|
An Overview of Mining in the California Desert
Placer Gold
Placer gold, eroded from its host rock and deposited as nuggets or flakes in stream-bed gravel, provided the first
non-native American mineral production in California.
Shortly after the establishment of a Spanish community
at the present site of Yuma, Arizona, placer gold was
discovered about ten miles to the northeast on the California
side of the
Colorado River
at the Potholes. The deposit
was worked from 1779 to 1781. (The Yuma Indians wiped
out the Spanish community on July 17, 1781.) About this
same time placer gold was discovered and worked briefly
in the nearby Cargo Muchacho Mountains. The Potholes
again began to yield gold following Mexican
independence in 1823.
On
the western-most fringe of the Mojave Desert,
Francisco Lopez, Domingo Bermudez, and Manuel Cota
discovered gold on March 9, 1842 just some 30 miles
from downtown Los Angeles and 50 miles from
Palmdale
in Placerita Canyon. Gold was mined here actively until
1845.
However, these early gold discoveries are simply
historical footnotes in comparison to John Marshall’s find
on January 24, 1848 on the South Fork of the American
River. Marshall made his discovery nine days before the
signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo. This treaty
called for Mexico to cede 55% of its territory, present-
day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and parts
of Colorado, Nevada and Utah, in exchange for fifteen
million dollars in compensation for war-related damage
to Mexican property. In May 1848,
Kit Carson,
acting as
official courier for the U.S. Government, left Los Angeles,
carrying a dispatch to Washington D.C. announcing the
discovery of gold in California. On the trip east,
following the
Old Spanish Trail,
he would have naturally have stopped at
Salt Springs
at the south end of
Death Valley. The
reports of astoundingly rich placer gold finds
caught the imagination of the entire civilized world. Soon
it seemed that everyone was on his way to California to
strike it rich.
In October 1849, some 500 gold seekers in 110
wagons, who had arrived too late in the season to safely
cross the Sierras, chose to head south guided by
Jefferson Hunt
– at $10 per wagon. The route from Salt Lake City
approached the gold fields via snow-free southern California. On
November 1, near the Utah–Nevada boundary, a
group 100 immigrants decided to follow a doubtful map
to cut hundreds of miles off the route. Those that left soon
disintegrated into a number of smaller groups that found
themselves lost in the Death Valley country. Somewhere
in the Panamint Range, Jim Martin picked up a rock
which was nearly pure silver. Later, when he had arrived
in Mariposa, he had the specimen made into a gun sight.
This discovery has been known as the “Lost Gunsight
Mine” ever since.
Previous -
Next
|
|