The Golden State still hosts more than 5,000 active placer mining claims and hosts the first and second-most active mining counties in the nation.
Up until 1965, California was the nation’s leader in gold production, with more than 100 million ounces of gold being pulled from across the state.
The state’s richest and most well-known mining district was the Grass Valley Mining District which hosted the bountiful Empire-Star Mine and the recently controversial Idaho-Maryland Mine.
Absolutely and youtube is filled with people across the PNW combing their claims for crystals, jade, gold, etc. Good stuff if one wants to watch someone else have a good time and skip the whole taking a vacation part.
ReplyDelete- Arc
Most "placer" mines are just an excuse to squat on public land, or camp long term. Few are profitable. There *are* profitable mines in CA, but most are "hard rock".
ReplyDeleteGold mines are are unusual businesses: Their "inventory" is "underground", so it can be "fudged". A majority investor in a gold mine can instruct the mine to show a loss when convenient for the investor (mining with no gold found), and to show a profit when convenient (oh, look, we found goldl) Not many "investments" provide this kind of control.
I have a placer mine in Downieville and do camp there a couple weeks a year, but far from an excuse to SQUAT you fuckin dildo! The people squatting are not claim owners, they are scum bag fucking homeless people.
DeleteCA fucked mining by outlawing dredging. When it was legal the riverbanks were full of miners up and down the river. Yes it is profitable if you can dredge. our claim has paid for itself multiple times over.
My bad. Extremely poor choice of words. I meant no depsparaging. "Squat" is not merely the *wrong* word, it likely qualifies for slander, as it's factually incorrect. Sorry 'bout that. Even the word "excuse' is not accurate. I've always had some jealosy... maybe even sour grapes, as I have always hated cities. Again, my appologies.
Delete... and... yeah, that sounds wonderful. Sierra co is beatiful, and free of much of what the rest of the nation dislikes about Ca.
I have two claims in Sierra county, and one in Yuba county, now that I retired, I’m going to pull some good out.
DeleteCheck out PLP, people are dredging again, reclamation.
I remember my brother panning for gold when he visited my grandparents in Grass Valley.
ReplyDeleteOlder brother panned nearly one ounce in two days out of the Feather River near Chico in the early 1980s.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, he's part of a team working old tailings near Modesto. The team of about twenty men pulled out $5 million in AU last year. A lot of that goes to machinery and overhead.
That's an excellent article. It's not often pointed out that the big mines were producing hundreds of millions of dollars of gold back when the price was controlled by the government. Fast forward to today and that millions would be billions, without breaking a sweat.
ReplyDeleteAnother fun fact is that Grass Valley never experienced the Great Depression. Everybody was too busy working, playing baseball and swimming in Lake Olympia.
Have a friend who was a geologist at the Idaho-Maryland. The nearby 16-to-1 mine has some awesome rock. Found an over-looked pocket worth a bit over $50k net once near Washington up the hill a bit from Nevada City.
ReplyDeleteThe Sixteen to One is a played out scam whose main source of income is the sale of shares in the mine based on the fact that is has a cool name.
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