Nestled along the south fork of the American River is a place where the name speaks for itself. Marshall Gold Discovery State Park in Coloma is a spot rich in history. The first nugget was discovered there in 1848. More than 150 years later, that fever is still being felt.
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Must've been a slow news day. Gold washes down the hills and into streams every single time there's a heavy rainfall. That's how the gold gets into streams. Or streets.....
I remember sometime back in the 1980s there was a monster rainfall that sent a heavy stream right down through the streets of Sonora. As soon as it let up, a bunch of the townspeople grabbed their gold pans and went out to work the street's potholes, backing up traffic for miles. A week later I was in a mining supply shop and the owner told me he bought more gold the day after that flood than he usually does in an entire month.
The article mentions Woods Creek in Jamestown which is right below Sonora.
I've never worked that creek. The gold bearing part of it runs right on the backside of Jamestown and all of it is either on private property right in the backyards of people's houses or on mining claims.
Sure, there's portions of it where you can pay to play, but the fees were expensive. You'd pay 300 bucks a day to work a stretch that's been panned over and over and maybe recover 100 bucks worth of gold.
I saw a story earlier this year about a guy that was working your old fertile ground near Bagby. They didn't say exactly where or exactly how he was doing but the implication was that he wasn't wasting his time.
ReplyDeleteI figured you wouldn't mind my mentioning this as I didn't figure you'd be working it again any time soon. Heh.
I always figured that if I made in gold what I was making as a wage at my regular job, it was worth my while. Sometimes I made it, sometimes I didn't.
DeleteThe only thing about the Bagby area was it was some serious work just trying to get to the paying spots. That can be some rough country and choked with brush.
The company I work for and have been with the last 17 years is from right up the mountain from Jamestown. As a matter of fact I know the owner of a quarry in Jamestown. Great place to spend time, nothing like the shithole cities of CA.
DeleteMe and my family are Californians but we moved to the east coast due to business in 96. My sons were born in Stockton and went to Lodi school system. As part of their history I went with them as a Parent volunteer up to the gold country of Jamestown and Columbia, where their classes did gold panning in the creeks and watched gold to be had via sluicing. They got gold as it is still in the creeks.
ReplyDeleteI grew up as a young lad on a ranch about four miles up the road from Fiddletown, right in the heart of the "Mother Load". We experimented at various times with pans, rockers, and sluice boxes. Our best luck was in the spring of a wet year when the small drainage's were still running. Up near the top end, where the first little two foot high water fall had cut away fresh pockets.
ReplyDeleteThe story says: "There is a huge nugget of a difference between when the 49ers first got on the scene and now. The price of gold in 1850 was $20 an ounce. Nowadays one ounce is worth a little more than $1,900."
ReplyDeleteIt isn't that the gold is worth more. An ounce of gold in 1848 would have bought you a new Colt pistol, seven and a half ounces would have bought you a good work horse and saddle.
Today, that same ounce of gold will buy you a new Colt pistol and it still costs about seven and a half ounces of gold for a horse and saddle.
So you could say that gold is still worth the same, it's the dollar that has become worthless.
You can go back 3,000 years and make the same argument.
DeleteI have heard there is gold everywhere in varying degrees.
ReplyDelete