As with so many stories from the Old West, the tale of Joaquin Murrieta is a blend of truth and legend that is impossible to completely sort out. If you prefer the older histories by Hubert Howe Bancroft, which were based on the newspaper stories by John Rollin Ridge, Murrieta was a good man treated […]
On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered in California at the site of Sutter’s Mill. It didn’t take long for the word to spread about this, and just a year later in 1849, the California Gold Rush had truly begun. Many Americans quickly found out about the news, and soon enough, this saw relocation to […]
The Richest Hill on Earth. Once upon a time that was the nickname of the city of Butte, Montana. The minerals there not only made miners wealthy, but many immigrants took advantage of jobs that paid well enough to make themselves a very comfortable living. In the 1860s, a basin a mile high sitting just […]
The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is located in a remote river valley in central Idaho. The nearest town of any size is Stanley, and it’s relatively easy to get to by taking a relatively well-maintained gravel road off of Highway 75. Two historic towns located nearby are Custer and Bonanza, both of which have been […]
The Gold Strike on Grasshopper Creek Bannack, Montana is just a ghost town now, but one with a very colorful history. John White, and some other miners known as the “Pikes Peakers” from Colorado, discovered gold on July 28, 1862 in Willard Creek. Lewis and Clark had named Willard Creek in 1805, but White […]
Move over Tombstone and Dodge City. You would be hard pressed to find a frontier mining town with a more violent history than Pioche, Nevada. In 1873, the Nevada State Legislature received a report from the state mineralogist: “About one-half of the community are thieves, scoundrels and murderers. Hired gunmen were imported at the rate […]
Plumas County covers an the far northern extent of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, and includes several very rich gold deposits. This area was being mined not long after the initial discovery of gold in California. Within a few short years, major mining operations were in place. There are many large hard rock mines throughout […]
The Smuggler Mine is situated right on the slopes of Smuggler Mountain on the northern edge of Aspen, Colorado. This mine is well known for being a major producer of silver. The prospecting activities in the area of Smuggler Mine began in the late 1870s when Colorado was declared a state. At that time, the […]
A rocker box is an tool that was commonly used during the early gold rush days. They were popular with miners who needed a piece of equipment that they could operate alone and with very little water. Used properly, they work by separating placer gold from the lighter sand and the gravel. There were also […]
The Rogue River in Oregon is the major river system in the southwest region. This river has been known to be the main gold producer in the area for a number of years, and has a huge potential for gold prospectors. Nearly all of the rich gold-bearing areas in southwest Oregon eventually drain into the […]