mineral entry for prospecting and mining purposes also is a time consuming but necessary requirement. National parks, for example, are closed to prospecting. Certain lands under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management may be entered for prospecting, but sets of rules and regulations govern entry. The following statement from a pamphlet issued in 1978 by the U.S. Department of the Interior and entitled “Staking a mining claim on Federal Lands” responds to the question “Where May I Prospect?”

There are still areas where you may prospect, and if a discovery of a valuable, locatable mineral is made, you may stake a claim. These areas are mainly in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Such areas are mainly unreserved, unappropriated Federal public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of the U.S. Department of the Interior and in national forests administered by the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Public land records in the proper BLM State Office will show you which lands are closed to mineral entry under the mining laws. These offices keep up-to-date land status plats that are available to the public for inspection. BLM is publishing a series of surface and mineral ownership maps that depict the general ownership pattern of public lands. These maps may be purchased at most BLM Offices. For a specific tract of land, it is advisable to check the official land records at the proper BLM State Office.

Successful gold mining under present conditions is a large-scale operation, utilizing costly and sophisticated machinery capable of handling many tons of low-grade ore each day. The grizzled prospector with a burro is no longer a significant participant in the search for mineral deposits, and the small producer accounts for only a minor share of the total production of metals including gold.

Some degree of success in finding gold still remains for those choosing favorable areas after a careful study of mining records and the geology of the mining districts. Serious prospecting should not be attempted by anyone without sufficient capital to support a long and possibly discouraging campaign of preliminary work. The prospective gold seeker must have ample funds to travel to and from the region he selects to prospect and to support the venture. He must be prepared to undergo physical hardships, possess a car capable of traveling the roughest and steepest roads, and not be discouraged by repeated disappointments. Even if a discovery of value is not found, the venture will have been interesting and challenging.

Placer Deposits

A placer deposit is a concentration of a natural material that has accumulated in unconsolidated sediments of a stream bed, beach, or residual deposit. Gold derived by weathering or other process from lode deposits is likely to accumulate in placer deposits because of its weight and resistance to corrosion. In addition, its characteristically sun-yellow color makes it easily and quickly recognizable even in very small quantities. The gold pan or miner’s pan is a shallow sheet-iron vessel with sloping sides and flat bottom used to wash gold-bearing gravel or other material containing heavy minerals. The process of washing material in a pan, referred to as “panning,” is the simplest and most commonly used and least expensive method for a prospector to separate gold from the silt, sand, and gravel of the stream deposits. It is a tedious, back-breaking job and only with practice does one become proficient in the operation.

Many placer districts in California have been mined on a large scale as recently as the mid-1950’s. Streams draining the rich Mother Lode region–the Feather, Mokelumne, American, Cosumnes, Calaveras, and Yuba Rivers–and the Trinity River in northern California have concentrated considerable quantities of gold in gravels. In addition, placers associated with gravels that are stream remnants from an older erosion cycle occur in the same general area.

Much of the gold produced in Alaska was mined from placers. These deposits are widespread, occurring along many of the major rivers and their tributaries. Some ocean beach sands also have been productive. The principal placer-mining region has been the Yukon River basin which crosses central Alaska. Dredging operations in the Fairbanks district have been the most productive in the State. Beach deposits in the Nome district in the south-central part of the Seward Peninsula rank second among productive placer deposits of Alaska. Other highly productive placers have been found in the drainage basin of the Copper River and of the Kuskokwim River.

Placer gold in glass vial.

In Montana, the principal placer-mining districts are in the southwestern part of the State. The most productive placer deposit in the State was at Alder Gulch near Virginia City in Madison County. Other important placer localities are on the Missouri River in the Helena mining district. The famous Last Chance Gulch is the site of the city of Helena. There are many districts farther south on the headwaters and tributaries of the Missouri River, especially in Madison County which ranks third in total gold production in the State. Gold has been produced at many places on the headwaters of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, particularly in the vicinity of Butte. Placer production from the Butte district, however, has been over-shadowed by the total output of byproduct gold recovered from the mining of lode deposits of copper, lead, and zinc.

Idaho was once a leading placer-mining State. One of the chief dredging areas is in the Boise Basin, a few miles northeast of Boise, in the west-central part of the State. Other placer deposits are located along the Salmon River and on the Clearwater River and its tributaries, particularly at Elk City, Pierce, and Orofino. Extremely fine-grained (or “flour”) gold occurs in sand deposits along the Snake River in southern Idaho. Placers in Colorado have been mined in the Fairplay district in Park County, and in the Breckenridge district in Summit County. In both areas large dredges were used during the peak activity in the 1930’s.

The most important mining regions of Oregon are in the northeastern part of the State where both lode and placer gold have been found. Placer gold occurs in many streams that drain the Blue and Wallowa Mountains. One of the most productive placer districts in this area is in the vicinity of Sumpter, on the upper Powder River. The Burnt River and its tributaries have yielded gold. Farther to the west, placer mining (particularly dredging) has been carried on for many years in the John Day River valley.

In southwestern Oregon, tributaries of the Rogue River and neighboring streams in the Klamath Mountains have been sources of placer gold. Among the main producing districts in this region are the Greenback district in Josephine County and the Applegate district in Jackson County.

Minor amounts of placer gold have been produced in South Dakota (the Black Hills region, particularly in the Deadwood area, and on French Creek, near Custer) and in Washington (on the Columbia and Snake Rivers and their tributaries).

In addition to these localities, placer gold occurs along many of the intermittent and ephemeral streams of arid regions in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and southern California. In many of these places a large reserve of low-grade placer gold may exist, but the lack of a permanent water supply for conventional placer mining operations requires the use of expensive dry or semidry concentrating methods to recover the gold.

In the eastern States, limited amounts of gold have been washed from some streams draining the eastern slope of the southern Appalachian region in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Many saprolite (disintegrated somewhat decomposed rock that lies in its original place) deposits in this general region also have been mined by placer methods. Small quantities of gold have been mined by placer methods in some New England States. Additional placer deposits may be discovered in the East, but prospecting will require substantial expenditures of time and money. The deposits probably will be low grade, difficult to recognize, and costly to explore and sample. Moreover, most of the land in the East is privately owned, and prospecting can be done only with the prior permission and agreement of the land owner.

Lode Gold

Lode gold occurs within the solid rock in which it was deposited. Areas likely to contain valuable lode deposits of gold have been explored so thoroughly that the inexperienced prospector without ample capital has little chance of discovering a new lode worth developing. Most future discoveries of workable lode gold ore probably will result from continued investigations in areas known to be productive in the past. The districts in which such new discoveries of gold may be possible are too numerous to be listed in detail in this pamphlet. Some of the famous districts are: in California, the Alleghany, Sierra City, Grass Valley, and Nevada City districts, and the Mother Lode belt; in Colorado, the Cripple Creek, Telluride, Silverton, and Ouray districts; in Nevada, the Goldfield, Tonopah, and Comstock districts; in South Dakota, the Lead district in the Black Hills; and in Alaska, the Juneau and Fairbanks districts. Deposits in these districts generally are gold-quartz lodes.

Prospecting for lode deposits of gold is not the relatively simple task it once was because most outcrops or exposures of mineralized rock have been examined and sampled. Today’s prospector must examine not only these exposures, but also broken rock on mine dumps and exposures of mineralized rock in accessible mine workings. Gold, if present, may not be visible in the rock, and detection will depend on the results of laboratory analyses. Usually, samples of 3 to 5 pounds of representative mineralized rock will be sent to a commercial analytical laboratory or assay office for assay. Obviously, knowledge about the geological nature of gold deposits and particularly of the rocks and deposits in the area of interest will aid the prospector.

I do a lot of research for this website and have posted information on many of these gold locations myself. I must say that Tom has insider information as to where to find gold in the State of Oregon. If you… as a internet user, find the information posted here at oregongold.net useful, then you will be wise to invest in this book. This book goes into much further detail, than the information posted on this website. The information he covers gives a rare, if ever seldom heard or read history that any true gold miner or prospector hungers to learn. After all, gold prospecting is part geology, part mystery and part treasure hunt, and in order to find the gold you must do your research and learn. This book is a very good research tool.

After doing much research, about many of these places where to find gold in Oregon, I am envious of the knowledge of information in this book. I told Tom I would not give away all his secrets in this book and would keep most of information I give away here to a minimum. But there is so much information I am just going to say, you need to buy the book to find out. This was not meant to be a sales pitch, but it looks like it turned out that way.  I fully can put my recommendation on this book, and I hope a few of you out there will check it out. I am sure you will be glad you did. To Tom, “I am sorry…you worked hard on this book and I just cannot bring myself to give away any of the information for free. Thanks for choosing oregongold.net to sell your Gold Panners Guides. Looking forward to seeing more in the future.

If you would like to purchase “Gold Panner’s Guide to the Oregon Cascades”, you may find it by clicking right here ——->  Gold Books

We also carry other mining and prospecting guides by Tom (T.H.) Bohmker as well as other gold mining and prospecting books.

]]> http://www.oregongold.net/gold-panners-guide-to-the-oregon-cascades-book-review/feed/ 0 http://www.oregongold.net/the-blue-river-mining-district/ http://www.oregongold.net/the-blue-river-mining-district/#comments Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:25:46 +0000 Oregon Gold http://www.oregongold.net/?p=602 The Blue River Mining District is primarily found in Lane and Linn Counties and consists of the Lucky Boy Group of mines and Rowena Mine (Callaghan and Buddington, 1938). The gold geology in this district is often compared to other Oregon Cascade Districts, such as Bohemia, Quartzville, and North Santiam. It is compared because of the amount of pyrite associated with gold in the quartz veins. They are also compared because the quartz veins are considered small and erratic without any explanation, such as is the case with the other districts.

The Blue River Mining District itself consists of a ridge of the Calapooya, Blue and McKenzie Rivers and is located about 45 miles east of Eugene. The ridge stands at about 4,500 ft and the north side has been heavily glaciated. On the north Calapooya side the gravel roads may be blocked by snow until June or July on most years, that lead up to the Lucky Boy Mine. At one time the Lucky Boy could be searched for hydro-quartz crystals, but from what I have been told, they do not allow explorers or gem hunters in the mines anymore.

A swift section of the Calapooya River

The Lucky Boy Mine was the largest gold mine and was discovered in 1887, and produced gold between 1898 and 1915. Other mines in the area, were worked around this time period including the Great Northern, the second largest producer (approx. 1,200 ounces), Cinderella Mine, Evening Mine, Great Eastern Mine, Higgins Mine, North Star Mine, Poorman Mine, Red Buck Mine, Sochwich Mine, and Treadwell Mine. Exposure of veins are generally poor and mainly consist of trenches or outcroppings with most of the gold belt vein being hard to find, or mostly underground.

The Cinderella Mine, was mined during the 1960’s in which 5 tons of ore averaged 1.84 ounces of gold per ton and 1.18 ounces of silver per ton. The price of gold at that time prevented serious development. The new vein discovery in 1992 at the Nimrod Mine was made.

The Bohemia Mining District ranks #1 for production for all Cascade Mining Districts as far as gold production is concerned. The Blue River District is ranked #3 right behind Quartzville followed by a few other districts who barely made it onto the list. These include, (might not be worth mentioning, but mentioned in order of rank) The Buzzard Mining District, North Santiam District, the Barron District, and the Salmon Creek District. I mentioned those areas for those who want to take their chances, even though gold production was not high.

Written by Robert E. Streiff

UPDATE 6/9/2013: The gorge of the Calapooya River in Linn County is blocked by a Weyerhaeuser gate on the western side near the town of Holley. It is a shame that Weyerhaeuser would block road access to public lands, but they do pay to maintain the roads going through their property. A year ago, I did enter the area on the Blue River side and according to maps there is a connecting road on the Sweet Home side of HWY 20 although I have never found that road, and have looked a few times. Edwin Waters, webmaster, OregonGold.net

Chickamin Mine – Private property – Beach Placer Claim – located at or near 43°16′60″N , 124°18′17″W

Eagle Mine – Beach Placer Claim – located at or near 43°11′43″N , 124°21′43″W

Fletcher Myers Property – Private Property – U. S. Mining Company- Beach Placer Claim – located at or near 43°13′37″N , 124°22′13″W

Geiger Creek Mines – Beach Placer Claim – near 43°5′55″N , 124°22′37″W

Iowa Mine – Beach Placer Claim – near 43°6′43″N , 124°22′9″W

Lane Extension Mine – Beach Placer Claim – near 43°11′20″N , 124°21′50″W

Pioneer Mine – Beach Placer Claim – near 43°11′42″N , 124°21′47″W

Rose Mine – Beach Placer Claim – near 43°13′14″N , 124°21′47″W

Sengstacken Occurrence – Beach Placer Claim – near 43°17′21″N , 124°17′59″W

Hard Rock Gold Mines in the Coos County Area

Independence Mine – Sixes River District – Host Rock= Serpentinite – near 42°42′12″N , 124°5′29″W

Johnson Creek Placers – Sixes River District – Host Rock= gravel – near 42°45′41″N , 124°6′30″W

Salmon Mountain Mine – Sixes River District – near 42°46′40″N , 124°8′50″W

My name is Kerby Jackson and I am a small scale gold miner, mining historian and author here in Josephine County. Some of you who attend monthly meetings of SWOMA at Pottsville or those of you who frequent online mining communities may know me from www.OregonGoldHunters.com or www.OregonGold.net where I frequently post information about the mining history of this region.
On the following pages, you will find information passed on to me by Mr. Randy Waters of Gold Beach pertaining to a Draft Resolution which the Board of County Commissioners of Curry County recently drafted which calls for seventeen miles of the Chetco River to be withdrawn from mineral entry. Their intent is to request the official support of Congressman Peter Defazio and Senators Wyden and Merkley to enact legislation that would upgrade the Chetco River’s current status as a Wild and Scenic River. Their document states that their request will have no negative impact on our right to engage in varying forms of small scale mining and other activities on the Chetco River, but as has been proven time and time again, we know that this is simply an untrue statement.
On the following pages, you will find a copy of the Draft Resolution written by the Curry County Board of Commissioners, as well as a copy of Randy’s letter to the board opposing their request.

As Randy will not be attending the March 2010 SWOMA meeting at Pottsville, I have taken it upon myself to distribute this information to the miners of this and other counties.

It is our hope, that all of you will take the time to read the accompanying information and to make your feelings known to the Board of Commissioners of Curry County, even if you are not a resident of that county. Please send them a written letter or an e-mail and inform them of your feelings and your concerns. (Written letters get more attention, by the way.)

Though I realize that many of you may feel that what goes on in Curry County may not personally affect you, it is important that we send a strong message to those who would attempt to violate our right to mine and make it clear that we will allow our enemies absolutely no leverage.

Write to them at:

George Rhodes RhodesG@co.curry.or.us

Bill Waddle WaddleB@co.curry.or.us

Georgia Nowlin NowlinG@co.curry.or.us

Or send a letter to:
Curry County Commisioners, PO Box 746 Gold Beach, Oregon 97444

May Your Pans Be Heavy,

Kerby Jackson
Josephine County, Oregon

E-mail: kerby@western-stories.com
Web: www.KerbyJackson.com

This just came across my e-mail: I had to type it all because it was in PDF file and I couldn’t copy. Please note my letter to the 3 commissioners in Curry County. If you all would slam them with letters, it might wake them up.

Draft Resolution

Protecting The National Wild and Scenic Chetco River: A National Treasure and a Key Local Asset.

Whereas the Wild and scenic Chetco River is a key asset to Curry County and our Wild Rivers Coast, providing for our commercial fishing industry, for our sport fishery (including the livelihoods of professional fishing guides), for other recreation of Curry County residents and visitors, and for a pure drinking water supply for the cities of Brookings and Harbor,

Whereas the Wild and Scenic Chetco River is nationally recognized for crystal clear water quality, for a world-class fishery, and for providing the unique recreational opportunity to catch large salmon and steelhead,

Whereas local citizens and local and state agencies have invested considerable effort and funds to restore and maintain fish habitat and water quality in the Chetco River,

Whereas emerging conditions now threaten to degrade the nationally outstanding qualities of the Wild and Scenic reaches of the Chetco River, including our local fishery,

Whereas upgrading the National Wild and Scenic designation would not effect valid rights on existing mineral claims, property of private landowners, timber harvest, recreational gold panning or gravel mining in the river downstream from the wild and scenic reach,

Therefore be it resolved that the Curry County Board of Commissioners urges Congressman Peter Defazio to reintroduce into the U.S. House of Representatives and enact into law his legislation that would upgrade protection for the National Wild and Scenic Chetco River by modifying river classifications on 3.5 miles of the National Wild and Scenic River, as recommended by the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, and by withdrawing from the new mineral entry 17 miles of National Wild and Scenic Chetco River classified as “Scenic” and “Recreational,” thereby fully protecting this critically important national and natural resource for current and future generations of citizens of Curry County, Oregon, and the United States.

Further be it resolved that the Curry County Board of Commissioners urges Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to introduce and enact into law companion legislation in the United States Senate.

On the following page is Randy’s letter to the Curry County Board of Commissioners.

George Rhodes: RhodesG@co.curry.or.us
Bill Waddle: WaddleB@co.curry.or.us
Georgia Nowlin: NowlinG@co.curry.or.us
PO Box 746 Gold Beach, Oregon 97444

I just read about the commission plannig to ask Representative DeFazio to enact a law closing mining on 17 miles of River and changing designations on other parts of the river. Let me bring to your attention the fact that dredging our rivers is very beneficial to all creatures that reside in our rivers. Dredging losens the hardpacked river bottom making it easier for fish to spawn and it releases nutrients into the water for fish and other residents to feed on. Dredging removes lead and mercury from our waters which is harmful to fish and other residents. Dredging removes gold from our rivers adding NEW money into our country. Dredging brings people from out of our area and they spend money in our communities. They need food, gasoline, machine parts, camping equipment and many other items to function. By closing our rivers to mining you are removing income in our communities. Dredging is only allowed when fish eggs and young fish are not in danger of injury or death. Why do you even consider designating more of our country OFF LIMITS.

Mr. Defazio has turned rogue and needs to be replaced. He has been instrumental in locking up a good portion of Oregon and with our Governors’ help and support, he is trying to close an additional 213 million acres so that I can’t go into these areas. You, the commissioners are aiding in our land and water removal. I ask you to rethink your decision concerning the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Randy L. Waters
Gold Beach, Or 97444

cowboy444

FREEDOM- is only for those with the guts to defend it!!!

One of the gold mines in the area was known as the Virginian Mine, which was reported to have had a pocket of quartz gold worth approximately $70,000 at that time. Other mines in the area were: the Morning Glory Mine, Phoenix Mine, Golden Gate Mine, Humbolt Mine, Gold Coin Mine, Don Juan Mine, Royal White Mine, Golden Eagle Mine, Black Hawk Mine, Rabbit Mine, Worley Mine, I.X.L. Mine and Red Bird Mine. These oregon gold locations are all found around the town of Robinsonville and the Greenhorn area. The Worley Mine was reported has one of the richest mines with it’s gold ore being estimated at $1,100 a ton.

The ghost town of Greenhorn City, or Greenhorn is located in both Grant and Baker County has it straddles the county lines. Although not easy to get to in the winter it is a good place to get out your metal detector. Miners first came to Old Greenhorn in 1864 or 1865 for the prospect of gold. Ten years later the town was relocated as just a mining camp. The town was incorporated in 1903. At that time Greenhorn was the highest town in the State of Oregon, with it’s county seat being in Baker County. The location on the map above is the newer location since it lasted much longer and is still referred to;  just Greenhorn. Robinsonville is located one mile to the east of Greenhorn. Mining laws prohibited Chinese from gold mining anywhere in the area. The area is mainly known for it’s underground mining, and like most mining towns, Greenhorn went extinct during World War II, but ironically still has a mayor.

The Honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-558-3160

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger

PLEASE VOTE NO ON BILL 670 (anti-suction dredging legislation)

I am a research biologist. I live in Philomath, Oregon. I worked for about 32 years as a research biologist for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, starting when that agency was known as the Federal Water Quality Agency, and I retired from the E.P.A. in 2002. Among other assignments, I measured and evaluated water soluble toxicants from Superfund sites. I spent about four years during my career with the E.P.A. serving as a faculty member at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon on an intergovernmental exchange program and developed a program and a laboratory for the practice of ecotoxicology, the science of determining the toxicity of samples of effluents and other environmental contaminants by measuring the reaction of living organism assemblages to such samples. I have served as a chairman of testing committees for the American Society for Testing and Materials. I have chaired a number of international symposia, workshops, and congresses in my field as well as been an invited speaker to numerous national and international professional scientific meetings in my field.

Looking for gold in California streams and rivers is a recreational activity for thousands of state residents, and a part-time or full-time job for hundreds more. As these miners remove sediments, sands, and gravel from streams and former mine sites to separate out the gold, they are also removing mercury. This mercury is the remnant of millions of pounds of pure mercury that was added to California rivers by historic mining operations between 1850 and 1890. Modern day small-scale gold suction dredgers do not use mercury to recover gold during the operation of the dredge. Therefore, any mercury that would be found in their possession would be that which was extracted from the stream or river they are working.

Taking mercury out of streams benefits the environment. Efforts to collect mercury from recreational gold miners in the past, however, have been stymied due to perceived regulatory barriers. Disposal of mercury is normally subject to all regulations applicable to hazardous waste.

In 2000, EPA and California’s Division of Toxic Substance Control worked in concert with other State and local agencies to find the regulatory flexibility needed to collect mercury in a simple and effective manner. In August and September 2000, the first mercury “milk runs” collected 230 pounds of mercury, most of which came from suction dredge miners. A Nevada County household waste collection event held in September 2000 collected about 10 pounds of mercury. The total amount of mercury collected was equivalent to the mercury load in 47 years worth of wastewater discharge from the city of Sacramento’s sewage treatment plant or the mercury in a million mercury thermometers. This successful pilot program demonstrates how recreational gold miners and government agencies can work together to protect the environment (US EPA, 2001).

In Washington State, over the past four years, the Resources Coalition and other small- scale miners associations have turned in 127 pounds of mercury and eight pounds of lead for safe disposal. This year, Ecology staff attended miners’ rallies in Oroville and Monroe, explaining the state’s program for proper disposal of lead and mercury.

In a September 18, 2007 news release from the Washington State Department of Ecology Brian Dick, a manager with Ecology’s hazardous waste and toxics reduction program stated, “That is 127 pounds of mercury no longer contaminating Washington’s waterways or being accidentally spilled”. He continued, “The miners have responded with great enthusiasm and have worked with Ecology to get the word out to their members about our collection program.” The results of this program further support the results of the 2000 EPA and California’s Division of Toxic Substance Control program.

Mercury occurs in several different geochemical forms, including elemental mercury, ionic (or oxidized) mercury, and a suite of organic forms, the most important of which is methylmercury. Methylmercury is the form most readily incorporated into biological tissues and is most toxic to humans. The process of mercury removal by suction dredging does not contaminate the environment because small-scale suction dredging removes elemental mercury. Removal of elemental mercury before it can be converted, by bacteria, to methylmercury is an important component of environmental and human health protection provided as a secondary benefit of suction dredging.

A 2005 staff report published by the State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Quality has raised quite a stir in the environmental community. This report concluded that a 4-inch gold suction dredge captures 98% of the mercury it sucks from the environment. It further states that portions of the 2% of mercury that escapes from the suction dredge is floured (i.e., in small particles), and that such mercury may travel many miles downriver where it may settle and become available for biological action by bacteria where it will be converted into methylmercury. I have reviewed this report in detail, and the parent material that was test-dredged in this study was already mercury contaminated; the researchers did not fully quantify the particle sizes of mercury in the sample. It seems obvious that the materials tested already contained floured mercury. Furthermore the site dredged was an area where mercury was accumulating or puddling. This site is not typical of areas in which gold dredges operate and does not represent what a miner would usually encounter..

This is consistent with other literature in the field. For example, a report titled “Preliminary Report on Mercury Geochemistry of Placer Gold Dredge Tailings, Sediments, Bedrock, and Waters in the Clear Creek Restoration Area, Shasta County, California” (Ashley et. el., 2002), states: “Mercury in sediment and tailings is associated with fine size fractions”.

Furthermore, the suggestion that the floured mercury, regardless of the source, would remain suspended for miles below the dredging site is not supported by any evidence of which I am aware, and is refuted by indirect evidence.

A study by the U.S. Geological survey reported that “mercury concentrations in Sulphur Creek, CA water and sediments decreased rapidly downstream from hot springs and mine areas indicating that mercury is not effectively transported during low stream flow” (Rytuba, Janik and Goff, 1966).

In 1997 a study of gold dredging impacts was undertaken in the Fortymile River, Alaska. In all of the suctionmined sites studied, dredges were operated by experienced miners. This study evaluated the impact of operations from 8- and 10-inch gold suction dredges. (Each 1-inch increase in the diameter of a dredge hose results in the doubling of the volume of material moved). In relation to the 4-inch dredge used in the California State Water Resources Control Board study, the Alaska 8-inch dredge moved 4-times more volume of material. Sampling was performed at fixed transects above and below the dredge locations. At the site using the 8-inch dredge, “the primary effects of water chemistry were increased turbidity, total filterable solids, and copper and zinc concentrations downstream of the dredge. These variables returned to upstream levels within 80-160 m downstream of the dredge. The results from this sampling revealed a relatively intense, but localized, decline in water clarity during the time the dredge was operating. The impact of suction dredging on water clarity and heavy metal concentrations may be greater or lesser than we measured, depending on the type of material the dredge is excavating”. Although mercury was not measured in this study the physical/chemical facts would indicate that suspended mercury would not travel farther than the measured plumes of this study (e.g., 8-inch dredge produced a plume from 80-160 m downstream of the dredge).

If we use copper and zinc as indicators of metals suspension within the water column we find that elevated concentrations fell to background concentrations 80-160 m downstream of the dredge. The density of copper and zinc are 8.94 and 7.14 g/cm3 respectively. The density of mercury is 13.534 g/cm3. Therefore, all other things being equal, the greater density (weight) of mercury would insure that it would fall out of suspension sooner that copper or zinc. Also, all of these water quality samples were associated with a turbidity plume. Even if the metals were somehow associated with particulate matter or sediment within the plume the metals still returned to background concentrations within 80-160 m downstream of the dredge.

The CA State Water Resources Control Board staff report presented results from a study conducted in a well established mercury “hotspot” in the American River—that is, a place where relatively large quantities of mercury from historic gold mining operations has come to rest, at least temporarily. Such spots can persist for many years before river flows release the materials further downstream to form new hotspots. The effects of dredging into a mercury hotspot has little relevance to ordinary gold suction dredging along the many miles of rivers and streams throughout the Western States. Generally, miners occasionally find very small quantities of mercury in their collected materials. What mercury is collected is usually bound to (amalgamated with) other metals, including gold.

On balance, suction dredges provide a net environmental benefit by removing nearly all of any mercury they encounter. If not removed, such mercury will slowly but eventually migrate downstream, dredging or no dredging, to areas where it is more likely to be converted into methylmercury. To the extent that regulatory authorities would prefer to leave the mercury in place for removal by public agencies at public expense when and if such activity is a budget priority, they might require reporting of hotspots (many are already well-known) and forbid suction dredgers from operating in them. Inasmuch as public authorities have no better method to remove the mercury than suction dredges, this seems pointless.

Literature Cited

Ashley, R.P., J.J. Rytuba, R. Rogers, B.B. Kotlyar and D. Lawler, 2002, Preliminary Report on Mercury
Geochemistry of Placer Gold Dredge Tailings, Sediments, Bedrock, and Waters in the Clear
Creek Restoration Area, Shasta County, California, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S.
Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA. Open-File Report 02-401
Humphreys, R., 2005, Losses and Recovery During a Suction Dredge Test in the South Fork of the
American River. Staff Report, State Water Resources Control Board, Division of Water Quality.
Prussian, A.M., T.V. Royer, and G.W. Minshall. 1999. Impact of Suction Dredging on Water Quality,
Benthic Habitat, and Biota in the Fortymile River, Resurrection Creek, and Chatanika River,
Alaska. U.S. EPA Report, Region 10, Seattle, WA.
Rytuba, J., C. Janik, and F. Goff. 1996. Transport of Mercury in Sulphur Creek, CA. U.S. Geological Survey,
Presentation given at the USGS Workshop on Mercury Cycling in the Environment.

http://toxics.usgs.gov/pubs/hg/abstracts.html.

US EPA, 2001. Mercury Recovery from Recreational Gold Miners.

http://www.epa.gov/region09/cross_pr/innovations/merrec.html

WA DOE, 2007, Miners Remove Gold Rush Mercury from Washington Streams. Washington State
Department of Ecology, Hazardous Waste and Toxics Reduction Program, Yakima, Washington

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2007/2007-09-18-096.asp

Sincerely, Joseph C. Greene
Research Biologist

The four friends who first discovered gold in 1858, lacked real knowledge on how to capture good amounts of gold and decided that two of them should travel to Josephine County; a already well established mining district, to observe and take notes from other miners. When they returned they built a sluice box and on Sharps Creek and the amount they were taking quadrupled and made it much more profitable to work. The very next year the four friends split up once again, this time to test the other streams in the area. In many of the streams there was no sign of gold, but the story was not over there.

An outlaw known by some as Bohemia Johnson, who was on the run and hiding from the law for killing an Indian in Roseburg, found gold in quartz in a stream 3/4 of a mile from the south side of Mount Bohemia. The gold-quartz was found in creek known as City Creek.  Bohemia Johnson did not start mining. Instead he eventually made his way back to Cottage Grove and told of his discovery. The next summer in 1864, gold prospectors and want-a-be gold miners poured into the Mount Bohemia area, including the original four who had first discovered gold in Sharps Creek.

Even though Bohemia Johnson had spilled the beans that led to the gold boom, ironically it was Bohemia Johnson who located the first lode deposit. Today his discovery is known as the Mystery Mine. He reported that he found a pocket of gold that gave out six feet of depth. Many believed that Bohemia Johnson secretly found his gold elsewhere, which gave arise to the name Mystery Mine. Many people have searched for the so-called true Mystery Mine and it has never been reported as being found, if it exists.

The Musick Mine

Several lode gold mines have been dug in the area with it’s gold being found in quartz outcropping located along the ridges of the five mile long Bohemia Mining area. Many lode mines were located under the creeks and streams that the four friends had tested, but had found no gold. Little did they know it was right under their feet. After the initial boom, the gold started to dry up and people left the area around 1877.

In 1889,  the Bohemia Mining Camp was rebuilt. Two years later a well-known  gold miner from California known as James Musick, came to Bohemia City looking for investment opportunities and found the richest quartz vein in the whole district. The location of his claim was a stone’s throw away from the Bohemia City Mining Camp.  Ten years later the Musick Mine was sold for $85,000 (3 million dollars in today’s values) to form the Calapooya Mining and Tunnel Company who also owned Champion Mine (Evening Star Mine) and Helena Mines.

A much older William Oglesby, discovered the Annie Mine located near the summit of Grouse Mountain, next to another mine known as the Knott Mine. the Annie Mine produced roughly about $26,000 in gold at 1890 prices in two years. The Helena Mine has a interesting story. It is said that a photographer from Cottage Grove got gold fever and asked if he could find some gold for a hobby (in today’s terminology: a weekend gold prospector) and someone told him to try a place along Annie Trail; a place thought to already have been tested and nothing but really fine powder gold was found previously. His name was C.B. Bruneau. He did just that, but he found more than fine flour gold. Later four claims were filed and he had discovered the richest per ton of ore at that time, valued at $30,000 per ton of ore.

Today you have to be very careful about where you prospect, as a lot of places are claimed up in the area. You should do your homework, before you head out.

Located in the western side of Josephine County, between latitude 42′13′ and 42′29′ N, longitude 123′38′ and 124′05′ W, the Illinois district had a total production in 1852-1953, between 5,000 and 10,000 ounces of Oregon placer gold along the Illinois River downstream from the mouth of Josephine Creek, and were very productive. The Illinois River and tributaries  were worked almost continuously from 1852 to 1942, and actively continues today by hobbyist gold prospectors and serious miners. The river flows west into Curry County.

Some of the tributaries such as Althouse Creek and Briggs Creek have already been described and Josephine Creek will be described here. The first discovery of was made in 1850 and was made at the mouth of Josephine Creek and not long later Josephine Creek and it’s tributaries. Canyon Creek, Days Creek, and Fiddler Gulches, were places where gold mining was quite productive. The bedrock is decomposed serpentine, and aside from gold and platinum group metals in the waterway, gold is also found in two partially cemented gravel benches. The highest of which is 150 above the current stream level. These gravels were worked by hydraulic methods as well as, by drifting . Up to 20,000 ounces of Oregon gold was recovered. Between 1886 and 1911, considerable gold was recovered using hydraulic methods from a broad gravel bench on both sides of the Illinois River below it’s junction with Josephine Creek.

Much of the gold and platinum group metals found in the Illinois River and it’s tributaries came from mineralized zones in the district where there were small lode gold mines. Near the headwaters of the Illinois River where you would find Waldo, the famed “”Sailors’ Diggings” can be found. The Sailors dug a 41 mile ditch to bring water for the huge hydraulic and sluicing operation that soon followed. The placer mining continued into 1942, with intermittent activity into the present. This area is noted for large nuggets.

On Jack Creek and nearby Horse Creek in the Josephine Creek area, placers were worked extensively before 1910. No official records were found by the author on the total production of these two creeks.

Early Jackson County

Extract from -

“Mines & Mining in the States and Territories West of the Rockies”
U.S. Commision of mining statistics, 1870

СHAРТЕR XXIX.
JACKSON COUNTY.

I am indebted for much valuable information concerning this county to Mr. Silas J. Day, of Jacksonville, whose character and long acquaintance with the neighborhood give ground for confidence in the correctness of his statements, many of which are also confirmed by my personal observation.

The population of the county is about six thousand six hundred, of whom six hundred are Chinese, principally engaged in mining. The number of white miners, according to the books of the county assessor, is five hundred. The latter receive, when hired, from $2.50 to $3 coin per day. The wages of a Chinese laborer are $1.25 to $1.50 per day, or $35 per month.

The following is a brief account of the principal mining districts in the county:

Jacksonville district, including both forks of Jackson Creek and its tributaries, was organized in 1851. The mines hitherto worked have been placers, with some coarse gold.

Applegate Creek, ten miles in a southerly direction from Jacksonville, is a considerable stream, on which a saw-mill has been erected. It is a tributary of Rogue River. The district of this name was organized in 1853. The mining operations on Applegate Creek have been quite extensive. The gold is found mainly on the “bars” of the creek, which for a distance of four miles were very rich. They are now principally worked by Chinese. Water is obtained from a large ditch brought from the creek four miles above the bars, and now owned by Kasper Kubli.

Sterlingville district, about eight miles due south from Jacksonville, was organized in 1851. This has been, and is still, a thriving mining camp. The gold in the placers is coarse. The supply of water, however, is limited, as there is no ditch in the district which taps any considerable stream.

Bunkum district, on the other hand, a southern extension of Sterlingville district, has an abundant supply of water during most of the year, brought in three ditches from the North Fork of Applegate Creek.

Foots Creek district was organized in 1853. The stream from which it takes its name is a tributary of Rogue River, situated about fifteen miles northwest from Jacksonville. The mines are coarse gold diggings.

Evans’s Creek and Pleasant Creek districts are contiguous to each other, about ten miles north of Foot’s Creek. The coarse gold diggings of these districts are worked principally by the hydraulic process, for which the necessary supply of water is furnished by the streams named in abundance during the rainy season. Both these districts were organized in 1856.

Forty-nine diggings, eight miles southeast from Jacksonville ; organized in 1858. The gold is inferior in quality, and worth only about $12 per ounce. Water is supplied by a ditch from Anderson and Wagner Creeks.

The mining laws of all these districts are copied from those of Yreka, in California. The tax on foreign miners (by which only the Chinese are understood) is $10 annually per capita. There is also an annual poll-tax of $5 on all mulatoes, Chinamen, and negroes.

The first discovery of gold in Jackson County is said to have been made in the autumn of 1852, by James Cluggage, on Rich Gulch, a tributary of Jackson Creek. Both in the gulch and in the creek large nuggets were, in the earlier days of the mining industry of this neighborhood, frequently found. One piece of solid gold, worth $900, was taken from the latter stream, and many were obtained ranging in value from $10 to $40, and up to $100. These discoveries led to the development of a considerable mining industry, in which, however, no great amount of capital was invested. The claims in the county are, with the exception of the bars and a few quartz claims, mentioned below, generally placer and gravel diggings. The heavy wash gravel ranges from two to twelve and even twenty feet in thickness, and contains a large amount of stones, and even rocks of considerable size. This is especially the case on Jackson Creek. The bed rock is slate or granite—the former predominating. Water is supplied principally by the rains of the wet season, which swell the local streams. There are few mining ditches in the county, and none of great magnitude, the length being generally from one to four miles, and in no case exceeding the latter figure. The mines are therefore directly dependent upon the duration of the season of rains. This lasts usually from December 15 to June 1. The mining season for the year ending June 30, 1869, was, however, here, as elsewhere, a very short one, owing to the extreme dryness of the winter. The season opened about the loth of January, and was over by the middle of May. When I visited the county, early in August, nothing was doing except by some of the Chinese, who were painfully overhauling the dirt heaps and carrying the earth to water. The average annual product of Jackson County in gold dust for the last five years has been, according to good authority, $210,000. I estimate the product for the year ending June 30, 1868, in spite of the brevity of the season, at $200,000, since the patient labor of the Chinese, of whom there are a considerable number working for themselves, has made up the deficiency of the season. They have produced not less than $75,000 during the year referred to. The product for the calendar year 1868 is practically the same as I have given, since the period of active operations fell wholly within 1869.

Some very rich quartz ledges have been discovered in this county, and I do not doubt that this, like so many other placer-mining regions, will eventually become the scene of extended deep-mining operations. No quartz veins, however, so far as I could learn, have been worked in Jackson County with capital, perseverance, and judgment adequate to fully prove their values, though in several instances large profits have been realized from operations near the surface.

One of these instances is presented by the celebrated Gold Hill vein, situated ten miles northwest of Jacksonville, and discovered in January 1859. The ore is white, almost transparent quartz, and, in the pocket first exposed, was highly charged with free gold. Some rock taken from the ledge was so knit together with threads and masses of gold that when broken the pieces would not separate. The vein was worked rudely for a year, and the ore crushed principally in an arrastra. The sum of $400,000 was thus extracted, besides a large amount of extremely valuable specimens, one of which was presented by Maury and Davis, merchants of Jacksonville, to the Washington Monument, and now, I am informed, occupies a place in that structure. But the pocket became exhausted ; subsequent operations failed to find paying rock, and the work has been suspended for some years. The property is now owned by a few shareholders, who intend to resume mining at some future time.

The Fowler lode, at Steamboat City, twenty miles from Jacksonville, is also at present lying idle. This ledge was very rich near the surface, where the rock was considerably disintegrated. The contents of a rich chimney or pocket were extracted, and crushed in arrastras run with horse-power. Major J. T. Glenn, one of the owners, says $350,000 were taken out.
Arrastras were erected at a ledge on Thompson’s Creek, a tributary of Applegate, to work the ore extracted, but the rock did not pay, and it was finally abandoned. The Khively ledge, on a tributary of Jackson Creek, has had a similar history.
At present there is but one quartz vein worked in the county. It is being developed by a few men as a prospecting scheme. They carry the quartz about a mile, to the Occidental mill, where they have already had about 100 tons treated, realizing about $1,000, or $10 per ton.

There are three quartz mills in the county, all driven by steam. The Jewett mill, on the south side of Rogue River, was erected sir years ago in connection with a ledge of the same name. It had eight stamps, and 32 horse-power. The investment was not profitable, professedly because the gold was too fine to be saved, and the mill is not a steam saw-mill. A mill similar to the foregoing was put up seven years ago at the forks of Jackson Creek. It cost $8,000, and was intended for custom work, but did not pay, and is now owned by Hopkins & Co. as a sawmill.

The Occidental mill, on the right fork of Jackson Creek, was built four years ago by a company at a cost of $10,000. It has ten stamps, and 40 horse-power, was made at the Miner’s foundry, San Francisco, and has a daily crushing capacity of 20 tons. The machinery includes two rotary pans.

The cost of mining materials in this county is not excessive. Lumber is worth at the mill from $18 to $22.50 per thousand feet, according to quality ; quicksilver, $1 per pound ; blasting powder, 33 cents per pound. Freight is generally shipped from San Francisco to Crescent City, California, and hauled from there in wagons to Jacksonville, at a total expense, including commissions, incurance, etc., of about 5 cents per pound. This enhances the cost of machinery and of some supplies. As a general rule, Jackson County receives no freight overland from Portland or Sacramento.

There are several good salt springs in the county. One at the headwaters of Evans Creek has been worked with profit for several years past by Messrs. Brown and Fuller. The salt is said to be white and pure, and commands a good price in the local market. Two beds of mineral coal have been discovered in the county. One on Evans Creek, about ten miles from the salt-works, produces a superior coal, which is used by the blacksmiths of the county. It is comparatively free from shale, and is locally known as anthracite. The bed is owned by Mr. R. H. Duulap, of Ashland. Large quantities of iron ore occur in many places throughout the county, on the surface of the ground. Some specimens from Big Bar, on Rogue River, were analyzed in San Francisco, and found to be quite pure. Cinnabar is reported, but not in paying quantity, from Missouri Gulch, a tributary of Jackson Creek.

NOTES:

There is a lot of information presented here, some of it quite accurate, some of it less than accurate. And unlike the previous section on Josephine, quite a lot has actually changed especially in regards to gold mining in Jackson County.

One item which is inaccurate, pertains to the first discovery of gold in Jackson County, which the above article reports was made by James Cluggage in the Fall of 1852 on Rich Gulch, which is described as a “tributary of Jackson Creek”. For starters, as I mentioned in the previous article (“A Rich Strike at Rich Gulch“), James Cluggage had a partner. His name was John R. Poole, and he and Cluggage owned a company called Jackass Freight. Secondly, they actually made their discovery in late December 1851 or early January of 1852 and Rich Gulch is actually a tributary of Daisy Creek and not Jackson Creek. (Cluggage and Poole did, however, extend their search to Jackson Creek and inside of a month, this creek was crawling with miners. As late as the 1950’s, Jackson Creek was still being heavily worked on a large scale and yielding good returns.)

Another inaccuracy is the mention of the Jewett Mill, which though the author was correct about its description, it was actually located on Mt. Baldy here in Josephine County – about five miles west of the Jackson County line. As well, though it may not have been profitable in 1870, the Jewitt Mine and its mill later became a major lode mine in this county. There are still active gold mines on Mt. Baldy today, but the activity is restricted to small operations.

Surpsingly, the author neglected to mention the Humbug Mining District, which was established March 24th, 1860 (see my previous entry). Also neglected was the Kane Creek Mining District (established November, 1860), the JackAss Creek Diggings District (March 1860, which mostly duplicated the Humbug District laws), the Lower JackAss Creek District (1863), the notorious Wines Camp District (1867), Boardman’s Diggings District (1867) and the Union Town Disrict (1870).

The Applegate River (often reffered to as a “creek” in old literature) is still a major gold bearing waterway, along with the following gold bearing tributaries (all located on the Jackson County side) and listed in order, from east to west:

Elliot Creek, Carberry Creek, Manzanita Creek, Grouse Creek, Squaw Creek, French Gulch, Kanaka Gulch, Kinney Creek, Mule Creek, Palmer Creek, Beaver Creek, Star Gulch, Flume Gulch, China Gulch and Boaz Gulch, all located south of the Little Applegate River, which enters the Applegate River in Section 10 of 39 South, 3 West. This section of the Applegate contains the majority of modern day gold mining activity. At Tunnel Ridge and Little Applegate, there are two public gold panning areas maintained by BLM. (download brochure here)

The Little Applegate River and its tributaries, historically, was a major gold bearing area encompassing both the Sterlingville and Buncom Districts. As most of this area is today private, little to no mining takes place in this area now. It should also be noted that the gold in this particular area contains quite a lot of of silver and often has a whiteish color (hence the local name Sterling). As a consequence, gold from this vicinity fetches a much lower price than the area listed above.

Downstream of the Little Applegate, the following tributaries are also gold bearing:

Rock Gulch, Spencer Gulch, Bishop Creek, China Gulch, Matney Gulch, Long Gulch, Chapman Creek, Keeler Creek, Humbug Creek, Thompson Creek, Ferris Gulch and part of Slagle Creek.

This is not meant to include the gold bearing Applegate tributaries located in Josephine County.

Kerby Jackson, Josephine County, Oregon

The picture famous Grave Creek covered bridge

Tom East Creek, which drains the area of the Greenback Lode Mine, produced over 25,000 ounces of placer gold after 1897. A dragline excavator was used for awhile on Coyote Creek east of the village of Wolf Creek. Considerable placer gold remains to be mined in the region. Northeast of Grants Pass about 18 miles and 5 miles East of I-5 at Grave Creek bridge, in the Northeast part of the county from Winona to King Mountain, the Greenback Tri-County District can be found (A group of lode gold mines along adjacent boundaries of Douglas County and Jackson County).Along Grave Creek and tributary Coyote Creek and Wolf Creek; extensive placers are found, especially for gold dredging on the south side of Grave Creek. Upstream from Leland you will find the largest operations County history.

Grave Creek is roughly about 30 miles long and is a tributary of the Rogue River. Grave Creek starts near Cedar Springs Mountain just north of the Douglas County/Jackson County border and flows approximately southwest through Jackson County and Josephine County to its confluence with the Rogue River.

Humbug Creek

Humbug Creek is a little known area to gold prospectors in Oregon, but in its day, it was the center of a major gold rush in Jackson County.

Today, one can access this great old gold creek by following Oregon State Highway 238 (The Williams Highway) and following Humbug Creek Road which is located just due east of the community of Applegate, Oregon. (Take note that much of this area is now private property and care should be taken to respect the rights of the property owners along the creek).

Like most creeks in Jackson County, gold was discovered relatively early on in and around Humbug Creek. In fact, enough gold was found by early miners that during the late 1850’s, a small mining camp sprung up along its banks and by March of 1860, the Humbug Mining District was established, using the following camp laws (mostly adopted from those used over the state border in Yreka, California):

The Mining Laws Of Humbug Creek

Article 1st
Size of Claims

Each man shall hold a claim 100 yards square by preemption and as much by purchase as he represents.

Article 2nd
Priority of Water Rights

The oldest claim shall have the first right to the water but shall run no water by unnecessarily to keep others from using it.

Article 3rd
Necessary Work to Hold Claim

No claim shall be considered forfeited if worked one day in every five during the time there is a good ground sluice head in the creek.

Article 4th
Restriction on Dams, Etc.

No person or company shall put a dam, reservoir or any obstruction in the creek, provided it is a damage to those above said obstruction.

Article 5th
Flood-gate for Dams to Be Kept Open

Any person or company putting in a reservoir shall have a flood gate five feet in breadth and three feet hight [sic] which shall be kept open as long as there is a good sluice head in the creek for washing up.

Article 6th
Recorder; Fee; When Claim Must Be Recorded

There shall be a recorder elected and he shall be allowed One dollar per claim for recording. Any person leaving the Creek to be gone two months shall have their claims recorded.

Article 7th
Judicial Power

Any person or persons violating any of these resolutions or by-laws shall abide the decision of a miners’ meeting.

Article 8th
Chinese Excluded

No Chinaman shall be allowed to purchase or hold any claim on this Creek.

Article 9th
Adoption of Resolutions

Resolved, the foregoing articles shall come into effect as Laws of this Creek on or after and from the twentieth day of March A. D. 1860.

J. F. Headrick, Chairman,
V. P. Comstock,
Jas. W. Mee,
E. Thompson,

Committee on Resolutions
Francis Sackett, Secretary
John Goff, Recorder.

This document was filed and recorded with the Jackson County Clerk in Jacksonville on March 24th, 1860.

Several notable mines were located in this district, including:

The Wright Mine (Lat. 42.25537, Long. -123.1442) which was a medium sized underground prospect that was active until it was shut down in 1942 by Government Limitation Order 208. In addition to gold, the Wright also yielded silver, zinc and lead.

The Nonesuch (Lat. 42.25037, Long. -123.1394) , which was also a medium sized underground mine. In addition to gold, silver was also mined in the Nonesuch. Like the Wright, it was shut down in 1942.

The Scott (Lat. 42.26117, -123.13), also a prospect of medium size, but unlike the above two, the Scott was a surface mine. Most of its activity was in the 1930’s.

The Victor (Lat. 42.27097, -123.1517), which was a well known and very profitable operation dating from before 1940. Like the Scott, the Victor was a surface mine.

The Broken Heart (Lat. 42.27007, Long. -123.1283), another medium sized underground producer.

The Ace of Hearts (Lat. 42.27757,  Long. -123.1203), which was a medium sized underground operation yielding gold and silver.

The Oregon Belle (Lat. 42.28817, Long. -123.1006), which is a rather famous mine and a fine producer of lode gold. Located due east of Humbug Creek.

The Sundown (Lat. 42.28317, Long. -123.1047),  yet another surface mine, located due south of the Oregon Belle. Also east of Humbug Creek.

The Grange Gulch (Lat. 42.25227, Long. -123.1208), which yielded gold and silver until 1942.

Finally are the Humbug Creek Placers (Lat. 42.26707, Long. -123.1389) which between the 1860’s and the 1940’s had many names, including the Benson Placer, the Johnston Placer, Exter, Pittock and the Kubli Ranch. This last name is attributed to Kaspar Kubli, a very early pioneer in the Applegate Valley. This last operation ran a drag line dredge up Humbug Creek.

Kerby Jackson, Josephine County, Oregon

Old Channel Mine

If you see this sign you will know your in the right place.

There are a number of old lode gold mines in the Galice district, and those mineralized zones supplied most of the placer gold deposits found in the area. The Galice district, including Mount Reuben, had a total production of around 268,000 gold ounces. The local placer operations include the Ankeny Mine, Courtney Mine, Carnegie Mine, California-Oregon Mine, and Last Chance Mines.

The hillside just West of the Galice Range (approximately 1/4 to 1/2 miles wide, extending 4 miles to the Southwest), patches of gravel benches about 500 feet above present day streams as dissected by tributaries of Galice Creek there is placer gold. The “High Bench Gravels” along both sides of the Rogue River are gold bearing, but not much worked at this time. Downstream you will find the Dean and Dean placer Mine, and the Rocky Gulch placer Mine. In Hellgate Canyon, the Hellgate placers, were very productive. Along Galice Creek there are many rich placers. The Chinese also worked in the area.

Near these sites: If you go 21 miles Southwest of Glendale in Douglas County, in section 22, 23, and 27 of Township 33S and Range 8W, you will find the Benton Mine, near Mount Reuben. It was found in 1893 and is the largest underground mine in Oregon. It was closed in 1942. The Almeda Mine, Gold Bug Mine, Oriole Mine, Black Bear Mine, and Robertson (Bunker Hill) Mines, were important producers of lode gold in the area.

Miners cabin on Galice creek

Galice Creek

Gold is relatively scarce in the earth, but it occurs in many different kinds of rocks and in many different geological environments. Though scarce, gold is concentrated by geologic processes to form commercial deposits of two principal types: lode (primary) deposits and placer (secondary) deposits.

Lode deposits are the targets for the “hardrock” prospector seeking gold at the site of its deposition from mineralizing solutions. Geologists have proposed various hypotheses to explain the source of solutions from which mineral constituents are precipitated in lode deposits.

One widely accepted hypothesis proposes that many gold deposits, especially those found in volcanic and sedimentary rocks, formed from circulating ground waters driven by heat from bodies of magma (molten rock) intruded into the Earth’s crust within about 2 to 5 miles of the surface. Active geothermal systems, which are exploited in parts of the United States for natural hot water and steam, provide a modern analog for these gold-depositing systems. Most of the water in geothermal systems originates as rainfall, which moves downward through fractures and permeable beds in cooler parts of the crust and is drawn laterally into areas heated by magma, where it is driven upward through fractures. As the water is heated, it dissolves metals from the surrounding rocks. When the heated waters reach cooler rocks at shallower depths, metallic minerals precipitate to form veins or blanket-like ore bodies.

Another hypothesis suggests that gold-bearing solutions may be expelled from magma as it cools, precipitating ore materials as they move into cooler surrounding rocks. This hypothesis is applied particularly to gold deposits located in or near masses of granitic rock, which represent solidified magma.

A third hypothesis is applied mainly to gold-bearing veins in metamorphic rocks that occur in mountain belts at continental margins. In the mountain-building process, sedimentary and volcanic rocks may be deeply buried or thrust under the edge of the continent, where they are subjected to high temperatures and pressures resulting in chemical reactions that change the rocks to new mineral assemblages (metamorphism). This hypothesis suggests that water is expelled from the rocks and migrates upwards, precipitating ore materials as pressures and temperatures decrease. The ore metals are thought to originate from the rocks undergoing active metamorphism.

The primary concerns of the prospector or miner interested in a lode deposit of gold are to determine the average gold content (tenor) per ton of mineralized rock and the size of the deposit. From these data, estimates can be made of the deposit’s value. One of the most commonly used methods for determining the gold and silver content of mineralized rocks is the fire assay. The results are reported as troy ounces of gold or silver or both per short avoirdupois ton of ore or as grams per metric ton of ore.

Placer deposits represent concentrations of gold derived from lode deposits by erosion, disintegration or decomposition of the enclosing rock, and subsequent concentration by gravity.

Gold is extremely resistant to weathering and, when freed from enclosing rocks, is carried downstream as metallic particles consisting of “dust,” flakes, grains, or nuggets. Gold particles in stream deposits are often concentrated on or near bedrock, because they move downward during high-water periods when the entire bed load of sand, gravel, and boulders is agitated and is moving downstream. Fine gold particles collect in depressions or in pockets in sand and gravel bars where the stream current slackens. Concentrations of gold in gravel are called “pay streaks.”

In gold-bearing country, prospectors look for gold where coarse sands and gravel have accumulated and where “black sands” have concentrated and settled with the gold. Magnetite is the most common mineral in black sands, but other heavy minerals such as cassiterite, monazite, ilmenite, chromite, platinum-group metals, and some gem stones may be present.

Placer deposits have formed in the same manner throughout the Earth’s history. The processes of weathering and erosion create surface placer deposits that may be buried under rock debris. Although these “fossil” placers are subsequently cemented into hard rocks, the shape and characteristics of old river channels are still recognizable.

The content of recoverable free gold in placer deposits is determined by the free gold assay method, which involves amalgamation of gold-bearing concentrate collected by dredging, hydraulic mining, or other placer mining operations. In the period when the price of gold was fixed, the common practice was to report assay results as the value of gold (in cents or dollars) contained in a cubic yard of material. Now results are reported as grams per cubic yard or grams per cubic meter.

Through laboratory research, the U.S. Geological Survey has developed new methods for determining the gold content of rocks and soils of the Earth’s crust. These methods, which detect and measure the amounts of other elements as well as gold, include atomic absorption spectrometry, neutron activation, and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry. These methods enable rapid and extremely sensitive analyses to be made on large samples.

In the past two decades, low-grade disseminated gold deposits have become increasingly important. More than 75 such deposits have been found in the Western States, mostly in Nevada. The first major producer of this type was the Carlin deposit, which was discovered in 1962 and started production in 1965. Since then many more deposits have been discovered in the vicinity of Carlin, and the Carlin area now comprises a major mining district with seven operating open pits producing more than 1,500,000 troy ounces of gold per year.

About 15 percent of the gold produced in the United States has come from mining other metallic ores. Where base metals- -such as copper, lead, and zinc–are deposited, either in veins or as scattered mineral grains, minor amounts of gold are commonly deposited with them. Deposits of this type are mined for the predominant metals, but the gold is also

recovered as a byproduct during processing of the ore. Most byproduct gold has come from porphyry deposits, which are so large that even though they contain only a small amount of gold per ton of ore, so much rock is mined that a substantial amount of gold is recovered. The largest single source of byproduct gold in the United States is the porphyry deposit at Bingham Canyon, Utah, which has produced about 18 million troy ounces of gold since 1906.

Geologists examine all factors controlling the origin and emplacement of mineral deposits, including those containing gold. Igneous and metamorphic rocks are studied in the field and in the laboratory to gain an understanding of how they came to their present location, how they crystallized to solid rock, and how mineral-bearing solutions formed within them.

Studies of rock structures, such as folds, faults, fractures, and joints, and of the effects of heat and pressure on rocks suggest why and where fractures occurred and where veins might be found. Studies of weathering processes and transportation of rock debris by water enable geologists to predict the most likely places for placer deposits to form. The occurrence of gold is not capricious; its presence in various rocks and its occurrence under differing environmental conditions follow natural laws. As geologists increase their knowledge of the mineralizing processes, they improve their ability to find gold.

There are more Marion County gold locations in the Clackamas County section.

From Starky, go to the Southwest to the North end of the Elkhorn Range. Near the North boundary of Bald Mountain and near the head of the Grande Ronde River, especially in Tanners gulch, is where the Camp Carson Placer mine is located. It was extensively hydraulicked. According to a mining report from 1903, there was a lot of platinum found, in addition to gold, in the area of Camp Carson, especially in Carson Channel.

Cluggage and Poole

Following the first discovery of gold in Oregon on Josephine Creek, in late December of 1851 or early January of 1852, packers John R. Poole and James Cluggage who owned a company called Jackass Freight, were packing supplies from the Willamette Valley to Sacramento, California. The two men decided to camp near the present site of Jacksonville, Oregon. Needing water for their animals, the two men headed up the gulch (a tributary of Daisy Creek) and choosing a likely looking place, began digging a hole in the hope that it would fill with enough water to give their mules a drink. Having moved a little bit of material, they spotted pieces of color in the hole that were large enough to be visible to the eye. The two men had accidentily stumbled into one of the largest gold strikes in Oregon history.

They called their find Rich Gulch and soon extended their search to nearby Jackson Creek, where they found extensive amounts of course placer gold throughout its gravels. With great foresight, the two men filed on the land adjoining their find, laid out a townsite and both became wealthy, influential men in the brand new community of Table Rock City, Oregon Territory. Today, we know the town that they founded by its current name: Jacksonville.

Rich Gulch, January 2010

Miners flocked into the area and Jacksonville promptly grew into the largest community north of San Francisco, its size soon exceeding that of Oregon’s Territorial Capital of Salem. Jacksonville was named the county seat of Jackson County. Major gold strikes were made throughout the area surrounding Jacksonville, most notably on Jackson and Daisy Creeks and thousands of ounces of gold, in both nugget and dust form flowed into town, bringing instant wealth to both miners and merchants alike. One resident who became very wealthy indeed was local banker C.C. Beekman, who’s Beekman Bank held the distinction of being the only bank in United States that charged its clients for the privelage of banking and did not pay interest on accounts. It is said, that during their time, Beekman’s scales weighed over ten million dollars worth of gold.

At today’s gold prices, this would be nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars worth of gold!

~ Kerby Jackson, Josephine County, Oregon

Plaque at Rich Gulch and sign

]]> http://www.oregongold.net/a-rich-strike-at-rich-gulch/feed/ 1 http://www.oregongold.net/briggs-creek-oregon-gold-locations/ http://www.oregongold.net/briggs-creek-oregon-gold-locations/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:56:56 +0000 Oregon Gold http://www.oregongold.net/?p=297 Briggs Creek is not to be confused with the Briggs Pocket Mine, as they are not even close to one another. Briggs Creek is located on the western side of Josephine County. It is located in the Illinois District and had a total production  from 1852 to 1953 of 5,000 to 10,000 ounces of Oregon placer gold. That is a estimate. Upper Briggs Creek Valley, in section 7, of township 36S and range 8W, you will find the Barr Mine. This was a rich placer operation.

Along lower Briggs Creek, in the area of Red Dog Creek and Soldier Creek, there are some very rich placer gold prospecting locations. On the Northwest side of Briggs Creek, in section 24, of township 36S, and range 9W, you will find the Elkhorn placers, which were very productive.

Placer gold was discovered in Briggs Creek and it’s tributaries in 1852 or 1868 (conflicting accounts), and over 5,000 ounces of gold was recovered from the drainage area. This includes Onion Creek, Red Dog Creek, Secret Creek, Swede Creeks, as well as Briggs Creek itself. The upper part of Briggs Creek, below the Barr lode mine, was especially rich with that Oregon Gold.

The Applegate River - Oregon Gold Location

The Applegate River rises in Jackson County and empties into the Rogue River west of Grants Pass. Most of the placer gold deposits are found in tributaries such as Board Shanty, Caris, Miller, Grays, Oscar, Slate and Williams Creeks. Williams Creek, and it’s tributaries, Bamboo and Whiskey Gulches, were extensively worked. The Layton Hydraulic pit south of Provolt was a important producer. Oscar Creek was worked with a power shovel  and was noted for it’s large Oregon nuggets that it produced. Cans, Miller, Rocky and Slagle Creeks converge to form a rich placer area at Missouri Flat near the Jackson County line. The total placer gold production  along the Applegate River was well over 20,000 ounces.

Many spots on the Applegate River show bedrock exposed.

The Applegate River stretches 51 miles long rising from California and stretches into both Josephine and Jackson Counties in Oregon.

Althouse Creek

Browntown (the original site does not remain) was the mining center for Althouse and the surrounding mining districts in that day. A great number of large nuggets were taken from Althouse Creek as many mines from toiling miners were dug in the adjacent hillsides. So many that the hillside was said to look like a giant woodpecker had swooped down and drilled many holes into the surrounding hillsides. About three miles from Browntown on the Althouse was another town called Grass Flat, which also served as another center for the cattle trade and gold. This area in Josephine county not only had lot’s of miners but had it’s share of farmers and cattle rustlers also. After all the miner’s had to eat, and many found profit in other ways besides a pick, pan and shovel. Before long, power shovels and a dragline excavator were introduced in 1936 and they discovered that the Chinese had drift mined the area in the early days. The dragline could handle 6,000 cubic yards of gravel per day.

Very old cabin near Grass Flat

The site where Browntown once stood.

Althouse, Oregon during the 1890's

Of greater importance in the Althouse drainage area was the Briggs Pocket Mine in the presence of large hydraulic cuts in, or near Allen, Fry, Sailor, Scotch and Waldo Gulches. The Logan Llano de Oro hydraulic cut was opened in 1874 and was worked on and off until 1945. It consumed 30 acres and produced 30,000 ounces of gold, along with some silver, platinum, and osmiridium, from gravels, which contained up to .016 ounce of gold per cubic yard.

The high gravel and deep gravel cuts were made in the same general area during the same time interval. The high gravel cut produced around 5,000 ounces of gold. The deep gravel cut covered 65 acres and produced about 14,000 ounces of gold, from gravels that produced about .0125 ounce per cubic yard. Considerable placer gold remains to be mined in the district. Near Holland, south and half a mile along Althouse Creek, in stream deposits, and in benches you can find gold colors, and nuggets. In the area along Althouse and Sucker Creeks there were extensive placers including the Llano de Oro (Esterly), Deep Gravel, Placerica, and Leonard placers. All of which were very rich, worked by thousands of miners in the 1850’s -60’s.

Holland store on the right and hotel on the left. The store is still standing today.

Southern Oregon is famous for it’s pocket gold deposits which are on or near surface enrichments of lode gold. Many of these finds were quickly worked out and few ever developed into any kind of conventional lode mine with sizable tonnages of ore and ore processing mills. Most pocket deposits were shallow holes worked with hand tools, a little dynamite and the gold separated from the country rock in mortal and pestle. Details of pocket mining prospecting and case by case discussion can be found in the book The Elusive Pocket Gold of SW Oregon available from Cascade Mountains Gold.

Some months ago, I receive some emails from a mining acquaintance who reported on a rich recent pocket find in the Hungry Hill Area. A photo sent to me shows the digging at 4 feet down and a large mass high grade about 4 inches across. Another photo shows approximately 20 to 30 ounces of gold that had just been crushed out of the host rock. Initially reports claimed 20 Ibs of gold have been recovered from this pit. A recent photo shows the excavation nearly 8 feet deep and the yield is said now to be much more. If these figures are accurate this could be one of the largest pockets in recent decades.

Geology of pocket deposits in the Hungry Hill Area

This area is on the contact of Meta-volcanic such as greenstone and certain meta-sedimentary rock units with the large serpentine belt that stretches North by Northeast from the Oregon/California border to an area near Canyonville, Oregon. Most of the gold deposits are in the rock units bordering the serpentine . There are a few larger quartz veins exposed on the surface for fractions of a mile and have been worked hundreds of feet deep. However, many of the pocket deposits are broken up tiny veinlets of quartz which may be only followed down a few feet before pinching and losing value. Others may show little quartz but contain gold values in shear zones of localized faulting. Where such gold bearing lodes are on the surface there can be additional concentration of gold values by eroding away of the lighter ingredients of the host rock or from the formation of laterite type soils.

The pocket belt is especially strong from the head waters of Canyon Creek just a couple miles west of Cave Junction . From here the belt heads North by Northeast to Hungry Hill; then the Pocket Knoll and across the Illinois River to the drainages of Briggs Creek. The creeks and gulches that drain this area are famous for rich placer gold deposits. Interestingly only a few of these lode deposits ever developed into large underground mines as the Peck Mine and the Eureka Mine on Soldier Creek a tributary of Briggs Creek Most of these diggings were shallow surface pits quickly worked out and abandoned. On hill sides such as Hungry Hill the slopes still show the out lines of hundreds of shallow pits. The old timers did not find them all!

Extract from -
Mines & Mining in the States and Territories West of the Rockies
U.S. Commision of mining statistics, 1870

CHAPTER XXX.
JOSEPHINE COUNTY.

Josephine County in 1895

This county is situated in the southwestern part of the State, and contains about two thousand five hundred square miles. It is bounded north by the Rogue River Mountains, separating it from Douglas County, east by Jackson County, south by California, and west by Curry County. There are about fifteen hundred inhabitants, and five or six thousand acres of land under cultivation. Kerbyville, Leland, Slate Creek, and Waldo are the principal towns. The condition of the placer mining in the county during the past year has been substantially the same as in Jackson County. Josephine suffers somewhat from lack of regular communications. It is perhaps on this account that I have failed to receive the detailed reports promised by letter from Sailor Diggings and other noted localities. The following description, furnished to a committee of the State Agricultural Society in 1869 by Dr. Watkins, a physician long resident in the county, may be relied upon.

Josephine County attracted attention as early as 1852, as a locality for placer gold-mining. The first mining of any importance was on Josephine Creek, which derived its name from a daughter of one of the miners, and afterward gave name to the county. In the spring of 1853 there was a great rush to the mines on Althouse Creek, which rises in the Siskiyou range, and runs in a northerly direction, uniting with other tributaries, forming Illinois River. The diggings on Althouse were very rich, the bed of the stream paying not only heavily but quite uniformly. At one time Adams & Co.’s books had a thousand names to obtain letters for in the different localities, where miners had previously resided. Sailor Diggings was then a famous locality; a ditch was dug some fifteen miles long at a cost of some $75,000 or $80,000 to bring water to the rich placers of this vicinity, and when fairly under way paid for itself the first year. It paid heavy dividends to its stockholders for ten or twelve years, and many parties who live sumptuously every day owe their fortune to their connection with the Sailor Diggings Ditch Company.

Sucker Creek, a tributary of Illinois River, a large turbulent mountain stream, was extensively mined from 1854 to 1860, but the diggings are deep, the boulders are large and unwieldy, the stream an unmanageable one, and, I think, never made an adequate return for the labor expended; but Sucker Creek has not yet had its day, and, with cheaper labor and better facilities, it will yet yield a golden harvest to the hand of adventure.

Canon Creek, Illinois River, and Galice Creek, were mined during these years, and generally with an adequate return for labor expended.

Williams Creek, a tributary of Applegate Creek, has had for the last few years a hardy mining population, who have met with a moderate return. Josephine is a mining county, and has had all the vicissitudes of such a county. Her citizens leading a roving life, and having little to bind them to the soil, mostly left during the Indian war of 1855-’56. Her rich minerals brought back to her a renewed population, however, but the great Fraser River excitement nearly depopulated her, and now she is only the shadow of her former self. But her rich placers are far from being exhausted. There are rich veins of copper running into her hills. The most noticeable one, some eight or tea feet in thickness, is situated in the hills betweeu Waldo and Althouse; but for some reason attempts to work it have failed, although it appears to be of great purity and inexhaustible in quantity. But the copper mines down Illinois River will yet make this locality famous; the copper is found in well defined lodes, and practically inexhaustible. The question is one of transportation.

Platter & Beach have been running a tunnel for the last three years through a heavy divide, to turn the waters of Althouse, so as entirely to drain the bed of Althouse Creek. Hanson & Co. have done the same at another point, and are now ” striking it rich.” These two operations have opened a district of great mineral wealth, which will awaken the old times in placer-gold mining on Althouse. The returns of the Malachi quartz lode have been very heavy ; and it is reported that this property has been purchased by a San Francisco house, who are pursuing the enterprise with vigor.

The county is dependent for supplies upon a slow, laborious and costly transportation over the Coast range.

Notes:

Strangely enough, despite the passing of 140 years, a lot of things have not changed here in Josephine County since 1870. Most of the creeks and rivers which were mentioned by Dr. Watkins are still the centers of what little gold mining still goes on this county. The limited activity is not for the lack of gold, but due to the evergrowing problem of environmentalism all in the name of saving “virgin” waterways that contrary to common knowledge, are not so virgin. Sucker Creek, in particular, has had a lot of exposure in the news due to the prosecution of Cliff Tracey for his challenge against the authority of the USFS. But Sucker Creek, named for the large number of Illinois miners who once worked that creek (so named because Illinois is called “The Sucker State” and they also leant the name of their home state to the nearby river and surrounding valley), was worked so heavily in the old days that every boulder and every piece of gravel was probably overturned by the hands of early miners. Later on, around 1910, dragline dredges worked this waterway. Despite this, Sucker Creek is beautiful and supports a great deal of aquatic life. As Mr. Tracey’s tenacity indicates, there is undoubtedly still a lot of gold in the Sucker Creek watershed. It is reported that even down low in the grassy plain valley where the bedrock runs to depth of seventy five or more feet, that good quantities of course flakes can be recovered by simple panning of this creek’s gravels. Quite a lot of mining claims are still located on the upper end of this creek and its tributaries, mostly worked by individual miners.

Althouse Creek is a neighbor of Sucker Creek, and though it is more famous than the aforementioned waterway, both bring their gold from the same sources, which are largely concentrated in the hills between the East Fork of Althouse and the East Fork of Sucker. The gold in these two creeks originates from both lode deposits, as well as ancient channel gravels which still remain mostly unworked on the Oregon side of the Siskiyous. These two creeks have produced the largest gold nuggets ever located in Oregon history, including the famous Collins Nugget from the East Fork Althouse, as well as several nearly that size from Sucker Creek that were all recovered prior to 1900. Though the gravels of Althouse Creek itself have been heavily worked and the upper reaches are so wild that it is like you’ve stepped back into time, a large amount of activity still takes place in this area, most of which by small suction dredge.

Slightly to the west of Althouse Creek is a tremendous wealth of native copper. In fact, this is the greatest belt of copper on the West Coast and it runs for about 100 miles through Sothern Oregon and Northern California. One copper mine that did exist in this area was the famous Queen of Bronze Mine which was located near Takilma, Oregon and operated between 1862 and the 1930. Durings its heyday (about 1900), this 160 acre operation located at 40S, 8W, Sec 36, NW was the largest copper mine in the United States, consisting of over 7100 feet of tunnels. The Queen of Bronze also yielded gold as by-product, its total production amounting to about 60,000 ounces of gold and over 5 million pounds of copper. Since 1930, the mine has changed hands a number of times and despite housing tremendous mineral reserves, little work has been done since 1930 beyond some basic evaluation.

Seal of the State of Jefferson

As was mentioned in the article, transportation issues prevented these reserves from being heavily mined. In fact, this condition was such that as late as 1941, the situation finally came to a head when residents of SW Oregon lobbied the State of Oregon to improve transportation into the copper belt. Instead, the state built campgrounds in the Northern Willamette. Meanwhile, California’s government also failed to support mining interests in Northern California. Leading citizens from the counties located on both sides of the California-Oregon border met in Yreka, California on November 17th, 1941 to discuss this issue and emerged with a plan. Their goal was for these counties to secede from Oregon and California and to form a new central government – the State of Jefferson. The state seal and state flag that they adopted reflected the core of the issue. The seal was a gold pan with two X’s emblazoned over top of it, representing “the double-cross” that had been done to the region by the governments of Oregon and California. Ten days later, those involved mounted an organized revolt. Astride horses and armed with rifles, they blocked Highway 199 (now I-5) near Yreka and handed out proclamations of independence to motorists. These read:

“You are now entering Jefferson, the 49th State of the Union. Jefferson is now in patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon. This State has seceded from California and Oregon this Thursday, November 27, 1941. Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice.

For the next hundred miles as you drive along Highway 99, you are traveling parallel to the greatest copper belt in the far West, seventy-five miles west of here. The United States government needs this vital mineral. But gross neglect by California and Oregon deprives us of necessary roads to bring out the copper ore. If you don’t believe this, drive down the Klamath River Highway and see for yourself. Take your chains, shovel and dynamite.

Until California and Oregon build a road into the copper country, Jefferson, as a defense minded state, will be forced to rebel each Thursday and act as a separate State.”

Eventually, an officer of the California Highway Patrol stumbled upon the roadblock. The men handed him a flier and told him to “go back to California”, upon which he promptly stepped back into his car, did a U-turn and left the area.

On December 4th, 1941, Judge John L. Childs of Crescent City was elected as Governor of the State of Jefferson and a torchlight parade was held at its Capital of Yreka. Media was present to record the event, which was to broadcasted on December 8th. It seemed the State of Jefferson was off to a grand start.

On the morning of December 7th, 1941, Japan launched a crushing attack on Pearl Harbor. The newsreels of Jefferson’s establishment as a state never appeared and the rebellion of locals ceased as the people went to work to support the war effort.

Eventually, a proper road was built into the copper country. It is called the State of Jefferson Scenic Highway, but most of the copper is still there awaiting some industrious miners to take it out.

One thing that has changed are the communities which Watkins mentioned in the article. Two of the four communities he mentioned no longer exist at all, namely Waldo and Leland. The other two, Kerbyville and Slate Creek barely exist and they are no longer called called by those names. Today, the only substantial community in Josephine County is Grants Pass, which was just a little hole in the road in Watkin’s days.

Waldo, Oregon in 1890

Waldo was one of the the first communities established in Southern Oregon and was originally called Sailor’s Diggings. This area gave rise to the first organized mining district in Oregon – the Waldo Mining District – which was established in 1852. This district still exists (and actually pre-dates creation of the State of Oregon) and is at the forefront of fighting for the rights of miners in this region. The Waldo Mining District, as the first seat of local government in this area, was instrumental in the formation of Josephine County which was established in January of 1856 when it separated from Jackson County. Waldo became its first county seat. Though popular myth has always claimed that the population of Waldo exceeded 30,000 miners during its heyday, in reality, only about 1500 persons (excluding Indians) lived in Josephine County in those days. Two thirds of these were miners working around the vicinity of Waldo, a small number of which were Chinese. Starting out as a tent city and growing into something more permanent, during its boom, Waldo was a wide open town that often attracted a rough element.

Ferd Patterson

One fella who was attracted to the wealth of the diggings in the area was a young gambler by the name of Ferd Patterson who thought himself as not only a bit of a dandy, but he also thought of himself as a bit of a gunslick. Several years before he made a big name for himself by killing Sumner Pinkham in Idaho and ultimately bit the dust in Eastern Washington, Ferd wound up in an arguement with two local miners in Waldo over a card game and promptly gunned them both down. With the locals hot on his heels, Ferd beat feet for Portland, where he soon got himself into a bunch of trouble when he scalped his mistress and killed a well known riverboat captain whom he thought was shacking up with his girl. Another individual who got himself into trouble in Waldo was the notorious outlaw Boone Helm who later made a name for himself with the Henry Plummer gang, not to mention with his partaking of the flesh of one of his unfortunate partners somewhere in Idaho. In 1858, Boone was on the run from California and headed to The Dalles which widely reputed as a safe haven for criminals. During his stay in Oregon, Boone got himself in all kinds of trouble and killed several other men. One man he didn’t manage to kill was an old farmer living near Waldo. When Helm begged food off the farmer, the old man took pity on him and invited him into his home, where he provided him with food and rest. Illustrating that no good deed should go un-punished, Boone decided that he would kill the old man and steal whatever food and valueables that he had. Upon his attempt to sneak up to the old man while he lay asleep in his bed, instead of an easy victim, Boone soon found himself face to face with the barrel of Fowling shotgun. Upon escaping from the cabin, like Patterson, Boone Helm was chased out of the county. However, like other boom towns, Waldo would not last. By the 1880’s, many miners had left the vicinity and headed to nearby Kerbyville which eventually replaced Waldo as the seat of power in this county. A good many others went to the new strikes on the Frasier River. In December of 1928, Waldo lost its post office. During the 1930’s, it was discovered that Waldo had been built upon a rich gravel bench and the townsite was soon purchased by a local mining company. As also happened with the townsite of nearby Browntown on Althouse Creek, during that decade, the monitors took care of Waldo once and for all as they mined the site out. Today, nothing remains of Waldo but a cemetery.

Grave Creek House at Leland

Like Waldo, Leland also now no longer exists. This community was located on LeLand Road somewhat past the present community of Sunny Valley, Oregon. Though this was originally the site of Fort LeLand during the 1850’s and the surrounding land was patented in 1859 by James Twogood who operated a stage station nearby called Grave Creek House, the small community that grew up in this area was known by a number of names, namely Maloneyville and Altamont. The town received its first post office in 1884 and served as a supply center for nearby mines, namely that of Criteser and Tast (1/4 mile west of town) which was established in 1878, the Goff Mine that was established a half mile north of town in 1886 and yet another large mine about one mile west of town that was eventually owned by the Lewis Company of Portland. By 1890, a few miles south of Leland, another town also grew up in the form of Placer. Like Leland, that town too no longer exists, both of them going into decline around World War One. By the 1940’s, the name of this area was changed to Sunny Valley. Quite a lot of mining is still done by individual prospectors in this gold rich area, mainly along Grave Creek.

Watkins also mentions the town of Slate Creek. Though now a shadow of its former self, this town still exists only today we call it Wilderville and consists of little more than an old store and a community church. At one time, one of the greatest marble mines in the United States looked down on this community. Nearby Slate Creek runs behind Wilderville and is a tributary of the Applegate River with tremendous reserves of placer gold. Decades ago, when my grandmother first came to Oregon and wished to live a solitary existence, she lived on an old mining claim high up on Slate Creek and made her way with nothing but a gold pan and a rifle.

Kerbyville in 1885

As mentioned earlier, Kerbyville replaced Waldo as our local county seat. It still exists today and though little of it remains, it is a great old town with a lot of gold history and a nice musuem. Like Waldo, Kerbyville was a rough place during its heyday where miners often doled out justice at the old hanging tree. According to local legend, Kerbyville was established when a packer by the name of “Tig” Martinez was transporting a pool table from Crescent City, California which he had consigned to a man named Jake Cohen who was a saloonkeeper at Althouse. Tig had the table on the back of his favorite mule, who he called Anita. Suddenly, Anita collapsed from the strain and promptly died. It was believed that there was not another mule in the whole of the valley which could carry the table on to Althouse, so Tig left it atop the mule and went to see Cohen and explained to him that the table was near the farm of James Kerby and that he would have to transport it the rest of the way to Althouse. Tig then asked for his pay, which Cohen refused to give to him for lack of delivery. The end result was that Tig was now the proud owner of one pool table which was currently lying atop the carcass of his favorite mule in the middle of the trail. Not wanting to lose the money that he had invested, Tig soon came up with an idea. After removing his mule from beneath it, Tig erected a tent around the table, set up a bar and advertised the grand opening of a brand new saloon. As it was the only pool table in the area, he soon had a roaring trade and a town grew up around it. At its height, about 500 people lived in Kerby, mostly miners who worked the neighboring creeks and gulches. In the surrounding hillsides, a lot of gold can still be found. As you might have guessed, this writer was named for that town.

~ Kerby Jackson, Josephine County, Oregon

From the archives of Kerby Jackson

When one thinks of the old timers who worked the rivers, creeks, gulches and hills of Oregon in search of illusive riches, we think of the iconic old grizzled prospector. Red shirted and bearded, with a pick over his shoulder, a .45 slung low on his hip and accompanied only by his trusty mule whose back is heaped high with gear, he is the traditional icon of the gold rush era. That image is so powerful and so well known that today, it adorns anything having to do with the word “gold” and like his cousin the cowboy, everyone recognizes him just by his outline. Yet contrary to that traditional image, he wasn’t the only fella who was out there breaking his back for a few bits of color. The patience and hard work of the Chinese and their contribution to the Southern Oregon Gold Rush are legendary, but even lesser known today were the efforts of Pacific Islanders (so-called “Kanakas”), Mexicans, Free Blacks and other groups of men who came to toil in Oregon’s creeks and gulches hoping to strike it rich. And as the following article, originally published over a century ago attests, not every person working in the gold fields of Oregon was necessarily “one of the boys”.

Grants Pass, Oregon. May 1904.

The gold fields of Southern Oregon mineral zone appear to be particularly attractive to women; at least this section has its fair share of women miners, and there is no gainsaying that it has profited thereby. A visitor to the Forest Queen hydraulic mine, near Grants Pass, will find a handsome woman busily engaged about the diggings, operating a giant, retorting gold or even “bucking” the boulders on the bedrock. This woman is Mrs. Wisenbacher, but she was formerly Miss Pipes and was one of the stunning “Sadie Girls” with the popular Anna Held company in “The Little Duchess”. Last year, Mrs. Wisenbacher quit the stage and became a full “partner” with her father and brother in the operation of the Forest Queen Mine. With a woman about to assist, the season has been a successful one at the Forest Queen.

“Though I had become fascinated with the life behind the footlights,” said Mrs. Wisenbacher to a Mining Review correspondent, “I am equally so with the life of a gold digger in Southern Oregon. There are few spots anywhere prettier than that where the Forest Queen is located.”

Mrs. Wisenbacher, being a “Sadie Girl” is, of course, handsome. She would have this season been a “La Mode” girl in the same popular company, but she was induced by her father, who is a prominent Colorado and Idaho miner, to give up the stage and live a life of greater ease and freedom in the Southern Oregon Mountains.

The Mining Review correspondent also came unexpectedly upon another woman miner, a woman “piper”, if you please, in a Southern Oregon mine. She is Mrs. M.E. Moore, and this lady, like the other mentioned is a full “partner” in a placer mine. Mrs. Moore is a piper, an expert piper – not the kind the Scotch Highlanders know so much about – but a hydraulic mining piper – the operater of a hydraulic giant. Every day this woman is at her post beside the giant, long before the sun is up, and she remains there throughout her shift. None know better than she how best to swerve the big nozzle to drive an avalanche of boulders down the gulch ahead of the giant’s stream, scattering them like a handfull of bullets shot from a catapult, or how to bring that long and deep growl to the monster as its cuts and gnaws deep at the base of the towering red clay bank till a great slab of a thousand tons topples and falls with a crash from the mountainside.

Mrs. Moore has been a “partner” of her husband in the mining business for nearly twenty years. She has followed the trails through the mining regions of Colorado, Montana, Arizona, California and Oregon, prospecting, pocket-hunting, digging, always on the lookout for a color, a strike, a bonanza. She has traveled hundreds of miles on pack pony and burro, through the snow and over the burning sands. Those twenty years, spent altogether out of doors, have been days of perfect health for her. “Yes,” said she, “mining is the life for me. I love it. I love the freedom of the mountains and the ozone of the pines. There is no other life like it; none as enjoyable for me, at least.”

Ellen Jack in 1910

One of the best known female prospectors was Ellen Elliot Jack of Colorado, who is pictured at the left in a photo dated about 1910. Ellen was born in England, but came to the Far West in 1872 after the tragic death of her husband and children. In addition to mining, she was also an early woman business owner. Like her male counterparts who worked the gold fields, Ellen was one tough cookie. Everywhere she went, Ellen carried a pick axe and a six gun in her belt and she knew how to use both of them. She was also said to bear a severe scar that was the result of a tomahawk wound she received during one of the Gunnison Indian Uprisings. At the time this photo was taken, she had just written a semi-autobioghraphical novel entitled “The Fate of A Fairy” which was about a woman who loses her husband and becomes a female prospector.

Another lady prospector was Ferminia Sarras, who was a major mine owner in Nevada and was widely known as the “Nevada Copper Queen”. Ferminia’s story would have been lost to history had it not been for the research of historian Sally Zanjani, the author of “A Mine of Her Own: Women Prospectors in the American West, 1850-1950″

The article above is thought to have been written by Dennis Stovall who was an early author living in Josephine County. Stovall is best known for his novel “Suzanne of Kerbyville” which he wrote the same year as this article. His novel, though fictional, is one of the best sources for information on the early settlement of Kerby, Oregon, as well as the mining that went on in the vicinity of that early gold rush town. Though the novel really focuses on the exploits of a young woman named Suzanne , it is mentioned that Suzanne’s father was a “pocket hunter” and there is quite a good description of his methods.

The Forest Queen Placer, mentioned in this article, was located on Louse Creek, a few miles east of Merlin, Oregon. At the time, it was owned by J.P. Pipes and T. Weisenbacher (or Wisenbacher). The property was originally known as the Lance Placer and at the time of this article it consisted of 212 acres of ground that was worked with the assistance of two miles worth of ditch, 2500 feet of pipe with a pressure of 200 feet, three giants and a Ruble Rock Elevator.

~ Kerby Jackson, Josephine County, Oregon

Lode Gold

The geology of  Oregon gold locations in the southwestern part of the state is complex and not fully understood, being closely associated with plate tectonics and crustal subduction. Numerous gold-quartz veins can be found in greenstone of the Triassic age (248 – 208 million years ago), which trends in belts from the southwest to the northwest parts of Josephine County. Black slate , peridotite, and serpentine of Jurassic age sometimes contain gold-quartz veins and tend to parallel the greenstone belts. Granite, diorite, and gabbro intrusive bodies can be found in many parts of the county, but are generally devoid of mineralization except where they are in contact with older rocks. Josephine County is noted for past chromium, copper and nickel production as well as gold, and exploratory work for nickel continues to this day.

The most productive lode gold mine was the Greenback Mine, which produced approx. 175,000 ounces of gold from a persistent quartz vein in greenstone. It was sunk to an incline of 1,000 feet on 12 levels. The Benton Mine was developed in gold-quartz veins in greenstone near the contact with intrusive diorite and produced 18,500 ounces of gold. The nearby Gold Bug Mine produced 37,500 ounces. Numerous other lode mines produced  between 1,000 and 13,000 ounces of gold, primarily in the period between 1893 and 1942.

Pocket Gold

Josephine County is noted for rich pockets of gold close to the surface. Some of these pockets were fabulously rich, though they were mined out quickly. The best known pocket diggings was in the Briggs Mine near the California line, where masses of gold totaling 2,000 ounces were taken out in 1904. Slabs of gold up to 3 feet in length were reportedly recovered.

Nuggets

A number of nuggets the size of chicken eggs have been found in placer gravels and pocket deposits. A 17 pound nugget was found in 1859 on the East Fork of Althouse Creek below the Briggs Pocket. Another nugget weighing 15 pounds was found in the gravels near the Esterly hydraulic cut in the early 1860’s. Despite the abundance of nuggets in Josephine County, most gold recovered in placer mining operations is fine flakes.

Placer Gold

Placer gold was discovered in 1850 and simple hand mining methods commenced in 1852. Before long, hydraulic methods were introduced and a number of deep cuts were made in the landscape. Placer gold can be found in stream channels, in bench gravels, and in terrace gravels up to 600 feet above the present stream levels. Old channels can be found in terrace gravels, some of which are rich. Gold is generally found at or near fractured or decomposed bedrock. Some of the bench and terrace gravels are cemented. Boulders are common in many stream gravels, and most gravels range from a few feet to over 50 feet in thickness.

Power shovels, dredges and dragline excavators were introduced around the turn of the century and were used up to 1952. Since 1960, individuals with portable suction dredges have found considerable gold in Josephine County and Jackson County to the east. Most placer work is done between February and September when streams contain sufficient water.

In fact, here in Josephine County, on the opposite side of the state, a
number of larger gold nuggets have been discovered near what was refered
to as Sailors Diggings. One of them, pulled out of Sucker Creek, weighed
over 15 pounds. That’s a big chunk of gold, but it’s still not the biggest
nugget that Oregon ever produced.

In 1859, a little Irish fellow by the name of Mattie Collins was mining in
the high bank along the East Fork of Althouse Creek when he uncovered a
huge lump of almost pure gold that became known as the Collins Nugget.
Mattie’s find weighed in at a whopping 204 ounces (approximately 17
pounds. At today’s gold prices, the Collins Nugget would be worth over
$200,000, but typically a nugget will fetch a significantly higher price.

The Collins Nugget is the largest single hunk of gold ever pulled from the
Oregon lands, but unlike the Armstrong Nugget, it doesn’t survive today.

As was always done in those days, Mattie took his find to the smelter at
Jacksonville, sold it for $3500 and then drank himself into poverty.

~ Kerby Jackson

To add to this legend here is a reproduction of a article written by Clay Luce in 1919 of handed down reports:

Sheep Rock in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The blue bucket deposit is thought to be near the John Day River.

“I was born in California and I came to Canyon Creek, Grant County, in June 1863. There were then about 5,000 miners and prospectors on Canyon Creek and vicinity. I was reared among these men, and time and time again have heard the discussions about the Blue Bucket Mine and also the Lost Cabin Mine. These men believed that there was a Blue Bucket Mine and many parties in those early days, left Canyon City to search for the lost treasure. I have seen them leave; I have seen them return. I have searched for it myself. I am now 63 and spent most of my life prospecting and mining.

The best information that I got regarding the Blue Bucket Mine was from my grandmother, Mrs. Fisher, who was with the train that found the gold. She died and was buried in the Canyon City Cemetery 1911 at the age of 94. Her name was Mrs. Rapalee at the time of her death.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE —

My father crossed the plains between 1845 and 1847. The next year after he left, a train was organized in Iowa. There were about 400 in the train. I never heard them speak of horses, but always referred to their cattle, and evidently they used oxen entirely.

In this train was my grandmother, Mrs. Fisher, and her father, Dr. Fisher. My mother was also in the train. My grandfather on my father’s side was in the train. His name was Jacob Luce. His wife and family were with John C. Luce, who was a Populace candidate of Oregon in the early ’90s. Isaac Luce, Jane Luce (who was Mrs. C.A. Belshaw and who died here two years ago), and Polly Luce. I also had an uncle, Frank Fisher, and there was a man by the name of Samuel Parker. He was the father of Mrs. Dolly Bonham and Mrs. Elizabeth Birge, now living here.

I might also say that in so much as this story is weaved around the grave of a woman, that her name was Chambers and the first wife of Jack Chambers father. Jack Chambers now lives in Canyon City.

“Show me her grave and I will show you the Blue Bucket” was the slogan of the early and pioneer prospector. I heard my Grandmother Fisher tell this story many times, and as it was full of adventure, privation, and the romance of birth, death, courtship, and marriage with the thrills that come with Indian stories, and finally ending with buckets of gold, I was an attentive listener. From her description I mapped the route. I drew a pencil sketch of hills, mountain, streams, and valleys, until I had a mental picture of that immigrant train fixed in my mind. I heard many stories from other sources, but the one my grandmother and mother told me, later corroborated by Samuel Parker, was to me the correct version.

The story really begins with the death of my grandfather, Dr. Fisher. The cattle were taken sick and some died. They acted as if they had been poisoned. My grandfather made an examination of a carcus and in some way infected his hand and died the next day of blood poisoning. There was a Dr. Johnson in the train and he administered to my grandfather. More than anything else, the pioneers dreaded a coyote. They held them in complete abhorence, and so, to protect the death, they burned two old wagons and put scrap iron in the grave of my grandfather Fisher. This grave is 13 miles east of Vale and with Samuel Parker I found it and was able to identify it by the scrap iron.

After this incident nothing happened until the Malheur River was reached. This camp was about a mile below the present site of Vale. It was identified from the Hot Springs. These Hot Springs now mark an opoch in Oregon history for they marked a place about which there can be no controversy and tell the story of the parting of the ways. Here the first dissention arose and here it was that friends parted never to meet again. The train stayed here for some four or five days and grandmother and mother with many of the other women of the party spent much of the time at the Hot Springs washing and cleaning up the clothes of the party in the natural hot water.

Yes, there was a villain in this story, and he was Joe Meeks. Joe Meek or Meeks joined the train somewhere in Montana or Idaho. He claimed to have been to Oregon and knew a short cut. Somewhere in Idaho some of the men began to distrust Meek. This feeling grew and when stakes were pulled and the train got ready to move from the Hot Springs on the Malheur, it divided into three sections.

THE TRAIN DIVIDES —

It might have been that Steve Meek fell in with the train here. At any rate the feeling grew so tense that the life of one of the Meeks was threatened, and it was only because there were some in the party who stood by Meek that he was saved from hanging. Dr. Fisher was buried on August 12th so it was getting late in the season and provisions running low. Meek did not know the way. Some wanted to turn south and some to swing up the Malheur. With Meek, one section of the train swung to the south and toward the Stein Mt. country in southern Harney. Meek abandoned this train after about a week, and from then on my grandmother never heard of them. It was reported they were lost. And in Mason Valley in after years was found the remains of about 100 skeletons with the skulls scattered over the ground. I visited this place in 1877. Local tradition says it was an Indian massacre, and another story told how an immigrant train had been lost, and some believe that it was the first section of the immigrant train that met discord at the Hot Springs below Vale on the Malheur River.

The rest of the party traveled about 16 miles up the Malheur River. Here the river makes a horseshoe bend, and so the train, rather than follow the river, turned over the divide and passed Castle Rock as the pioneers knew it, H.C. Mt. The Hot Springs was a place that could not be confused and was remembered, and so far as the story is concerned is point one about which there is no confusion. Point two is H.C. Mt. It’s peculiar shape and situation made it conspicuous in memory. Descending from this peculiar mountain they again struck the big river, or the Malheur. Of course, none of these mountains, streams or valleys were named at that time, and it was only by some peculiar characteristic that they were described and in later years identified by the description. At any rate these two points were fixed.

Going down off of this divide they struck the Malheur River again, and followed it until they came to another divide and this is where Willow Creek heads. There are a number of little streams in this vicinity and gold has been found here in a number of places, and much of it was coarse, heavy gold.

From this point another epoch in Oregon’s history unfolds. Dissention started at the Hot Springs on the Malheur and one section went south. The contention never ended and at the head of Willow Creek the train split in twain, one section going down Willow Creek to Huntington, out by way of Baker, Grande Ronde Valley, Pendleton, and down the Columbia. This is now known as the “Old Oregon Trail”. My grandfather, Jacob Luce, and his family, went with this train. They never reported the discovery of any gold, nor did they find any. Their story is full of interest, but as it now ceases to have any part in this story of the Blue Bucket we will bid them goodbye and wave to them a wish of good luck as they disappear down the slope of Willow Creek and leave them where the old Oregon trail begins.

DEATH MARKS THE BLUE BUCKET —

“Show me the grave of a woman and I will show you buckets of gold” …., Sounds uncanny. Like the voice of the dead coming from away out yonder and from the divide that all old prospectors cross over. And yet, in fact, this has to do with the story of the Blue Bucket.

This train which had started out from Iowa with four hundred, had met with death and it’s numbers cut down. But away out there on the prairie a little stranger struck camp so nature’s compensation of life and death kept the number of this party about the same. It was discord that now left the party a small third of those who left Iowa to seek the land that beckoned from a way out yonder. The third and last section passed on and after parting with friends at the headwaters of Willow Creek, they descended onto the waters of the Little Malheur and struck it about where the old Lockhart place is, which is now owned by William Tureman, and on which gold has been found. The river makes another bend in here and the train cut up and over the mountain here. When they came down again onto the Malheur it was at a point where the Crane Creek empties. It was stated that 5 or 6 miles before this stream was struck, death visited the train. Mrs. Mary or Sarah E. Chambers was stricken with a fever and died. She was the first wife of the father of Jack Chambers of Canyon City.

To find the Blue Bucket we will have to return to this grave. For the present let us pass on with this train, which, like the children of Israel, were wandering in the wilderness. They went up Crain Creek about a mile and then swung to the southwest and continued their slow progress until they reached the middle fork of the Malheur about six miles above the present site of Drewsey. From here the exact route is a mystery except from a description of crowcamp in Harney County. They might have passed in above the head of Trout Creek, and here gold has been found, but this is about 100 miles from the grave and to find the Blue Bucket it is important that we remain close to this mound of earth where slumbers the dust of one of those who brough civilization across the continent. The big lakes they saw and described, and these were without doubt Harney and Malheur Lakes.

The story of their wanderings is a romance. How they finally crossed the Deschutes, and then over the mountains read like fiction. Some of this party settled near Eugene and some went to California. But after we leave the big lakes, we have passed all of the points that have to do with the story of the Blue Bucket, and so we will pass back along the trail.

Twenty five years passed. I had heard much and as a boy had searched for this famous mine. Samuel Parker, who was with the party, returned to Canyon Creek. He visited at my home. He discussed their trip with my mother and grandmother. He was then a man of 65 or 70 years of age. We mapped the country and the folks agreed on most of the points passed and many of the incidents of the long journey. But there was one point of difference. It was the grave; the grave of Sarah E. Chambers. Mrs. Fisher maintained that the gold was found three days before the death of Mrs. Chambers, and Parker argued that it was three days after. Three days before would put the party at the head of Willow Creek, a gold district; three days after would put the party near Drewsey or beyond and there has never been any gold found along the trail here until the head of Trout Creek and this is 100 miles, too far for a three days journey of ox teams.

THE BLUE BUCKET FOUND —

The grave is six miles east of the mouth of Crane Creek. Three days before that the mysterious gold mine was found and lost. But why do these people remember that it was three days before? The gloom of death was cast over the train. Two reasons: first, a member of the party was stricken with a fever; secondly, the cattle were lost. Three of the young men went out in search of the stock. They walked all day in their search and well along in the late afternoon came to a small stream. In the shade they lay down; in the cool waters of the stream they quenched their thirst. These men knew nothing of gold, yet with instinct that seems born in man they were attracted by the virgin metal that like pebbles lined the creek. For it’s peculiarity they gathered it with the same interest we pick up an unusual stone and admire its singular beauty or oddness of shape or color. When they left, they turned their backs on the Blue Bucket Mine, and it is not recorded, although we hope that when they lost the Blue Bucket Mine, they found their oxen.

BUT WHY BLUE BUCKET? —

On their return they exhibited their find in a careless way and the wise ones pronounced it “copper”. As they hammered it out on the wagontire someone spoke out and asked, “Was there much of it?” “We could have filled one of these blue buckets”. There were no tin buckets then, they all carried wooden buckets and they were painted to preserve them and all pioneers will remember that they were painted a bright blue as were most of the wagons.

Mrs. Fisher says the boys had 15 or 20 pieces. This incident was forgotten by Mrs. Fisher until she arrived in California and during the years of 1848 and 1849 she was reminded of the incident that occurred that day Mrs. Chambers was stricken with a fever, and the oxen strayed. She had kept a piece of this “copper” and in the light of her California experience, this “copper” had turned to gold. How much was there of it? Buckets of it, blue buckets. Is that not enough to start the prospector? And was it not the California prospector who came to this part of Oregon – whole trains of them – and through the years the search has gone on and will continue until some old prospector, weary of foot, tired of life, drinks out of the same pool where copper, that turned to gold, was found. And that place is a three days ox journey from the grave of Sarah E. Chambers. Find the mound that covers her dust and turn your face to the east and within two are to be found “buckets of copper that turn to gold.”

NOR IS THIS ALL –

Look on the head of Willow Creek. Yes, it is on the head of Willow Creek, or some small stream where the oxen strayed. “I’ll tell you why”, says Mr. Luce. My mother, my grandmother, and Parker mapped the route of the Blue Bucket train, and they said “Show me the grave of a woman and we will show you the Blue Bucket Mine”. But how are we to know that this is a grave? Because the pioneer honored it’s dead and rather than permit coyotes to dig open a newly made mound, a wagon was burned as it were for a burnt offering, and it’s scrap iron mixed with the consecrated soil inside. Clue enough. I was then a lad of 18; Mr. Parker about 65. He knew; I believed; we started. Our pack was sufficient for a month’s trip. We started and connected our story with the grave of Dr. Fisher some 13 miles east of Vale. Mr. Parker recognized the Hot Springs and all the incidents connected with the parting of the ways of the villan Joe (not Steve) Meek. Yes, there was a love affair, a birth, a fight, suspicion, envy, jealousy was in this story, just like it is in every day life. But around the campfire where the old immigrant train had come to discord and friends who were never seen again turned south, he told me that if we could find the grave of a woman, we would find buckets of gold – blue buckets. We followed the old trail, H.C. or Castle Mt. was recognized and described before we came to it. On we passed. For 100 miles we followed that old trail but were out of the gold belt, so we retraced and to a point about 6 miles east of where Crane Creek meets the Malheur we found the grave of Mrs. Chambers. I have since been to the grave a number of times. Others have been there. A wagontire marks the boundaries of the grave, and there is scrap iron just below the sod. On the end gate of an old wagon is a name. It had been scratched into the wood. With my knife I followed the letter. The tooth of time had gnawed its way into this solid slab of oak until the letters were quite obliterated and from my own personal inspection I read the words either Mary or Sarah E. Chambers or Chamberlain. Three days before this woman died, gold was found, but where? We searched. We went back and forth on this trail, but maybe we missed it by a hundred yards – maybe a mile. Maybe nature uncovered those golden sands and gravel to the sight of the three whose only mission was oxen, and then with a water spout hid them from the quest of the old prospector who alone is content to hunt, and hunt, and pass on hoping, hoping, hoping. And really it would be cruel to find that which would forever still the hope that lures men on and on and even on until they come to the great divide yonder slopes which are paved with gold.

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There are three mines in the United States that are named “Blue Bucket” including one in Grant County.  None are the real Blue Bucket.  It is believed to be somewhere near the John Day River system. It could be in fact, be a very exaggerated tale. If it does exists it is believed to be in a dry creek bed or canyon with pit-holes and deep cavities. It could also be that it was found already in a place like Canyon City or John Day. Forty thousand square miles is a huge area to search if you go looking for the Legend of the Lost Blue Bucket.

My overall experience was great in Nome, Alaska. I had a very good time and met a lot of genuine folks. The overall value of the trip may differ from one person to another, but I feel the value of the experience far out-weighed what you bring back in gold. They say that if you work really hard you can take an ounce off the beach every week. Needless to say, I did not work that hard. Getting an ounce a week, would be weather permitting anyways, since the beaches were cleared because of bad weather and high tides for about 4 days out of my two week stay.

Typical Beach Box Setup on the beach in Nome, Alaska

My first day working the beach box, I hit a mean pay streak and took about two to three pennyweight. I was so excited I over-worked myself and limited myself the next day. In all, I brought back just under three quarters of an ounce which is not too bad considering (like I already mentioned) I did not work very hard. I found a small nugget metal detecting and if I had more time, I probably would have found another.

My first day on the beach. This was a typical pan after 15 minutes.

The staff involved are what make this trip worth it! People are mostly friendly, helpful and really go out of their way, if you need any help. I met a lot of really good people, and would like to think I made a few friends as well. This was the best part of the trip, in my opinion. There is nothing like being out on the tundra with good hearted folks sharing stories, joking around and finding some gold. Just be careful of the tundra sharks!

Some of the Cripple River staff with myself.

I only had two complaints about the trip. First, it was advertised that all equipment was supplied, so I did not ship any of my own stuff up. Some of the equipment was really old and some of it was broken, such as the sluice box I checked out. If I would have known beforehand I really would have liked to have my own equipment with me. Secondly, the meals, although decent, the portions tended to fade  toward the end of the week. Don’t get me wrong there is always stuff on the shelf that you can eat at anytime, but most people prefer to have a “real breakfast.”

There is a lot of scenery in Nome.

For somebody who is planning or thinking about taking this trip, go with no expectation and you will never be disappointed. This is not a trip to take if you are looking to double your money. I talked to one person who actually was expecting to double his money. Rent an ATV! It may seem like a lot of money, but you really need it to have the full experience. Just walking down to the beach from your hooch is a chore. Don’t stay in camp! Go out and explore or maybe stay in one of the outer camps for a few nights. Overall the trip is an experience I recommend if you have the right mind setting. It is worth it in my opinion.

One of the areas really overworked in the state, is the Quartzville Recreational Mining Corridor near Sweet Home in Linn County. Year after year, people flock to the area for the free roadside camping, and some gold prospecting. Year after year, the dredges are loaded into the water, and the same river gravel gets moved around that was moved the year before. You get the point. How is the fishing in the area? Pretty good actually. There are many nice trout to be caught in the sparkling clear water. Down stream, Quartzville Creek runs into Green Peter Lake and in to the Santiam River.

The Santiam River has some of the best salmon and steelhead fishing in the state and also has some good gold. Something is either wrong with either what I see and what I know or there is propaganda  that is being strategically placed to forward the ideas of a very few left-wing wacko’s. I love the environment, and I believe that it must be protected, but this is one instance where I have to turn my back on the green movement, mainly because they do not have a leg to stand on nor any solid evidence to back it up.

The Santiam river system has natural formations of mercury pouring directly into the river. One of the main points that certain groups have against suction dredging is the claim that mercury already in the river gets stirred up and re-contaminates the river and waterways connected to it. Surely, if that were the case… would not this river system be adversely affected if not a little, at least… in some calculate-able manner?

The Santiam River has good fishing and good gold.

Here are some benefits of Suction Gold Dredging:

1. Suction Gold Dredging keeps rivers clean of trash and debris. Nuts, bolts, nails, and anything  metal is captured by the sluice box and removed from the waterway. This includes harmful mercury.

2. Suction Dredging Season is coordinated as to not interfere with fish spawning  and hatching times.

3. Suction dredging releases food trapped under the gravel into the waterway to feed small fish and fry.

4. The redistribution of classified gravels creates more spawning area for heavily populated fish spawning grounds.  According to the Department of Fish & Game – “Dredging riverbeds frequently improves the habitat for spawning.”

According to the literature I have been reading as of late, there may be a time when California’s fight may become our fight for every prospector and miner in the State of Oregon. I really hope it does not come down to that.

The day started out with some instruction on gold prospecting metal detecting. He explained the differences in what different models were capable or designed to do. He did not knock any of the other machines and simply said “All lot of these machines are really good machines and do what they are designed to do, if you know how to use them.” He gave a great deal of information before we headed out to the field.

We trekked seven and a half miles on four wheelers to get to our destination. “Slow Down” seemed to be the slogan all that day, after several others and myself were told by Kevin that we were swinging our coils too fast. Several targets were dug, but only iron was being found. I dug up a spent shotgun shell, with the MineLab Eureka Gold. Meanwhile, Kevin took time to teach others how to work the detector’s they brought with them on the trip. He knows how to run them all, no matter what brand.! I was impressed with his attentiveness and patience to make sure he got around to help each and every person who needed help or a lesson. We then moved on to another area. We were standing in the middle of the Cripple River, where I dug up several targets and found iron objects.  After a while people were ready to leave, not finding that great golden treasure they had hoped for.

Kevin Hoagland stops to check out some geographic formations on our first day of metal detecting, as we travel to our first destination.

I wanted to know more. That evening, I picked Kevin’s brain with some one on one discussion during dinner. I learned about automatic ground balance, multiple frequency technology, a little about the pulse technology, but the most important thing he said to me was “…a small nugget can produce a very light change in sound and you really have to pay attention and take your time, as you do your detecting. Once you hear it, and find a small nugget you will never forget that sound.”

The next several days were stormy. A new area was picked to hunt. An area with many tailing piles were to be knocked down by the baco. With the storm, the river rose and we were unable to cross for several days. Finally the baco crossed the river at low tide several evenings later and we were scheduled to hunt the next day. To make a long story shorter…we eventually made it over there with the help of the big monster trucks. By that time our hunting group had grown from seven or eight to around twenty.

Me and a buddy of mine partnered up with the Eureka Gold again and took turns detecting and digging. Our first target was part of a classifier screen, and followed by the many other small pieces that had broken off in even smaller pieces. After an hour or so of nugget hunting, I was thinking…”Great another…bust!” . However, I kept taking my time, listening for the smallest of change in the rhythm of the detector’s faint hum. I started up one of the tailing piles that was not pushed down and started to work the low lying areas that laid off to one side of the pile. Then I heard it! It was a very faint sound, a very slight change in the rhythm. I looked up at Kevin who was about twenty five feet away and asked him to listen to the faint sound the detector was barely making. He immediately said “Dig it”.

I started digging as if I were at a archaeological site, taking the area apart a plastic scoop at a time. A few minutes later Kevin returned and told me to dig my hole more elongated, to cater to the size of the coil. In the process, my archaeological dig got a bit carried away as I lost the target. I relocated the sound in my own tailings around the hole. As my target drew nearer for recovery, more and more of the other people who were tired of digging up iron targets started to linger around. The camera crew for the Outdoor Channel took note and moved in to film. Somehow, I ended up with three or four helpers including Kevin, trying to help me narrow down the fists of dirt the target was in, removing the dirt without the target, making the pile smaller and smaller, until eventually a small gold nugget was found.

The Outdoor Channel camera crew were filming for a new series called "Alaskan"

Alaskan Sample Video

The excitement caused a small celebration and a minor gold rush in the immediate area. In a short time, there must have been six detectors over-charging the ground and cancelling each other out. There was a buzz around the camp about a nugget being found later that evening. People were talking and wanting to see it. It’s really funny to think that such a small nugget (1/10th of a pennyweight) would cause such a commotion. My hooch residents insisted to call me nugget man when ever they got the chance. After all it was the only nugget reported as being found in the two weeks I was there, besides the trommel and eight inch dredge, and certainly the only one found metal detecting.

This was a first…I actually paid attention in class, and it had paid off with my first Alaska gold nugget. Special thanks of coarse to Kevin Hoagland for his instruction and wisdom.

One last note…I was really impressed with the MineLab Eureka Gold. The automatic ground balance has got be one of the better options I have ever seen on a metal detector. It has the ability to hunt in three different frequencies, so you can research an area to find targets that were not found the first time around. As Kevin says…”Metal detectors are no great mystery. Higher frequencies will pick up smaller targets near the surface and lower frequencies pick up bigger targets deeper from the surface. It’s that simple.” Most of the time hot rocks are no problem for this machine. The Eureka Gold is a prospecting machine and a good one at that. The only thing, in my opinion, that could make the Eureka Gold better would be a water-proof coil. It’s a great piece of equipment. It’s on top of my Christmas list, after all it’s easy enough for me to use.

Kevin was right when he said “Once you hear that sound, you will never forget it.” I don’t think I ever will forget it, that’s for sure!

Most forestry campgrounds are “Mineral Withdrawal Sites” and may be used for gold panning, nugget hunting with a metal detector. The larger “Mineral Withdrawal Sites” within the Forestry Service have plainly marked boundaries to indicate the “Free Use Sites” where dredging, gold panning, sluicing and nugget sniping can be done.

BLUE RIVER

Well east of Springfield on U.S. 126, this district overlaps into Linn County. The total production between 1887-1959 was 10,200 ounces of lode gold. The Lucky Boy Mine is 14 patented claims lapping into Linn County. See Linn County for more information.

COTTAGE GROVE

Southeast of Cottage Grove 35 miles on a divide between the Willamette and Umpqua Rivers is the Bohemia mining district. This was the largest and most productive gold district in the West Cascade Mountians. Along Sharps Creek, Martin Creek, and Steamboat Creek, placer gold is located in the gravel bars and benches. There are many lode mines in the area. The Champion (Evening Star) Mine had an 18,000 foot underground tunnel with a by product of gold from copper zinc ores. The Music Mine (14 claims) along Sharps Creek had a rich history and produced about $300,000 in gold from 1891-1949. The Crystal (Lizzie Bullock) Mine had a by product of gold from copper ore. The Helena Mine produced $250,000 in gold from 1896-1950. The Mayflower mine on Horseheaven Creek also has a good history. Other mines in the area are the Star, Captian, President, Grizzly, Leroy, Shotgun, Carlisle, all of which produced lode gold.

BRICE CREEK

Parts of Brice Creek are open to the public through Mineral Withdrawal as a “Free Use Site.” Brice Creek can be reached by travelling from Cottage Grove exit 174 on 1-5 and turning east past Dorena lake for 18 miles. Follow the Row River on the Brice Creek Road past Culp Creek to Disston, turn right onto County Road #2470 and Forest Service Road #22 which leads to Champion Creek. There are patented mining claims in the area. Stay off the private property. Brice Creek and it’s tributaries share heavily in the distrubution of flood gold particles after each new spring thaw and summer thunderstorms. It also has easy access.

Edwin Waters (webmaster of OregonGold.net) on the GPAA claim "Golden Cat" located on Brice Creek.

As 49ers from California moved north, gold was first found on Jackson Creek.

Applegate River

There are numerous hydraulic placers along this river. Below the old hydraulic mines is an excellent place to dredge as most of the mines lost 40% of the gold that went through the sluices. Also try the tributaries Forest, Sterling, Humbug and Thompson Creeks. All of these streams were excellent producers.

Ashland

In the Ashland area, all the creeks have Oregon gold in them. Some of the better locations are Bear, Ashland, Anderson, Wagner, Arrastra Creeks and Yankee and Horn Gulches.

Central Point

At Willow Springs on Willow Creek there were some very nice placers.

Elk Creek

Near the head of Elk Creek in T31S R2E section 29 is the Al Sarena (Buzzard) Mine. Elk Creek has produced considerable amounts of placer gold.

Gold Hill

All the area creeks produce gold. Some of the better locations are: Foots Creek, Sam Creek, Galls Creek, Sardine Creek, Kane Creek, Evans Creek and Pleasant Creek. The Gold Hill pocket near the top of the hill was the most famous of all gold pocket discoveries. It had the mass of nearly pure gold in a very few cubic feet of earth. Numerous other pocket locations in the area.

Jacksonville

Along Jackson Creek as written above had spectacular discoveries. Also along Sterling Creek. Almost all the creeks in the area contain gold.

Phoenix

Along Bear Creek there were some extensive early placers, still being worked today.

Burns

Northeast of Burns by 20 miles, in the area of Trout Creek branch of the Silvies River, in Section 4 T21S R32E is the Harney (Idol City – Trout Creek) District. Trout Creek produced around 10,000 ounces of placer gold.

See Forest Service map for more details

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 Quartzville Creek and its tributaries there is abundant placer colors and flakes. The BLM operates “The Quartzville Recreation Corridor” and this is a great place to learn how to gold mine. There is a 19 mile section of Quartville Creek that is closed to mineral entry, but is open to recreational mining using pans, sluices, dredges and highbankers. Contact BLM for more information. Also in the area is the Albany Mine which was a minor lode producer. There a  few smaller mines in the area as well. Stay out of the mines as they are privately owned and dangerous.

Quartzville Creek is great for new gold prospectors

Calapooya River

The Calapooya River is a popular river for dredging, panning and sniping gold. Also see our Lane County Oregon Gold section for more information.

North Fork of the Santiam river

This river also contains some fine placer gold. I have also heard rumors of the occasional nugget being found.

Beaches

Gold Beach area ocean beach blacksand deposits was once extensively worked for its rich placer gold and platinum. Port Oxford area beach blacksand deposits also contain placer gold and platinum (fine to very fine). The Sixes River on the inside of Cape Blanco, in section 4 of township 32S and Range 15W, you will find the Madden Mine which was a large lode gold producer.On the north side of Cape Blanco, the beach deposits of blacksand on both sides of the Sixes River contain placer gold and platinum.

Cape Blanco circa 1850

Chetco River

Northeast of Brookings to headwaters of the Chetco River, located at township 38S and range 10W, center in section 26 you will find the Frazier Mine which was a rich producer of lode gold associated with pyrite. The Golden Eagle Mine was a hydraulic placer gold operation.. Near the head of Slide Creek the Golden Dream Mine was a large lode gold operation. In the center of section 23, the Peck Mine was a good producer of lode gold. Near the edge of section 35, the Young Mine had rich pockets of free gold. In section 10, the Hoover Gultch Mine, worked intermittently since 1900 for its lode gold.

Illinois River

The old mines and prospects along the lower Illinois River also had rich gold deposits with a by-product of copper.

Lobster Creek

Gold is found throughout Lobster Creek, located 10 miles east of Gold Beach, up to Rogue River. It is actively being worked at a place called “Old Diggings”. There are nice nuggets and flour gold dredged up every year. Most areas are claimed, so permission is required to work these areas.

Rouge River

The Rouge River gravel bars, benches, terraces from Marial, in the northeast corner of the county to its mouth at Wedderburn has abundant placer gold deposits. Around the Agness area on the Rogue River gravel bars, benches and terraces had rich placer gold deposits. Near Marial, to the southwest by 1 mile, in section 17 and 20 of township 33S and range 10W, you will find the Mule Moutain Group of mines which consisted of 11 lode mines, 1 placer mine and mill site. If you go to the northeast 2 miles in the northwest 1/4 section 3 and the northeast of section 4, you will find the Mammoth Mine which was a rich lode gold producer. The Marigold Mine was also a rich lode gold in quartz mine. Near Saddle Peaks (reached by rough trail), is the Paradise Mine which produced free gold.

Sixes River

Along the South Fork of the Sixes River and heads of Salmon and Johnson Creeks there are numerous extensive placers that have been worked. If you go east on a dirt road to the head of Rusty Creek you will find the Big Ben Mine which was a rich lode producer, with lead and silver. Also in the area is the Combination Mine, which was a rich lode gold producer as well. There is also a BLM mineral withdrawal area setup at the old ghost town of Sixes. The area is set up for recreational mining using pans, sluices, and dredges up to 4″ hose diameter.

A view of the Sixes River

Panning the Sixes River

Last Chance Creek

At the headwaters of Last Chance Creek, in township 32S range 4W section 34, is the location of the Puzzler Mine, which was a rich lode mine.

Quines Creek

On Quines Creek, in the W 1/2 of the NW 1/4 of section 1 township 33S range 5W, is the location of Quartzmill Mine. This was also a productive mine.

Glendale

In the Glendale area along Cow Creek there was numerous old hydraulic placers. The gravel bars, bench and terrace gravels all contain placer gold. There were many area mines that were rather productive. The BLM has a section that is withdrawn from mineral entry that is open to recreational gold panners only.

Myrtle Creek

If you go east and northeast of Myrtle Creek, in the drainage basins of North and South Myrtle Creeks you will find some extensive placer ground. On Lee Creek and Buck Fork there was over 50,000 ounces of placer gold recovered. On Letitia Creek, a tributary of South Myrtle Creek, in the NW 1/4 section 20 township 29S range 3W is the Chieftrain and Continental Mines which recovered over 100,000 ounces of Oregon gold.

South Umpqua River

This river is great for fine particles of gold. Especially in the upper part of the river. Dredging usually produces match head sized nuggets, but usually you will find fine particles. Gold is on the bedrock  in the sand bars, especially in spots that have rust color around them.

South Umqua River with bedrock showing

Near the town of Bandon, the ocean beach black sand deposits produced rich placers and they are still being worked today at a profit. These beach sands produced platinum and of coarse Oregon Gold. East of Bandon, the elevated marine terraces as high as 170 feet have been worked for the ancient black sand deposits and are said to be rich. North of Bandon, all the way to Cape Arago, in the black sand is very fine placer gold and platinum. Also North of Bandon by 10 miles in township 27S, and range 14W, in section 10 you will find the Seven Devils Mine. It was worked for gold and platinum in the early days and for chromium in 1942-43. In Coos Bay on the ocean beaches North and South of the Coquille River produce platinum and oregon gold in black sand deposits. Near the town of Powers you will find the Independence Mine which was a large lode mine.

Coquille River

In the regional streambed, bench and terrace gravels around Myrtle Point you can find placer gold in the Coquille River. Along the South Fork of the Coquille River, on Poverty Gultch, you will find the Coarse Gold Mine. North of Poverty Gultch you will find the Salmon Mountian Mine.

Steamer dispatch on the Coquille River, Oregon circa 1910.

Cow Creek

Eden Valley on the upper west fork of Cow Creek there were many large placer operations that had rich gold deposits.

Cut Creek

If you go North of Bandon 6 miles you will find Cut Creek. It can be found by taking Seven Devils Road. This was the location of the Pioneer Mine, which consisted of an ancient elevated beach terrace black sand deposit that was sluiced until around 1915 and still occasionally worked for its placer content. Near by is the Eagle Mine.

Sweat Creek

Sweat Creek is located in section 36 of township 31S and range 10W and was a substantial producer of gold and platinum in placer deposits.

Whiskey Run Creek

At the turn of the century Whiskey run Creek was the scene of a very large Chinese placer operation. Today the beach sands and the creek itself have a lot of fine gold. Whiskey Run Creek is located about 6 miles northwest of Bandon on Highway 101.

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.

]]> http://www.oregongold.net/baker-county-oregon-gold/feed/ 0 http://www.oregongold.net/northeastern-oregon-gold/ http://www.oregongold.net/northeastern-oregon-gold/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:45:29 +0000 Oregon Gold http://www.oregongold.net/?p=22 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.

In 1849, the vast country lying between the Siskiyou and the Calappoia hills was comparatively unknown to white men. Along the solitary trail that led to the interior of Oregon from California a lonely traveling train now and then made its way, or a solitary hunter or trapper journeyed to or from Vancouver in search of furs.

Southern Oregon Gold

The Gold Rush that began in the Sierra foothills of California in 1848, soon spread to other sites in northern California and southern Oregon. Extensive gold mines were worked in southern Oregon in 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.

Gold was first discovered in Josephine County May 2nd of 1851 on Josephine Creek. Gold was found next on the Canyon Creek the same year. Both of these streams are tributaries of the Illinois River. Sailors crossing overland from the coast found gold at what we now known as Waldo (no sign of a town exists today), which was along the Illinois River. These discoveries soon brought gold seekers by the hundreds establishing such well known camps as “Sailors Diggings” and “Browntown.”

Some of Josephine’s pockets were very rich indeed. The best known pocket digging was the Briggs Mine near the California line, where masses of gold totaling 2,000 ounces were taken out in 1904 alone. Slabs of gold up to three feet in length were reportedly recovered.

A number of gold nuggets the size of chicken eggs have been found in placer gravels and pocket deposits. The largest nugget was found in 1859 on the East Fork of Althouse Creek, below the Brigg’s pocket. It weighed  17 pounds. Another nugget weighing 15 pounds was found in the gravels near the Esterly hydraulic Mine cut in the early 1860’s.

Esterly Mine

Josephine Creek running into the Illinois River

Records of the United States Mint show production  in dollars of $16,816,275.39 for the entire State of Oregon during the years 1848 to 1882. It is estimated that nearly half of that amount was mined in Southern Oregon. The correct true value can never be accurately ascertained as many miners hoarded their gold and much of the gold that was mined by the Chinese was shipped back to China.

From 1906 to 1934 there was a steady decline in gold production in Southwestern Oregon, except for a small increase right after World War I.

In January of 1934 the price of gold was raised from $29 per ounce to $35. This was a definite boon to the mining fortunes of Josephine County. With improved quartz mining methods and more efficient dredges plus a higher price for gold, southwestern Oregon’s gold production steadily increased until reaching a final peak of $1,053,395 for a single year in 1940.

The War Production Board Order L-208

World War II created a major setback for gold mining. During 1942, the War Production Board passed an order titled L-208 which stopped all non-essential mining; gold mining was included as none essential. This order was not revoked until July 1, 1945. This order caused the shutdown of the Benton Mine on Whiskey Creek, Josephine Counties largest mining operation at the time with over 26 miners employed.

The gold production from 1852 to 1966 was approximately $134,000,000. In 1959, Oregon produced only $15,000 in gold. During the 1970’s and 1980’s when gold reached it maximum peek, there was a brief upswing in prospecting. Many prospectors purchased small dredges and took to the hills and streams once more hoping to cash in on the Yellow metal. Some have done very well.

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.

In 1888, mining resumed, only to be abandoned again by 1892.

There are no standing buildings at the Quartzville town site, just some unpaved roads that show up on a Forest Service map, most of which have been taken over by tree’s.  I scoured the townsite with a metal detector, but it was pretty obvious I was not the first one there, as I did not find anything other than modern scrap.

Quartzville recieved it’s name for the quartz mines located beyond Quartzville. The mines are privately owned and dangerous, as every winter a lot of water makes it’s way into the mines and weakens the rock. I ventured back into the mines, but I did not mine.  Way back in one of the mines, I found a palm sized black opal, however when I struck it with a hammer, I found it was wet and I destroyed what could have been a nice find for someone the future, once the gem had hardened. Mining stopped because it was unprofitable.

General Map of the Quartville Area

Quartzville is located on the Quartzville Backcountry Byway. There is free recreational panning and prospecting at the Yellowbottom recreational site. Most of the gold found here is very small. There is also a lot of pyrite.  The nice thing is the motherlode was never found and makes for a good mystery or adventure.

At first glance it would appear that the Albany Mine just above the old town site is the would be source of the gold found in the area, however, gold is found in tributaries on both sides of Quartzville Creek. It is my opinion, that several smaller quartz deposits scattered through-out the area that are a result of this, and a few yet to be unearthed or located. Based on the amount of gold and size of the gold (mainly flour gold) in the creek itself, would seem to tell the story that if a new deposit was discovered, it would produce little per ton and would probable be unprofitable to mine.

If you live in the area it is a great place to hone your skills and to have a little fun, and to find a little color, but you most likely will not find your riches here.

Edwin Waters, the webmaster of OregonGold.net dredging on Quartzville Creek.

A good metal detector around the miners tailings  may help you find a gold specked piece of quartz left behind or overlooked by the old miners, but do not accept too find much.

There is free camping along the road in many places, where you can stay for up to two weeks at a time. But it may be hard to find a good spot during the peak summer months.

The United States government thought that this area might be profitable. During the construction of the Green Peter Dam the U.S. government secretly processed tons dirt and ore in and around Quartzville creek, before they filled the reservoir.

During the winter time, snow may block your way depending on how far up you plan to go.

Another thing about Quartzville Creek…It doesn’t matter what time of year it is, the water is always very cold.

Sept. 5th, 1863 Sept. 5th, 1863