From a sign in town:
George W. Coulter started a tent store here early in 1850, to supply hundreds of miners working the rich placers of Maxwell, Boneyard, and Black creeks. The settlement was called Banderita, from the flag flying over Coulter's store, a postoffice established in 1853 was called Maxwell Creek, but changed the following year to honor Coulter.
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Coulterville is on Hwy 49 about an hour and 15 minutes to the east of my place in Riverbank City of Action.
I had a placer claim there on Maxwell Creek just off of Dogtown Road south of town back around 1985 or so. I paid 500 bucks for the claim and figured to do pretty good because at least once a year a recreational panner would find a decent nugget in Maxwell Creek right in the middle of town. The creek is a proven gold producer.
What I didn't know was the creek that far up by my claim dried up during the summer and fall months, leaving me about 4 months out of the year with enough water to work the claim. The other 8 months it was infested with rattlesnakes and those vicious little brown Mexican scorpions.
It took me 2 fucking years to make my $500 back, and this is when gold was running about 300 bucks an ounce. Back then I figured I needed to make 10 bucks an hour to make it worth my while because that was my average wage at the ammo plant, but I kept putting time into that claim because I just knew in my heart I was going to strike it rich. Haha, fooled me. As soon as I recovered my investment, I pulled my claim markers down and abandoned the claim. It just wasn't worth my time and effort.
About 10 or 15 years later I was in the area and stopped in at one of the small mining/tourist shops in town. I knew the owner fairly well because he also sold local history books, and he told me that some kid on his very first prospecting trip found a 7 ounce nugget not a hundred yards from my old claim a couple months prior. He even showed me a picture of the nugget to rub it in, the asshole.
I do have some really good memories of Coulterville though. It's a tiny little town with a shitload of old buildings that for the most part are in good repair, and their cemetary is one of the better that I've wandered through up in the Mother Lode. Folks are friendly up there and the people in the museum (pictured in the article) had no problem taking an hour or so to answer my questions the first time I went there. It's not like I was pulling them away from anything - between talking with them and getting a private tour through the museum, I was there for two or three hours and nobody else came in.
Just down the road maybe a mile or so is the site of the Mary Harrison mine which was a major employer for a good long while. As I recall it opened in 1852 or 53, had a 1200' deep vertical shaft and several thousand feet of drifts, so it was a pretty good sized mine. There's nothing left but a blocked shaft and a couple brick walls of the shafthouse. There was another big mine in the area but I can't remember the name or much of anything else about it, and I don't want to look it up because who wants to go down that rabbit hole, right? I'll end up reading about illegal gold mining in Brazil ot wherever before the night's out. Look! A squirrel!
In the middle of town in front of the History Center and across the road from the Hotel Jeffery is the smallest steam locomotive I've ever seen, used to haul ore from the Mary Harrison to wherever they milled it.
Like I said, it's a nice little town filled with old buildings. The only real concession to the 20th Century was a nice park on the northern edge of town where you can relax, eat a hamburger and drink a beer after a hard day of working your claim and not even making your gas money back.
In the late 1970s in one day my brother panned 25 mils of gold out of the Feather River. He's got yellow fever real bad. He recently won a MineLab Monster 1000 at a gold club meeting. He's using it to infect me, er, I mean he gave it to me as a gift.
ReplyDeleteHe works claims in 4 western states. His photos of panned gold often features a dime coin for scale. I ask where does he find oversized coins? (to makes the fines look large)
In the 1990s I was helping to build a house near Volcano. In the two months I was there, someone found a nugget of 3.2 lbs nearby. A week or so later, out of the same creek, two bodies riddled with bullet holes washed down.
We took a day off to drive some PG&E access roads. Frank, the local, said ya can slow down but don't stop. We were being watched prit near everywhere we went.
That night at the pizza joint, two men looking like they hadn't bathed in a month came in and sat next to our table in the near empty place. With stern looks, they shook their heads and said don't go there no more. Then they left.
A bit later, one guy came in. He looked like sasquatch's cousin. Barefoot in October, wearing nothing but dirty, shredded bib overalls. He came over to say we should go somewhere else to drive.
I reckon they feared we were scouting.
So now I have a mine lab. I ain't a claim jumper, but the claims map is maybe a bit too complex for me
I been in and around Coulterville. Mainly that area towards Greeley. Rock hounding, not necessarily looking for AU. The Sierra foothills are riddled with old towns.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I'd see things that made me wonder how rough that life was. Womenfolk would follow their man to some claim which mainly held hopes and dreams.
My nephew watches a lot of gold type shows. He plans to ride his bike out west next summer. He wants to pan along the way. No plans on striking it rich, he just wants to pan for fun. He metal detects on the beaches of Fl and enjoys that too. A great kid who enjoys his own company in the great outdoors.
ReplyDeleteI lived in and around Coulterville for 30 years. Had to move back east in '15 to take care of family. I'm a life member of the Coulterville VFW. W.hen I married in '97 my wife owned a house up near Greely Hill. I flew Hang Gliders from Fuqua ridge down by Lake McClure from '85 - '13.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing the hang gliders!
DeleteMined some nice little nuggets out of a gully near Greeley Hill back in the day.
DeleteTheres a creek behind me here in ETN, I've always wanted to try panning it, but figured I wouldn't even find enough to make that money back.
ReplyDeleteYou never know until you try.
DeleteThere's been gold found in North Carolina and eastern Tennessee before.
https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/reed-gold-mine/history
All you really need to prospect is a pan and a shovel. A classifying screen helps but isn't necessary. I'm sure you've got a shovel laying around, and pans run less than 20 bucks.
Kenny, I sure enjoy your reminiscences.
ReplyDeleteDon in Oregon
I read the headline as Cooterville...
ReplyDeleteI'm going to hell.
Don't forget the Coulterville Coyote Howling contest!!
ReplyDeleteKenny, here's another rabbit hole for you. Scroll down for videos.
ReplyDeletehttps://preservefiddletown.org/historic-fiddletown/
I grew up as a young lad on a ranch about four miles up Tyler Road. I was about nine or so when I met Jimmy Chow. I remember going into his Chew Kee Store with my mother and a few other members of the Preservation Society shortly after Jimmy passed away.
You left ALL THAT for Tennessee? Maybe the Commie part of Commiefornia had something to do with that...and family.
ReplyDeleteSo far, at least 5 families (friends and associates) have moved to Tennessee, from East County, San Diego, since we did in 2015. Not a liberal in the crew. One family landed outside of Memphis. The rest landed in the Mt. Juliet area.
Love yer old, gold country accounts.
That was a California that is no more, I'm sad to say.
Delete