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In the extreme south part of Harney County, in the southern part of the Steens and Pueblo Mountains there were many small prospects for Oregon gold. In sections 8 and 17 of T40S R35E, you will find the Famham and Pueblo prospects.
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
After placer gold was discovered in 1849, rich lode veins were opened in 1850 above the placer workings. Placer gold production is estimated at 2,415,000 ounces and lode gold at 2,045,700 ounces
CALAVERAS RIVER
The Calaveras River channel and all tributaries contain rich placers. In the Table Mountain area placers were also very rich. Located at township 3N and Range 10E, along the Calaveras River, you will find the Jenny Lind District which had large scale dredge and drag-line operations, with and estimated production of over 1,000,000 ounces of placer gold.
MOKELUMNE RIVER
Camanche district, in NW part of county, had a total production estimated at 1,000,000 ounces, along the Mokelumne River there were huge, bucket type dredge operations with rich placer gold. Campo Seco district, located at township 4N and 5N and range 10E, in northwest part of county had a total production around 70,000 ounces. All the area tributary stream gravels contain rich placers. You will also find the Pern Mine, it was primarily a copper mine with a rich by product of gold. Mokelumne Hill district located at township 5N range 11E. South of the Mokelumne Hill 2 miles you will find the Eclipse Mine, Infernal Mine, and other mines that were large producers of lode gold.
STANISLAUS RIVER
Angeles Camp had many area mines. The Keystone Mine, Lancha Plana Mine, and Union Mine were gold mines with a by product of copper. The Utica Mine and Gold Cliff Mine were major producers of lode gold. Melones district contained over 800 lode mines. Carson Hill was the most productive area and contained many mines with rich lode gold deposits. The Sheep Ranch Mine was a huge producer of lode gold. The Royal Mine was also a large producer of lode gold, with over 10,000 ounces of production.
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Utica MineThe 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 streamApproximately 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.Written and submitted by Tom Bohmker
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!
Submitted and written by Kathy Barlow
‘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.
Our next door neighbor is fighting for the rights to continue to dredge for gold in the State of California. As soon as I heard the news, I started noticing propaganda in many of Oregon’s liberal publications stating that suction gold dredging has ill effects on Oregon’s waterways. As a prospector and a fisherman, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to weigh in the benefits of suction gold dredging, since I know where the gold is found in this State and where the good fishing is.
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.
