Mining Research Design

MINING SITES : HISTORIC CONTEXT AND
ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH DESIGN
In partial fulfillment of Agreement 43A0191
Prepared for:
Arunarie Medin
Cultural and Conununity 5htdies Office
Division of Environmental Analysis
Califomia Deparhnent of Transportation
Sacramento
Prepared by :
HARD Mining Sites Team
Julia G. Costello
Rand F. Herbert
Mark D . Selverston
Jlllle 2007 Draft

CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Introdu ction ............................................................................ ................................................ 1
Mining Research Design: Stunm ary ................................................................................................. 1
Research Design Series ................................................................................................................. 2
H ow this Docum ent was Created ........................................................................................ 2
The National Register Evaluation Process under Criterion D ......................................... 3
The Califomia Register of H istorical Resources ................................................................. 5
Using this Document for Section 106 Consultation ........................................................... 5
Cha pter 2. Historic Context ...................................................................................................................... 6
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 6
The Gold Rush and Mining ............................... ................................................................................ 8
Placer Mining ................................................................................................................................. 8
Lode/Deep Mining ...................................................................................................................... 11
Laws Related to Mining and Water Claim s ............................................................................ 13
EtlUlicity/Race/Gender ............................................................................................................... 16
Post-Gold -Rush hldustrial Maturity: Diversification of Target Metals and Minerals ...... 18
Gold and Silver ..................................................................................................................... 19
Industrial Metals of the 19th and 20th Cenhtries ............................................................. 21
Mercury ..................................................................................................................................................... 21
Other Industrial Metals ........................................................................................................................... 23
Cha pter 3. Property Types ...................................................................................................................... 27
Introduction to Property Type Categories ..................................................................................... 27
Prospecting and Extraction P roperty Types .................................................................................. 28
Placer Mining Property Types .................................................................................................. 28
Tailings Piles ......................................................................................................................... 29
Cut Banks, Charmels, and Placer Tailings ........................................................................ 31
River Diversion ..................................................................................................................... 33
Dredge Tailings ..................................................................................................................... 33
Ad its and Placer-Tailings Dum p s ...................................................................................... 34
H ard Rock (Lode) Mining Property Types .... ......................................................................... 35
Small Pits and Surface Vein Workings ........ ..................................................................... 36
Waste Rock Piles ................................................................................................................... 37
Shafts and Ad its and Facilities in their Vicinity ............................................................... 37
Underground W orkings ...................................................................................................... 38
Open Pit Mines ..................................................................................................................... 39
Ore Processing (Beneficiation) P roperty Types ............................................................................. 39
Arrastras ....................................................................................................................................... 39
Mills: Industrial Foundations, Pads, and Machine Motults .................................................. 40
Mill Tailings .......................................................................................................................... 42
Ancillary Mining Property Types ................................................................................................... 43
Struchtral Renlains ...................................................................................................................... 43
Site-Specific Transportation Feahtres. ............... ............................................................. 44
Mining Sites: Historic Context and HARD

Archaeological Research Design - JUNE DRAFT Mining Sites Team
Site-Specific Water Conveyance Systems ................................................................................ 45
Mining Community Property Ty pes .............................................................................................. 45
Domestic Structural Remains .................................................................................................... 46
Domestic Artifact Deposits ........................................................................................................ 48
Domestic Landscape Features ................................................................................................... 49
Inter-Site, Mining Support Property Ty pes ................................................................................... 50
Inter-site Linear Transportation Features ................................................................................ 50
Inter-site Water Conveyance Systems ...................................................................................... 50
Inter-site Utilities ......................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter 4. Current Research Themes .................................................................................................... 52
Introd u ction to Mining Research .................................................................................................... 52
H istorical Studies of Mining ............................................................................................................ 52
Studies of Archaeological Sites ........................................................................................................ 54
Theme 1: Teclmology ........................................................................................................................ 57
Theme 2: Historical Etlmography ................................................................................................... 61
Settlelnent .................................................................................................................. .................. 61
Individuals ................................................................................................................ .................. 63
Households and Community ................................................................................. .................. 64
Theme 3: Etlmic and Cultural Groups in the Mines .................................................. .................. 66
Native American Miners ............................................................................................................ 68
European and North American Miners ................................................................................... 69
Latin American Miners .............................................................................................................. 73
Chinese Miners ............................................................................................................................ 77
Theme 4: Women and Family .......................................................................................................... 82
Theine 5: EconoolY ............................................................................................................................ 86
Theole 6: Policy .................................................................................................................................. 91
Cha pter 5. Implementation Plan for Site Identification and Evaluation ................................... ...... 96
Phase 1: Identification and Recording of Mining Sites ................................................................ 97
Phase 2: Evaluation of Mining Sites under Criterion D ............................................................... 98
Integrity .................................................................................................................................. 99
Location .................................................................................................................................................. ... 99
Design ........................................................................................................................................................ 99
Setting ...................................................................................................................................................... 100
Materials .................................................................................................................................................. 100
WorkOlanship ............................ ............................................................................................................ 100
Feeling ......................................... ................................... ........................................................................ 100
Association ................................. ............................................................................................................ 100
Significan ce Evaluations .................................................................................................... 101
Criterion D: Research Potential ............................................................................................................ 101
Other Criteria .......................................................................................................................................... 102
Steps For Assessing the Researcll Potential of Mining Sites ............................................... 10 3
Simple Mining Site .................................................................................................................... 103
Mining Sites: Historic Context and II HARD

Procedures for Identify ing and Recording Sim p le Mining Sites ................................. 104
Data Required fo r Significan ce of Simp le Mining Sites ................................................ 104
Assessm ent and Evaluation of Simp le Min ing Sites ..................................................... 105
N ot Significant ........................................................................................................................................ 105
Data Potential Exhausted ...................................................................................................................... 105
Potential Significance ............................................................................................................................. 105
Simple Mining Sites w ith Domestic Remains ....................................................................... 105
Procedures for Identifying and Recording Simp le Min ing Sites
with Dom estic Rem ains ..................................................................................................... 105
Data Required fo r Significan ce of Simp le Mining Sites w ith Domestic Rem ains ..... 106
Assessm ent and Evaluation of Sim ple Mining Sites w ith Domestic Rem ains .......... 106
Not Significant ........................................................................................................................................ 106
Potential Significance ............................................................................................................................. 106
Indu strial Min ing Sites ............................................................................................................. 107
Procedures for Identify ing and Recording Industrial Mining Sites ............................ 107
Data Required fo r Significan ce of Industrial Mining Sites ........................................... 107
Assessm ent and Evaluation of hld u strial Mining Sites ................................................ 108
N ot Significant ........................................................................................................................................ 108
Potential Significance .................................................................................................... ................... .... 108
Indu strial Min ing Sites with Dom estic Deposit.. ......................................... ................... .... 108
Procedures for Identify ing and Recording Industrial Mining Sites
'w ith Dom estic Deposits ............................................................ ............... ................... .... 108
Data Required for Significan ce of Ind u strial Mining Sites
with Domestic Deposit ............................................................. ................................... .... 109
Assessm ent and Evaluation of hldustrial Mining Sites
'w ith Dom estic Deposit ......................................................... ....................................... .... 109
Not Significant ........................................................................................................................................ 109
Potential Significance ........................................................................ .................................................... 110
Con clusions ............................................................... ................................................................ 110
Safety Concerns ........................................................ ................................................................ 110
References Cited and Consulted ..................................... .................................................................... 111
Mining Sites: Historic Context and ill HARD

TABLES
1. Gold P roduction in Califomia 1850--1940 . ................................................................................. 19
2. Placer Gold Mining. Num ber of Mines in Example years ....................................................... 20
3. Important Gold/precious Metals Mining Cotmties ................................................................... 21
4. Important Copper Mines in California ....................................................................................... 24
5. Published History Articles on Mining by Topic ........................................................................ 54
FIGURES
1. Gold miners u sing a long tom, ca. 1852, Spanish Flat, EI Dorado County
2. Gold miners u sing board sluices near Nevada City
3. Sluice-mining landscape created in the 1850s-186Os, McCabe Creek, Butte County
4. H ydraulic mine
5. H ydraulic mining cut, McCabe Creek, Butte COtmty
6. Remains of a wing dam along the Stanislaus River
7. Bucket-line dredge landscape along the Feather River near Oroville, Butte County
8. Clusters of conical dredge piles in Calaveritas Creek
9. Tractor-boiler that supplied power to two-stamp mill at Defiance Claim
10. Waste rock pile in Canyon, San Bemardino COtmty, with cabin ruins in foregrotmd
11 . Small head frame 'w ith clmte, hlyO COtmty
12. Isolated shaft collar, Inyo County
13. Remains of arrastra floor, Amador County
14. Remains of 20th-century arrastra, hlyO County
15. Remains of the Royal Consolidated mill
16. Hendy Ball Mill at Motmtain King Mine
17. The town of Melones where the mill tailings were slurried to a neighboring valley,
resulting in the w hite fill visible in backgrotmd
18. Tramway header, Star of the West Mine, hlyO County
19. Star of the West Mine, hlyO County: partially standing stone cabin
20. Remains of a masonry-lined dugout, Butte COtmty
21. Large stone oven at the 1850s mining camp of C11ili Jtmction, Calaveras County, populated
by miners from Chile
Mining Sites: Historic Context and IV HARD

C HAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
MINING RESEARCH DESIGN : SUMMARY
The purpose of this research design is to provide general guidance for evaluating historic-
era mining sites, specifically their data potential It includes a historic context outlining
important periods of mining history in the State, identification of property types, and important
research themes and questions relevant to mining sites. Due to the range of natural resources in
California, the scope of this document is necessarily limited to the mining of metals and those
related archaeological sites. For this document, mining sites are defined as those sites
containing evidence of metals-mining activities.
The period of study is 1848 through 1940. The minor and spatially limited mining that took
place during the pre-Gold Rush period in California is not the subject of this context. Examples
of site types may include, but are not limited to, mines, mills, shafts, adits, prospects, and
placer-mining sites. These sites may include processing equipment, ruins of mine buildings
and/or miners' habitations, scatters of equipment or mining debris, trash related to the miners'
occupation of the site, and other related items. Where standing structures are extant (mills,
headframes, support buildings), they should be considered for both their potential
contributions to researcll and for their eligibility under other criteria. These are properly
considered as historic architectural resources that, in addition to being addressed as features of
the mining operation, also need to be evaluated on Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)
Building/Structure/Object fonus by a qualified architectural historian. These architectural
resources may also have a historical archaeological component.
The sites that are the subject of this report are related to the mining of all metals, including
but not limited to gold, silver, and the other precious metals. "Base" metals SUcll as copper,
lead, mercury, tin, iron, and other non-ferrous metals used in industrial processes are also
found in California and were mined at various times; some, like lead and copper, are conunonly
found in conjunction with gold and silver. The traces of gold and silver found with copper and
lead were often a major source of profit of such mines.
TIlls document consists of five sections:
• Chapter 1 consists of this Introduction, whicll outlines the document's purpose,
authorship, structure, and theoretical orientation.
• Chapter 2 contains the historic context, a synthetic narrative describing the significant
broad patterns of mining development in California that may be represented by
historic properties.
• Chapter 3 describes archaeological property types created by the processes presented
in Chapter 2. 111ese are the features that archaeologists encounter in the field.
Mining Sites: Historic Context and 1 HARD

• Chapter 4 con sists of a review of current scholarship to identify scholarly them es and
develop specific research question s th at information from mining sites might be able to
answer.
• Cha pter 5 offers an im plem entation p lan th at presents standardized m ethods that w ill
enhan ce comparative research and guide evaluation under criterion D with ou t
h ampering the imaginative process. Data requirements and issu es of integrity are
addressed here .
RESEARCH DESIGN SERIES

TIlls is one of a series of state·wide, them atic, archaeological research designs developed by
the California Department of Tr ansportation (Caltrans) . Its purp ose is to help arch aeologists
assess the importan ce of historic-era archaeological sites commonly encountered on Caltrans
projects. Other volumes in this series address agriculhtral properties (Caltrans 2006), Town
Sites, and Work Camps.
The series grew ou t of Caltran s' s lon g-term efforts to improve th e process of site-specific
research an d evaluation as well as the California State Historic Preservation Officer's
reconun endation that th e agen cy improve h ow historical archaeology is condu cted in the
context of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. TIu s stahtte requires that
federal agen cies take into accotmt th e effects of the u ndertakings on properties listed on or
eligible to th e N ational Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
It is important to n ote that tlu s Mining Sites Research Design is con cerned witll N RHP
criterion D tmder w hich properties may be eligib le for listing if they h ave "yielded, or may be
likely to yield, inform ation important in prelu story or lu story" (36 CFR 60.4[d ]). H owever, the
lu storic context, a pproach to site identification, an d reconunended procedures fo r recording
mining sites sh ould be u seful to both lu storian s and archaeologists.
How this Document was Created

The Secretary of the hlterior's Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic
Preservation (48 FR 44716) state that lu storic contexts should be con stru cted by an
interdisciplinary process that con siders the conunents of the interested public and scholars. To
facilitate public comment and peer input, tlle authors presented their ap p roach in symposia at
the 2006 ammal conferen ce of tlle California Cotmcil for the Prom otion of History. A sinular
presentation was m ade at the Society for California Arch aeology's 2006 n orthern data-sh aring
m eeting. A review d raft was posted online and [number to be added] conunents were received
from profession als in the culhtral resources field.
TIlls d ocument was the creation of the interdisciplinary Historical Archaeology Research
Design (or HARD) team that consisted of (in alp habetical ord er) con sultants from
Anthrop ological Shtdies Center, Footl1il1 Resou rces, JRP Historical Con sulting LLC, and PAR
En virorunental Services. A t FHWA, Stephanie Stoermer oversaw the first efforts to establish this
research d esign an d Gary Sweeten continued to p rovid e m anagem ent perspective. At the OHP,
Deputy SH PO Steve Mikesell h as been involved from the p roject's ince ption and project review

unit staff m em bers have provided input throughout the process, specifically Michael McGuirt
participated in the initial development of this document. The shtdy was prepared under the
overall direction of Greg Kitl~ Chief of the Caltrans Cultural and Conununity Studies Office.
Project manager was Arunarie Medin, Senior Environmental Plarmer. Caltrans facilitated peer
review by historians and historical archaeologists; Kimberly Wooten com p iled the reviews of
Steven Mulqueen of the California State Lands Conunission, Margaret Hangan of the Cleveland
National Forest, and Caltrans staff Dicken Everson, Blossom Hamusek, Julia Huddleson, Greg
Kin~ Richard Levy, Armlarie Medin, Steve Ptomey, Dana Supemowicz, Karen Swope, Judy
Tordoff, Tom Wheeler, and herself.
The principal authors of this volume are (in alphabetical order) Julia G. Costello, Rand F.
He rbert, and Mark D. Selve rston, with contributions by Judith D. Tordoff. Shawn Reim,
research assistant at JRP, provided valuable assistance in preparing the review of recent articles
on mining related topics.
The National Register Evaluation Process under Criterion 0

To be eligible for listing in the NRHP, a mining property must be significant in American
history, a rchitecture, engineering. or culture and possess integrity of location, design, materials,
workm anship, feeling, and association. In addition, the mining property must m eet one or m ore
of the four National Register criteria:
A. be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad pattems
of our history; or
B. be associated w ith the lives of persons significant in our past; or
C. embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or
that represent the work of a m aster, or that posses high artistic values, or that represent
a significant and d istinguishable entity w hose com ponents m ay lack ind ividual
distinction; or
D. have yielded, or m ay be likely to yield , information important in prehistory or history.
All researchers should also carefully consider which of the othe r NRHP criteria in addition
to 0 m ight also be applicable to the property they are evaluating. 1his docwnent specifically
addresses how to evaluate mining sites tmder Criterion D, incorporating five basic steps
defined by Little and Seibert (2000:14):
1. Determine its structure, content, and classes of data it m ay contain.
2. Identify the appropriate historic context by w hich to evaluate it.
3. Identify important research themes and questions that the data it contains may be able
to address.
4. Considering the property' s integrity, structure, and content, assess whether the data it
contains a re of sufficient quality to address these important research issues.
5. Identify the important infonnation that the property is likely to contain.

Archaeological properties are evaluated 'w ithin an appropriate historic context defined by
theme, place, and time period. Chapter 2 of this document presents a historic context for mining
sites in Califomia between 1848 and 1940, begirming at the Gold Rush and ending just before
World War II. It can provide the basis of a context statement for evaluation but must be
supplemented by property-specific research to provide the relevant focus. The National Park
Service's (NPS 1996) Revised Thematic Framework, H istory ill the Na tional Park Service: Themes
alld Concepts, offers eight themes and many sub-themes that are useful for developing historic
contexts for specific properties. TIle historic context is linked to an individual property by
property types-groupings of individual properties that have shared physical characteristics or
associations. Property types are discussed in Chapter 3. To make the connection between
specific archaeological resources and the property types identified in the historic context,
Donald Hardesty (1988) developed the concept of "feahtre system:" a cluster of archaeological
feahtres that are the products of an identifiable process or activity. TIlls approach focuses the
evaluation effort onto historically significant units.
To be eligible to NRHP tmder Criterion D, a property must both contain infonnation that
can contribute to our understanding of some aspect of human history alld the information must
be considered important. Research themes and associated questions that can be applied to
specific property types are specified in Chapter 4.
Archaeological facts are not intrinsically valuable; they achieve importance in relation to
their ability to advance our understanding of human history. We can define what constihttes
important information by reviewing current scholarship in disciplines su ch as history,
geography, anthropology, and archaeology. As change in research orientation is a normal part
of social science, important issues are moving targets that must be frequently reassessed. We
reconunend that historical archaeologists consider both the scientific and humanistic
contributions of the discipline as they design and conduct their work. Some questions have
definitive answers, such as those designed to gather base-line infonnation about structure,
content, and integrity of a property. Some questions will have less conclusive or quantifiable
answers, as they are designed to help incrementally reveal large-scale historical and culhtral
processes significant or important in our history. hldividual properties often contribute by
illustrating how a diversity of processes played out in specific contexts, deepening our
tmderstanding of their effects on Californians in the past.
To be eligible to the NRHP an archaeological site must be able to convey its significance to
those for whom it has value. hl the case of Criterion D, these are scholars and others who may
seek to use the infomlation the site contains. The ability of a property to convey this information
is measured by assessing its integrity. The appraisal of integrity accompanies an assessment of
significance: significance + integrity = eligibility . TIlls topic is discussed in Olapter 4.
Applying the NRHP criteria for evaluation is a complex tmdertaking. It requires that
researchers follow a set process and tmderstand certain terms of art. TIle NRHP Bulletin series
is an essential reference. Of particular importance are Bulletin 15 How to A pply the National
Register Criteria for Evalua tioll (NPS 1991) and Bulletin 36 Guidelilles for Eval uating afl d Registering
Archeological Properties (Little and Siebert 2(00). Bulletin 42 Guidelines for Identifying, Evaluating,
and Registering Historic M illillg Properties offers essential information as well (Noble and Spude

1997). All are available online at http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr. Donald H ardesty and Barbara
Little's book Assessing Site Sigllificallce: A Guide for Archaeologists and Historians (2000) offers
practical advice and many infomlative case studies.
The California Register of Historical Resources

The eligibility criteria for the California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR) closely
follow those of the NRHP, although some properties that are ineligible to the latter may qualify
for the CRHR (Office of Historic Preservation 2001:ii). This series of researcll designs may be
used to help evaluate properties' eligibility to the CRHR for the purposes of CEQA within the
requirements of the Register's implementing regulations at CCR Section 4850 et seq.
Using this Document for Section 106 Consultation

Caltrans' ultimate goal in producing this document is to streamline eligibility
determination consultations with the SHPO under Section 106. To that end, future researcllers
are encouraged to cite relevant sections of this document and apply specific research questions
that relate to the property being evaluated.
California SHPO staff reviewed the document, conunented on its fundamental scope, and
believes it to provide useful guidance when assessing information values of mining-oriented
historic arcllaeological sites. H owever, as with all guidance, the SHPO staff will review
individual submittals for appropriate application of research questions contained herein as well
as for appropriate application of the recommended methods. The individual researcher must
explain how the selected research questions apply to the site being evaluated; that is, what
information is contained within the individual site and why it is important. As stated elsewhere
in this document, other theoretical orientations, researcll issues, or individual research
questions not discussed herein may be identified as relevant to the site tmder study. If so, those
other items would require an appropriate level of development for SHPO consultation.

CHAPTER 2. HISTORIC CONTEXT
INTRODUCTION
Mining in Califomia experienced classic "boom and bust" periods, although the mining
industry has been continually active to a greater or lesser degree after 1848. The span of years
defining the "Gold Rush Era" has been a source of discussion among Califomia historians since
the late 19th century. hl his seminal book, California Gold: The Beginning of Mining i1l the Far West
(1947), historian Rodman Paul suggested that the classic Gold Rush period consisted of the
years 1848 generally through the 18705. More recent works, such as the late J.S. Holliday's The
World Rushed I,,: The Califofilia Gold Rush Experience, an Eyewitness AccoUll1 of a Nation Heading
West (1981) or Susan Lee Jolmson's Roarillg Camp: the Social World of the Califonlia Gold Rush
(2000) have described the Gold Rush as the decade between 1848 and 1858. That general period,
of course, included the begirming of the evolution of mining as an economic endeavor from an
individualistic enterprise to an industrial system, with all the attendant changes such an
evolution would entail to inter-personal labor and inter-ethnic relations, town development,
financial requirements, and other conditions.
The second major period is often described as the post-Gold Rush period, which ran from
the end of the rush to the early decades of the 20th century, when mining came of age as a
largely industrial pursuit, and as mining spread to regions around the state. Industrialization
became increasingly significant as mining moved into large-scale exploitation of quartz veins
and deep placer Tertiary gravels exposed by h ydraulic mining teclmiques after the Gold Rush
period. TIus was particularly true between the nud 1870s and 1884, when court- and
legislatively-imposed restrictions linuted the continuation of h ydraulic mining. Both lode
mining and h ydraulic mining required employment of financial capital and lured labor to be
successful Sites based on these mining methods are often significantly different in scale and
complexity compared to the simple placer-mining sites of the earliest years of the rush. Hard
rock or lode mining producing ores of all kinds continued throughout the period, responding to
the changing economic realities of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Mining for non-
precious metals such as lead, copper, and mercury was more conunon in the 20th century than
during the first half-century of California's statehood, although mercury mining began early on,
during the Mexican period and later as an adjtmct to the gold-mining industry, and both copper
and lead were nuned as early as the 186Os. TIle material remains of industrial or base metals
mines -particularly in their surface plants- can be substantially different in type and scale
from those of precious metals sites.
Finally, during the Great Depression (1929-1941), a number of major gold mines resumed
their operations after a period of linuted production in the first decades of the 20th century, and
transitory gold miners and refugees from the general econonuc collapse took up small-scale
placer mining in ways that recalled the early days of mining in Califonua. These small
operators moved out into isolated areas in forests and deserts, typically on public lands, and
tmdertook mining almost as a subsistence activity. In many ways tIus type and period of

mining. tmdertaken by what were often referred to as "snipers," is perhaps the most poorly
documented of all; Russell Kaldenberg, archaeologist at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake,
maintains that relatively little is known about desert mining activities (2006, pers. cooun.).
During this period large mines idled by low gold prices restarted operations with federal gold
price regulations. Also, mines extracting industrial metals experienced peaks and lulls during
the period, as prices for their commodities flu ctuated with the strength of the national economy
and demands from national and international markets.
Mining for metals occurs in California in almost all areas of the state except the Central
Valley. Gold mining, by far the most common and pervasive generator of mining sites, was
tmdertaken in the Sierra Nevada, Cascades, Siskiyous, Tehachapis, the mountains east of San
Diego, and wide areas of the Mojave Desert and its ranges. There was also a small, isolated
gold-mining area within the coastal motmtains of the Big Sur region. TIle reason for this is
simple: gold and other precious metal ores are typically fotmd in or near hilly or mountainous
terrain; the exception is a limited number of deposits or placers found in alluvial areas at the
edge of the Great Central Valley. The Central Valley and coastal strip from San Diego to the
Oregon border has experienced extensive mining activity, but almost all of it is based arotmd
construction materials and industrial minerals rather than metals. Some industrial metals, such
as manganese and chromite, were fotmd in the Coast Ranges and elsewhere. The most notable
exception, mercury mining, was undertaken primarily in the coastal ranges west of the San
Joaquin and Sacramento Valley, but for the most part relatively distant from the coast. A
simplified visual representation of the location of mining areas in Califomia can be fotmd on
Maps 90 and 91 of the Historical Atlas of Califom ia (1974), by Warren A. Beck and Ynez D. Haase.
A map showing "Locations of past-producing gold and mercury mines in California" is
available through MAS/MIl.5 (Minerals A va.ilability System/Mineral Infonnation Location
System) database compiled by the former U.S. Department of the hlterior Bureau of Mines
(USBM), now archived by the USGS (Causey 1998).

THE GOLD RUSH AND MINING
The history of metals mining in California began with the Gold Rush. As noted above, this
period is generally considered to be the period behveen 1848 and roughly 1860, during which
time a flood of Argonauts entered Califomia' s mining regions, prospected new areas, and
eventually spread their activities to neighboring territories. TIle most enduring image of the
Gold Rush is the eager, grizzled prospector kneeling alongside a stream with his pick and pan.
TIus idealized view was relatively limited in chronological and technical scope; that is, mining
changed rapidly from an individual endeavor to one based on group effort and, eventually, a
labor-and -capital industrial paradigm.
PLACER MINING
The Gold Rush period was dominated by placer mining for gold. It was not until hard rock
or deep mining spread that other metals, along with gold, were mined . Placer mining refers to
mining for gold that nature has freed from its associated rock and left in the form of nuggets,
flakes, grains, or dust. Because this process was associated with erosion cau sed by water flow,
gold found throu gh "placering" was located in stream beds or in deposits left in ancient
streambeds. During the Gold Rush period, placer mining was heavily dependent on manual
labor and the u se of water, so its mining sites are typically fotmd along streams, in river
canyons, or in tributary canyons. Typical mining equipment during the period included cradles,
long toms, sluice boxes, and hand-held equipment (e .g., pans, picks, and shovels). Among the
earliest and most persistent method of placer mining, particularly on a sm all scale, was through
"dry" p lacer mining, which did not use water in the process. As the years passed, m ore
elaborate methods of placer mining (river mining with dams and water-driven pumps, ditch-
fed sluicing systems, booming and other nascent versions of hydraulicking, and sinking drifts
into ancient gravels) gradually replaced the miner with his pick and pan.
During this time, miners and prospectors fatmed out throughout the Mother Lode,
southern Sierra Nevada, Siskiy ous, Klamaths, and Tehachapis, atld began prospecting in the
Mojave Desert. Argonauts explored rivers atld tributaries draining the Sierra Nevada atld
Cascades from the Kern in the south to the Pit and Feather in the north, as well as the m ajor
river basins of the northwest coastal mountains, including the Smith, Trinity, and Klamath.
O ften these areas were subject to minor "rushes" as news of potentially ricll strikes leaked out;
this was true in the Kern River area atld in the Transverse Ratlges. The locations of these early
mining areas, and the routes established to access them, laid the fotmdation for much of the
town and transportation pattern of development existing in the mining regions today .
Much of what is fotmd at a mining site can be divided into two general categories: remains
related to mining processes atld remains related to habitation at the mining site . Those related
to the mining process (such as shafts, pits, adits, waste rock piles, ponds, tools, mining atld
milling equipment, structures, fotmdations, tramways, trails, and roads) are usually the m ost
visually prominent. Remains related to habitations are less so, and commonly consist of small
perimeter foundations or structure pads (often w ith dim ensional lumber, nails, window glass,

or brick fragments), renmant landscaping (exotic plantings, walkways), and domestic artifacts
such as bottles, cans, ceramics, and personal items (Brereton 1976:286--302).
Understanding the development of mining teclmology and its requirements for labor and
capital are particularly important. Obviously, different periods relied on different tedmologies
or had the advantage of improving on earlier mining equipment. As historian Roselyn Brereton
(1976) noted in her article, "Mining Techniques in the California Goldfields during the 1850s,"
"the story, then, of Califomia mining techniques, is the elaboration of simple methods."
Brereton reported that the general concepts had been known for centuries, and were described
by the Gennan writer Agricola in 1555 in his work De Re M etallica. The placer mining methods
used in California were employed by the Spanish in the New World, and by miners in Georgia
and N orth Carolina in the 1820s and 1830s. Not surprisingly, miners from those regions were
influential in providing infonnation about mining tedmiques (largely by example) to the
largely inexperienced miners of the early years of the Gold Rush (Brereton 1976, 286--302). These
included use of the familiar pan (batea ), cradle (rocker), long tom, and sluice box. Each was a
refinement of the earlier-a cradle handled more auriferous material than did a pan (although a
pan was often used as a final step), a long tom was more efficient than a cradle, and a sluice box
more efficient (especially when linked in series) than a long tom. Each was eventually also more
water- and capital-intensive to develop.
Miners used these relatively simple methods to process surface placer deposits, usually
near an available water supply. A5 the Argonauts learned about placer deposits, they turned to
other methods that had more pronotmced effects on the landscape. Miners quickly learned that
ricll placer deposits might be found in the Tertiary gravels left in the bed of ancient rivers in the
mountains. Millions of years old, the gravels were the renmant deposits of ancient rivers that
had run through the region at angles to the modem streams, and were marooned as the Sierra
Nevada's granitic batholith was uplifted and cllanged the drainage pattern. Getting at these
gold-bearing gravels required application of significantly different methods because they were
overlaid 'w ith non-productive deposits that needed to be removed. The result was development
of two different methods: h ydraulic mining and drift mining.
The advent of h ydraulic mining was among the major improvements to placer mining
methods. It was one that had profotmd effects on California's envirorunent, leaving lasting scars
on the earth, debris in the canyons and rivers, and a complex network of canals and ditclles that
shifted water to mining areas remote from their sources. Water conveyance systems for mines
are also described in detail, with recordation methods and registration requirements, in W ater
COllveyallce Systems in Californ ia: Historic Context Development and Evaluation Procedures. (JRP
Historical Consulting Services [JRP] and Caltrans 2000). H ydraulicking also required the
application of investment capital, and employed the paradigm of industrialism (hired labor,
resources and services acquired from other companies, etc.).
H ydraulic miners employed water tmder great pressure to wash away the overburden,
and to run gold-bearing gravels through elaborate systems of sluice boxes. The water catmons
most often seen in historic photographs, called monitors, were used to remove the "waste" or
overburden; smaller monitors were used to wash the gold-bearing gravels into the mines' sluice
systems.

Hydraulic mining's heyday was from the 1860s through the mid-1880s, when one of the
nation's first envirorunental lawsuits led to its strict control and, gradually, to its eventual
effective end. TIle story of its development -the invention of the monitor by Edward E.
Matteson, and the perfection of practical water delivery methods by builder and entrepreneur
Antoine Chabot -in the early 1850s is an oft-told tale, in which Matteson adapted a canvas hose
to use an iron nozzle to more efficiently work his claim, and Chabot made a fortune in
developing dam and ditcll systems to supply miners with water (May 1970). Its rise led to
mining canals feeding mines from Plwnas to Tuolullme cotmties, as well as in the Siskiyous and
Trinity motmtams. Mining historian C.A Logan (1981:194) noted, "in 1867, there were 5328
miles of main canals, with probably 800 miles more of branch ditches built at a cost of
$15,575,400." The main ditches were typically eight to fifteen feet wide at the top, four to six feet
wide at the bottom, and three or more feet deep. Steep hillsides and deep ravines were
traversed with wooden flumes and heavy iron pipes 20 to 40 inches in diameter. TIlese systems
were often converted to use in the state' s irrigation and hydroelectric generating systems after
the hydraulic mining era passed (JRP and Caltrans 2000:38-50). One of the most famous
h ydraulic mining sites has been preserved in the Malakoff Diggings State Historic Park; it
represents a large example, but is by no means the only one in the region.
Drift mining. a variant method of exploiting the ancient gravels on high, d ry hillsides,
involved driving twmels (drifts) into the gravel beds and then processing the extracted
material. It was employed where the overburden was too deep for h ydraulicking. or where
water was less available. The Foresthill area of Placer COtmty was among the most celebrated
drift mining areas, although drift mines appeared throughout the state, including at Hill
Diggings in EI Dorado County.
The final refinement of placer mining during the period of this study was dredging.
Mining historian Clark Spence noted that "gold dredging would apply the mass production of
Henry Ford's America to placer deposits, again enabling profitable working of ground
heretofore tmtouchable" (Spence 1980:401-414). Successful dredges are largely a 20th-century
invention. Although tmSuccessful efforts, particularly along the Yuba River, were made in the
1850s, attempts at early dredging were largely abandoned in Califomia by the 1880s. Dredge
mining fields were located low in elevation, typically where rivers or major tributary streams
emerged from the motmtams, such as around Oroville, Marysville, Folsom, and Merced .
Dredges were also employed where large placer fields existed in river canyons, SUcll as along
the Klamath and Trinity rivers. TIle first successful bucket dredges in the United States
appeared in Montana at Batmack in 1895. Models begatl appearing in California in 1897, atld by
1898 Wendell I. Hatmnon began dredging near Oroville. By the first decades of the 20th century
dredging became efficient, profitable, and a big business; major investors in dredging
companies were atllong the wealthiest people and corporations in the nation. Later, during the
Depression period, dragline or "doodle-bug" dredges came into use. These dredges u sed a
dragline to gain access to gold bearing gravels, rather thatl the continuous line of buckets on
earlier dredges. Dragline systems also had processing equipment separate from the digging
mechanisms.

Dredging was less financially risky and more profitable than most fonus of n1111111&
because modem methods such as test holes could predict production levels with accuracy. A
modem dredge would typically run 18 hours a day, seven days a week, on an industrial
schedule. The companies maintained machine shops to keep the massive equipment in repair
(Spence 1980:404-414). By 1905 the dredges u sed a system of revolving screens and shaking
tables to separate gold from sand and gravels. According to Logan (1981:194), "since then, this
type of dredge has been put on practically every gold-bearing river in Northern California, but
the most important fields have been Yuba River near Hannnonton, American River near
Folsom, and Feather River near O roville." Placers exploited by the dredges were also the source
of most of platinwn fotmd in California; early placer miners had discarded the metal as
worthless. TIle dredges in these locations operated into the nud-1960s. H e reported that the
capacity of a large modem dredge reached 125,000 cubic yards of gravel per year. In 1948, the
modem dredge Yuba No. 20 was 540 ft. lon& w ith a chain of 135 buckets of 18 cubic-ft. capacity
each, able to reach gravels 124 ft. below the water line. Yields of 10 to 15 cents of gold per cubic
yard were nuned at a cost of 5 to 10 cents. The modem dredge operated with a crew of only
three or four men per shift. Prior to World War II there were about 200 such dredges in
operation (Califonua Division of Mines and Geology [CDM] 1950:343; Spence 1980:401-414;
Logan 1981:194). To put the size of massive dredgers like Yuba No. 20 in perspective, it was
more than half the length of the famed ocean liner Queen Mary.
Such machines caused substantial damage to the envirorunent. Mining historian Spence
noted that the tailing piles in long rows were the signahtres of the industry. H e also observed
that, because their operation was largely before the era of environm ental regulation and its
wastes tended to be confined within the mining claim, the industry largely escaped serious
regulation. These tailing piles were often mostly sterile gravels and cobbles on wluch vegetation
was slow to grow; requirements for "resoili.ng" were defeated in court and largely ineffective
when attempted (Spence 1980:401-414). When dredging stopped in California, the available
dredging equipment was largely disassemb led and shipped to other gold fields around the
world.
LODE/ DEEP MINING

Miners during the Gold Rush were quick to realize that gold existed in quartz veins, and
attempted to mine it. As early as 1849, famed guide and trailblazer Kit Carson discovered the
Mariposa Mine with its ore-bearing quartz. Early miners used arrastras and other sim p le
mechanisms to try to release the gold fr om the rock in w hich it was found. Thad M. Van
Bueren's recent and valuable article, "The 'Poor Man's Mill': A Rich Vernacular Legacy," in LA,
the foumal for the Society of Industrial Archeology, provides a comprehensive history of the types
of arrastras used in California and the west, how they were constructed and used, and their
persistence through time (Van Bueren 2004).
Lode mining had six specific requirements that were lacking in simple placer mining. First,
it required technical engineering expertise to design and build the physical plant for such a
mine, both above and below grotmd. While at first the basics of tIus knowledge were often self-

taught, as the years went on specialized teclmical expertise became more and more critical.
Second, processing the are involved the application of heavy equipment coupled with motive
power. Ores had to be crushed to release their gold. Miners generated power for the crushers
and for mining equipment by using high pressure water wheels, and later, electricity. Third, the
are often required chemical treatment, through the application of mercury, acids, cyanide, and
other solutions, to release the gold from the compounds in which it was fotmd. Fourth, these
mines, particularly the larger examples, needed hired labor to operate; of course, this meant that
the mine needed to meet payrolls no matter what the day-to-day y ield of the veins brought the
company. Fifth, as the years progressed, mining geologists became a requirement at major
mines. Finally, the need for technical expertise, heavy equipment, chemical plants, and labor
meant that mine owners needed ready access to financial markets and investors to fund
development and operations. hwestors needed surety that amine's claims were valid, and that
its veins had potential yields to provide return on inveshnent (Paul 1947, see Chapters X, XIII,
XIV, XV, XVI, XVII). As mining historian Rodman Paul put it,
Mining had started as an advenhtre in which men engaged with little capital and less
knowledge. Gradually it had become a business conducted upon the basis of conunon
sense rules that had been leamed through practical experimentation. Now [Paul was
discussing the early 1870s] it was being transfonned into a modem industry in which
the dominant figure was not the "honest miner" who dwelt in the Sierra's foothill s,
but rather the financier in San Francisco or London, and the highly paid consultant or
superintendent who made of mining a science and a profession.
With the attairunent of that stage, the industrial revolution was complete. Then truly
it could be said that mining had come into its full development- that it had passed
from the disorganized splendor of its youth to the ordered stability of its mahtrity
[19473101·
Lode development did not experience a smooth upward path. By 1858 there were more
than 280 stamp mills, each supplied by one or more veins. By 1861 only 40 to 50 were still in
operation. Numbers fluctuated in the years that followed. Hand drills and black. powder were
conunon up to 1868, when miners and mining companies began converting to advancements
such as power drills and nitroglycerine-base dynamite. It took decades before these became
conunon. Rock crushers, like the Blake Crusher, were introduced in 1861. As mining historian
c.A. Logan remarked, "the self-feeder, the rock breaker, heavier stamps, and increased numing
speed gave the stamps greatly increased capacity" (Logan 1981:195-196). Likewise, ore
concentration methods became more teclmologically advanced as the years progressed. By the
1880s the Frue vatmer atld endless rubber belt vatmers more efficiently concentrated the statnp
mills' output, along ·w ith mercury tables, and other equipment. TIle development of chemical
processes SUcll as chlorination, used in conjunction with such concentrators, increased the
platltS' efficiency further. Chlorination was predominantly used until 1896, when the cyatlide
process catne into the industry (Logan 1981:195--196). MatlUfacturers in California atld, after the
completion of the transcontinental railroad, in eastern manufacturing centers, provided the
machinery atld equipment used at the mines. Historian Lylm R. Bailey' s (1996) valuable work,
Supplying the Millillg World: The Milling Equ ipmell t M mlufacturers of San Fra llcisco, 1850-1900, is a
valuable source for understatlding not only the context of mining equipment manufacturing,

but also the companies and the kinds of equipment provided. Naturally, the m ore com p licated
the mining equipment on site, the more necessary were technically ad ept mechanics an d
operators to keep them fillming.
An understanding of the processes and equipment u sed in mining and ore beneficiation is
im portant in assessing a site, althou gh it is an extrem ely rare occasion w hen a survey includes a
mine complete with equipment. Miners rarely left behind valuable items w hen they vacated a
mining site, particularly because they would be u seful at the n ext strike. In the 1930s and 1940s,
at those id le mines located near en ou gh to decent roads, ab andoned macllinery or other
equipment (su ch as rails and ore cars) often fell p rey to the scrap collectors w h o scoured the
mining areas, or was oth erwise appropriated, first for sale overseas, and later, for th e w ar effort.
TIle USBM M inerals Yearbook for 1940 indicates that iron and steel scrap (from all sou rces,
p re pared and unprep ared) on hand in Califonlia in 1939 totaled 140,997 ton s; in 1940 it had
dropped to 86,733 tons. While these num bers are statewide figures, and are n ot segregated as to
source, they d o indicate the m agnitude of the scrap iron and steel ind u stry in the state (USBM
1941:506).
LAWS RELATED TO MINING AND WATER CLAIMS

The rapid and unplaruled development of mining in Califonlia resulted in, at least for a
time, a relatively ad hoc set of laws and rules for how claims, mines, and water rights were to be
administered. Becau se gold mining began even before Califonlia w as ceded by Mexico in the
Treaty of Gu adalupe Hidalgo (gold was discovered in January 1848, th e treaty was negotiated
and signed in February 1848 and proclaimed on July 4, 1848), the military au th orities then
governing California allowed mining on public land to begin and continue unhindered by
federal regulation . Obviou sly, prior to th e establisrnnent of state goverrunent and counties,
official local regulation of mining and u se of w ater essentially did n ot exist. A h an d y, if
som ewh at dated, work on this topic is JOrnl F. Davis's (1902), H istorical Sketch of the M illing Law
ill Californ ia. Miners sou ght order, and imposed it throu gh unofficial m eans by establishing
mining districts, each w ith its own set of rules . While they differed in many ways, m an y had
conunon features. O lad es H oward Shinn's (1885) M ining Camps: a Study in A merican Froll tier
Govermnell t provides an analysis of the origins and types of mining cam p govenunents
established by the Argon auts. Of cou rse, as stateh ood establish ed local govenmlents and clearer
rules, and as the federal govenunent con sidered h ow to admi.tlister claims on the public
d omain, the rules becam e clearer. The federal Mining Act of 1866 replaced the older system of
"tacit con sent" w hereby federal authorities allowed for mining with mi.tlimal regulation . Justice
Stephen 1- Field, himseU a Californian and Argon au t, i.tl ilis opinion in je1Ulisoll v. Kirk (98 U.S.
453), explai.tled the situation:
The lands in which the precious metals were fOlmd belonged to the United States, and
were lUlsurveyed and not open by law to occupation and settlement. Little was
known of them further than that they were situated in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Into these mOlUltains tlle emigrants in vast numbers penetrated, occupying the
ravines, gulches and canyons and probing the earth in all directions for the precious
metals. Wherever they went they carried with them the love of order and system of

fair dealing which are the prominent characteristics of our people. In every district
which they occupied they framed certain rules for their govenunent, by which the
extent of grolUld they could severally hold for mining was designated, their
possessory right to such grolUld secured and enforced, and contests between them
either avoided or determined. These rules bore a marked similarity, varying in the
several districts only according to the extent and character of the mines; distinct
provision being made for different kinds of mining, such as placer mining, quartz
mining, and mining in drifts or huillels. They all recognized discovenJ, followed by
appropriation, as the foundation of the possessor's title, and development by working
as the condition of its retention. And they were so framed as to secure to all comers
within practicable limits absolute equality of right and privilege in working the mines
... Nothing but such equality would have been tolerated by these miners, who were
emphatically the law-makers, as respects mining upml the public lands in the State.
The first appropriator was everywhere held to have, within certain well-defined
limits, a better right than others to the claims taken up; and in all controversies, except
as against the govenunent, he was regarded as the original owner, from whom title
was to be traced ... For eighteen years, from 1848 to 1866, the regulations and customs
of the miners, as enforced and moulded by the Courts and sanctioned by the
legislation of the State, constihtted the law governing property in mines and in water
on the public mineral lands [Davis 1902:15-16].
In his Historical Sketch of the Mining Law in Califortlia (1902), John F. Davis noted that the
legal scholars had differed on the origins of these concepts, some ascribing them to Mexican
tradition (especially the importance of discovery and use), others have pointed to Cornish,
Southern, or South American practices. All of these traditions seem to have included aspects of
the mining laws that developed in Califomia and the West. Davis observed, "may it not be
simply another illustration of the fact that, with the same problem and the same environment,
the human mind has in different ages often arrived at the same practical solution." By 1867
there were more than 500 mining districts in California (Davis 1902:17-20).
Because miners could not own the land, their claims were supported by boundary
demarcations, evidence of consistent work, and rules related to periods of occupancy. Miners
who did not work their claims, left them ruunarked, or were absent from them for long periods,
often fotmd them seized by others. Poorly demarked claims were subject to conflicts among
neighboring claimants. TIus concept-that claim, development, and con sistent use was the
measure of a right- carried over into the federal rules governing mining on the public domain
after 1866. Prospectors would stake their claim, file a plat with the land office and local COtmty,
and then "prove up" by showing development and use. If a sufficient showing was made, the
federal govenunent would issue a patent for the claim. Perhaps unsurprisingly, tlus process is
similar in important ways to tile prior appropriation concept that fomls the basis of one
important kind of water right in Califonua. Deep industrial mines for all metals also fell tmder
the so-called "Law of tile Apex," which established a complicated system for apportioning
ownership and control over lode claims based on wluch claim owned the "apex" (i.e., highest
point) of the vein. While it cleared up a persistent problem in contests between claimants, the
process of detennining who held the apex engendered lawsuits; in fact, legal historian Davis
noted that virtually all valuable mines were forced to defend themselves in court against

counter-claimants. This factor added extra value to those companies who had the means to
employ expert mining geologists and engineers who could help defend claims in court. It also
resulted in careful designation of mining claims and their botmdaries (Davis 1902:49-58, 61-75).
Understanding the process for claiming mining sites has a practical value for culhtral
resource survey teams and archival researchers. It can help inform the researcher as to early
ownership patterns and identify persons involved, and can assist the field archeological team in
tmderstanding the spatial relationships among evidence fotmd on the grotmd, particularly in
early placer mining sites. It also helps u s understand why sites are so often obliterated or
overlaid by later workings. Mining claims may have had a succession of owners, or have been
subject to consolidation as the mining tedmiques in an area became more elaborate and
extensive. An area covered by a nwnber of simple, early placer claims may have later been
subject to dredging or hy draulicking, once consolidation of claims was sufficient to merit
employment of more intensive and modem methods.
As noted above the Gold-Rush-Era miners' concepts of claims being based on discovery
and development/use (sometimes shortened to the catch-phrase "use it or lose it") extended to
the complicated world of water rights. hl particular, placer mining sites located at a distance
from water sources needed a means to bring water to their mines; competing water diversions
among miners or ditcll companies often led to legal wrangles. Perhaps nahtrally, the miners
established a similar system of establishing water rights based on claim and development.
Diverters filed claims with COtmty recorders setting forth their points of diversion and amotmts
of flow; the date of the claim established a priority ranking in time. The original state
constihttion did not recognize this system, but the requirements for water in mining led to its
adoption through stahtte. Sources related to the history of the development of water rights laws
in Califomia and the West are legion. Important works include Robert Dtmbar's Forging New
Rights in Westerll Waters (1983) whicll provides an overview of water rights laws in the western
states, including California. Douglas R. Littlefield' s (1983) article, 'Water Rights during the
Califomia Gold Rush: Conflicts over Economic Points of View" in tlle Westem Historical Society
Quarterly summarizes the legal sihtation during the Gold Rush. Donald J. Pisani also addresses
the interrelationship of mining and water law in Water, Lalld, alld Law in the West: the Limits of
Public Policy, 1850--1920 (1996), providing two case shtdies of water law development in
Califomia min:ing camps. Of course, it is this same con cept-of claim, development, and use-
that is u sed by fanners, irrigation districts, and llnmicipal systems to establish their rights to
water today.
For the purposes of this shtdy, w hat is important is that diverters generally kept careful
records of claims, providing researchers with important clues related to when diversions to
mining sites were platmed, and by whom. In addition, the frequent legal contests over water
rights have left a ricll record in superior court files of the various cotmties (or, if appealed, in the
case files of the Califomia Supreme Court). These can contain such items as swom testimony as
to diversion and use, filings setting forth statements of fact related to the case, atld trial exhibits
such as maps, plans, atld otller valuable information.

ETHNICITY /RACE/GENDER
In recent years many mining scholars have focused their attention on the issues of
ethnicity, race, and gender in the mining industry. During the early years of the Gold Rush, for
example, Native Americans constihtted a substantial percentage of the total number of miners,
and acted both as paid labor and mine owners. Historian James Rawls showed that Native
Americans constituted more than one half of miners in California in 1848. While most were
employed as workers, some mined independently . Independent Native American miners
usually traded their gold for manufactured goods and food. That N ative Americans did not
place the same value on gold as whites did became a source of unfair advantage to whites, who
often sold badly damaged goods for large sums of gold. As Native American miners came to
tmderstand the value of gold, however, they became more effective traders and became more
demanding in their dealings. Independent Native American miners virrually disappeared by
the 1850s because of the shift in mining from placer to hydraulic and quartz mining which did
not favor the employment of Indian labor (Rawls 1976:28-45).
It is a well-known story that miners from arotmd the world poured into Califomia during
the Gold Rush and the years that followed; it is not the intention of this essay to detail the
arrival and role of various etlmic or racial groups. Rather, what is important is the fact that u.s.
citizens, while comprising a majority of the Argonauts, were not the only or even the first
inunigrants. Sonorans, Olileans, and Hawaiians were among the first to arrive, followed by the
French, British, Australians, Chinese, Croatians, Italians, Conlish, Gennans, Jews from various
countries, and others, who with Americans joined the migration to the Califonlia gold fields.
Among the throngs were women, both u.s. citizens and a variety of other nationalities. African-
Americans (free and slave) fomled another important, but relatively small, group. Non-
American miners were subject to official discrimination through imposition of the Foreign
Miners' Tax of 1850. While written to apply to all non-citizen miners, it was tmequally enforced
and focused primarily on Asian and Hispanic miners, and used to drive them from the mines.
Of course, discrimination was also an occurrence outside of the official realm; white American
miners might ignore the British or Australians, focusing their antipathy instead on Mexicans,
Sonorans, Chileans, African-Americans, and Olinese. See the recent historiography in Chapter
IV for a discussion of scholarship related to etlmic groups, race relations, and gender issues
during the Gold Rush and industrial mining periods.
It is a conunonplace that women were a minority in California during the Gold Rush, and
that it took several decades for the population to reach a more normal gender balance. Women
did come, however: wives and daughters accompanied husbands and fathers, and single
women came in search of tlleir forhmes. In A M ilte of Her o-um , Sally Zanjani (1997) chronicles
activities of women miners in the American West. Susan Jolmson (2000), in Roariltg Camp,
maintained that virrually every hotel, saloon, dancehall, or restaurant in the Southem Mines
had a French woman as an owner or employee. JoAnn Levy (1988), in her Overlaltd !ounlal
article 'We Were Forty-Niners Too! Women in tlle Califonlia Gold Rush," pointed out that it
has often been thought that women were virrually non-existent in the gold fields during the
Gold Rush. Levy showed there were, in fact, many women who were Argonauts, and they
traveled in great numbers (though fewer than men) to Califonlia in search of gold and other

ways of making money. Women did a little of everything, including cooking, washing and
laundry, numing boardinghouses, mining, prostitution, and were shopkeepers. Levy
highlighted the detemlination and adventurous spirit of these travelers and briefly outlined
their priorities. For those arriving with dependents, women sought first to care for their families
on the journey, then to build a home, and finally to make money. TIley had countless
entrepreneurial opporhmities during the Gold Rush and fOlmd they were justly compensated
for their efforts. Cooking, washing and mending, nnming a boarding house or restaurant were
often their primary pursuits, but it was also common that they owned businesses such as
theaters, barber shops, photography studios or mercantile establislunents. Only about one in
five women were prostitutes; and these were drawn to it for economic reasons, rather than the
conunon misconception they were forced or tricked into it (Levy 1988:29-34).
The Chinese were another of the most important groups who came to California during
and after the Gold Rush. Competition with white miners often led to efforts to remove the
Chinese from their mining claims. These began in earnest in 1852 and continued through the
end of the 19th century (DuFault 1959:155-170). TIle Ounese were drawn to California not only
by gold, but in reaction to the travail of 13 years of civil war in China. Soon there were more
than 30,000 Chinese in California who had taken the six week-long voyage across the Pacific.
More followed, and Chinese miners spread throughout California, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington, u sually traveling in groups. TIlis was an advantage when staking and working
claims. Historian Liping Zhu (1999) reported that the advent of hard-rock mining, and the
Chinese Exclusion Act, forced many Chinese out of nuning. Mining historian Randall Rohe
showed that foreign men replaced American miners after the ilutial rush, and in placer mining
areas, the replacement miners were usually Ounese, who played an important role on the
frontier. Chinese millers, according to Rohe, complemented wlute millers and slowed
population decline ill mining areas abandoned by others, spent a large portion of the gold they
found in their local econonues, and paid their share of taxes (Rohe 1982:2-19).

POST-GOLD-RUSH INDUSTRIAL MATURITY:
DIVERSIFICATION OF TARGET METALS AND MINERALS
The end of the Gold Rush, as noted above, was marked by the transition to more capital-
and labor-intensive mining. TIlls was true in hydraulicking, as well as the later irmovation of
dredging that became one of the more important producers of gold in the state. The deep lode
mines of the 19th and early 20th cenhtry built on teclmological irmovations, such as compressed
air tools, electrical power, and improved beneficiation methods to expand and industrialize
mining for both precious and base metals alike. In the 1890s and in the decades that followed,
deep-lode mining was the subject of great teclmological improvement, both in mining and
beneficiation methods. TIlese made lower-grade ores more economical to exploit. Mining
historian William Clark noted that "the improvement of air drills, explosives, and pumps, and
the introduction of electric power lowered mining costs greatly." He added, " ...the introduction
of rock crushers, increase in size of stamp mills, and new concentrating devices, such as
vanners, lowered milling costs." New chemical methods, su ch as the cyanide process
mentioned above, had similar effects and replaced chlorination (Clark 1970:7).
While the target metal may have differed, many of the above-grotmd manifestations of
industrial metal mining sites are very similar to gold and silver mines in appearance. Of course,
where beneficiation equipment (or sites where such equipment once stood) is extant, important
differences can occur. For example, the surface plant at a mercury mine is far different than that
of a stamp mill at a gold mille, although the shaft, headframes, and equipment used to move
ores from the mille to the mill may be very similar.
Between 1916 and 1929 the state's general prosperity led to a reduction in gold output,
which only began rising again after the onset of the Great Depression, when operating costs
declined . Between 1933 and 1935 the price of gold rose from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce, which
in tum led to increased exploration and output. As shown in Table 1 below, by 1940 the state's
output reached $51 million. Clark noted, " ...this was the most valuable arumal output since
1856. Thousands of miners were employed in the quartz milles at Grass Valley, Alleghany,
Nevada City, Jackson, Sutter Creek, Jamestown, Mojave, and French Gulch. There were many
active bucket line dredges, and dragline dredges became important producers of placer gold"
(Clark 1970:8). The fluctuations can be seen in Table 1.

T able 1. Gol d P roduction in Califo rnia 1850-1940.
(Five-year intervals; dollar values s tandardized)
Year Fine Ounces Value in Constant Dollars

1850 1,996,586 41,273,106.00
1855 2,684,106 55,845,395.00
1860 2,133,104 44,095,163.00
1865 867,405 17,930,858.00
1870 844,537 17,458,133.00
1875 816,377 16,876,009.00
1880 968,986 20,030,761 .00
1885 612,478 12,661,044.00
1890 595,486 12,309,793.00
1895 741,798 15,334,317.00
1900 767,390 15,863,355.00
1905 914,217 18,898,545.00
1910 953,734 19,715,440.00
1915 1,085,646 "",442,296.00
1920 692,297 14,311,043.00
1925 632,035 13,065,330.00
1930 457,200 9,451,169.00
1935 890,430 31,165,050.00
1940 1,455,671 50,948,585.00
Source: data from Clark (1970:4)
Gold and Silver

In the 1910s through the 1930s, mining, particularly fo r gold, and silver (and to an extent,
for copper, lead and zinc) followed a pattern of expansion and contraction, although
throughout most of the period indu strialists and entrepreneurs continued their efforts.
Relatively few historical works focus on the period; information for metals production, in
particular, must be gleaned from state and federal reports. The U5BM , for example, tracked
production from p lacer and lode mines p roducing all five metals and provided statistics for the
years 1903 - 1940, and its chapter in their atU1Ual Min erals Yearbook, Review of 1940 focused on
gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc in California. Some examples of yearly activity behveen 1910
and 1940 illustrate the ups and downs of the industry (Table 2).

Table 2. Placer Gold Minin~ Number of Mines in Example Years
Type of Mine 1910 1920 1930 1935 1940
Placer dredging (shown mines/ 41 / 72 25 / 41 21 / 31 99 / 114 363 / 259

plants) (all kinds)
Hydraulic 168 51 79 93 92
Small surface placers (wet) 184 61 688 1,132 282
Small surface placers (dry) 1 1 6 21 17

Drift 139 45 88 143 96
Source: data from USBM (1941:219--222)
The substantial increase in small surface placer mining in 1930 and 1935 reflects the return
of a number of small-scale operators to the industry during the Depression; as the economy
began shifting to war footing, many of these miners apparently abandoned their operations for
occupations elsewhere. The bureau did not provide a similar breakdown for lode mining over
the same period. In the accompanying tables, the bureau's authors noted that figures excluded
"itinerant prospectors, snipers, high-graders, and others who gave no evidence to legal right to
property" (USBM 1941:218). As noted above, su ch "snipers" were conunon in the desert and on
private and public lands (national forests, etc.) in the Sierra foothills, largely acting illegally as
subsistence miners eking out a living from small mines, and are poorly documented.
What w as most impressive, however, was the extent of mining being lllldertaken ill
California at the end the period covered by this study. Relatively few active gold mines exist
within the state today, but in 1940 there were more than 1,866, some types of which are shown
in Table 2. There were 1,030 lode mines. The bureau noted, "the total value of the gold, silver,
copper, lead and zinc recovered from ores, old tailings, and gravels in California in 1940-
$54,268,690 - was greater than in any year since 1856; the increase over 1939, however, was only
$1,350,678 or three percent. Most of the increase was due to the advance in gold and copper
production." N ine cOllllties out of the 44 that produced one or more of the metals represented
the bulk of the total (Table 3).
The single best producer of copper at this time was the Walker Mine in Plumas County,
which milled 437,450 tons of ore and produced 10,524,345 pounds of copper, along with 14,176
Ollllces of gold and 237,891 Ollllces of silver (USBM 1941:251). TIle gold and silver found in
conjllllction with the copper often provided the profit for the mining company, while the
production and sale of copper simply met its mining expenses.
The state did not collect statistics for silver mining in California lllltiI1888, but in the years
between 1888 and 1950 the state produced 100 million Ollllces of the metal, whicll represented
2.8% of the national total to that time. As noted, silver was most often found with other metals;
only a few mines, su ch as those at Calico (1882- 1895) and Randsburg (1895), had silver as the
principal ore. Prospecting for silver began in earnest after the Comstock discovery in Nevada,
and silver mines were found in Alpine, Mono and Inyo counties after 1861. Cerro Gordo and

Darwin in Inyo County, and Calico in San Bernardino COtmty remained active silver mining
areas (COM 1950:343-347).
Table 3. Important GoldlPrecious Metals Mining Counties
Nevada CotUlty 21% of the state's total output of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc; the
COWlty accotUlted for 22% of the state's total gold production, and 40% of
gold produced from the state's lode lnines
Sacramento COWlty 10% of the total, largely from gold dredging
YubaCoWlty 7% of the total, largely from gold dredging
Amador COWlty 8%, two thirds from ore and one third from placers
Calaveras COWlty 6% two thirds from ore and one third from placers
Plwn as COWlty 5% of the total, mostly from gold and copper ores
Butte COWlty 5%, production was largely from placer gravels
Siskiyou COlUlty 4%, production was largely from placer gravels

Source: data from USBM (1941 :217- 225)
Industrial Metals of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Scholars examining the history of mining in California have focused, perhaps not
surprisingly, on mining of precious metals (i.e., gold, silver); these represented the greatest
economic value and generated the most excitement at the time. It was the lure of riches that
drew the Argonauts during the Gold Rush, and it was the search for gold and silver that led
prospectors to fan out across the state, and the west, to seek new mining areas. In a way, the
search for gold, and to a lesser extent silver mining, capmred the collective imagination of
historians as well as of miners. Of course, a "vide variety of metals have been mined in
California between 1848 and 1940; some, like mercury (quicksilver) were used at first primarily
in the gold-mining industry. Others, like lead, copper, zinc, mngsten, manganese, molybdenum,
and antimony were industrial metals; these too were often found in association "vith gold and
silver. The following discussion provides an overview of the location and history of exploitation
of these industrial metals.
Mercury
Although mercury mining in California predates the Gold Rush, the emergence of the
industry was nevertheless closely tied to the discovery of gold in California. Spanish settlers
near San Jose were aware of mercury sulfide (more conunonly known as cinnabar) deposits in
the local hills in the 1820s. Large-scale mining for the ore in the area, however, did not begin
tmtiI1 846. The New Almaden Mine opened that year, and from 1850 to 1870 it was the principal
producer of mercury for both the state and the nation. New Almaden yielded 535,437 flasks (the
flask being the standard unit of mercury measurement, roughly equal to 76 pounds) over this
twenty-year period (Ransome and Kellogg 1939:359, 361).
The discovery of gold in 1848 and the ensuing rush to prospect California precipitated a
demand for mercury that propelled production of the element until the early 1880s. Prior to the

early-20th cenhtry, mercury was crucial to the extraction of gold in the United States. Most
metals adhere to mercury through a process known as "amalgamation." Employing this
physical principle, miners would pass gold ore down a trough coated with mercury, or
otherwise mix the gold bearing "pulp" with mercury. Any gold in the ore would then bind with
the mercury, forming a gold-mercury amalgam. Miners would scrape off the mercury and
separate it from the amalgam, usually through a retort to distill off the mercury, yielding higher
purity gold concentrates. Residual mercury from this process was often released into the
envirorunent, deposited in the earth, in streams, rivers, or lakes, contributing to a significant
amount of envirornnental pollution that only worsened with the onset of hydraulic mining.
Mercury pollution from the Gold Rush persists into the present (Alpers and Hllllerlach 2000:1-
6).
In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the demand for mercury in this amalgamation process
led to the opening of a number of mines. In 1854, the New hldria Mine located in San Benito
County began production, and soon rivaled the New Almaden Mine in volume. Further
mercury discoveries were concentrated in Napa, Sonoma, Colusa, and Lake Counties, areas of
volcanic activity in which mercury conunonly proliferates. The St. Jolms, Aetna, and Guadalupe
mines were all opened in this period; however, only the latter produced any mercury prior to
the 1860s (Ransome and Kellogg 1939:359). Other cirulabar mines were located in Death Valley
(Swope 1999).
The shift to hydraulic mining and the discovery of the Comstock Lode in the late 1850s
further stimulated mercury production in the state as gold mining companies sought to
maximize the extraction of gold ore. From roughly 1860 to 1870 a number of mines rich in
mercury opened. TIle Knoxville and Manhattan mines both began production, as did the
Manzanita Mine and a number of other smaller properties in and around Sulphur Creek and
Wilbur Springs in Lake and Colusa counties. Citmabar was discovered near Santa Barbara and
San Luis Obispo as well, deposits that prompted the opening of the Oceanic and Klau mines
(Ransome and Kellogg 1939:359-360).
The 1870s was the most significant era for mercury mining in California history. During
this decade, the state produced a third of the world's mercury (Isenberg 2005:48). Of all
California' s mercury regions, the Mayacmas district-an area that encompasses much of the
mountainous and volcanic areas of Lake, Napa, and Sonoma cOllllties-was the single most
important. Within the Mayacmas district, several new mines joined those already itl production,
including the Great Westem, the Culver-Baer, the Cloverdale, and the Oat Hill. Existing district
properties, SUcll as the Knoxville, the Guadalupe, the St. Jolms, Aetna, and the Altoona mines all
reached record highs of production (Ransome and Kellogg 1939:359-360).
While mercury production remained an important component of geological economy of
California itltO the mid-20th cenhtry -particularly with the onset of the Second World War-the
industry as a whole largely stagnated from the 1880s onward. Gold beneficiation processes in
the u.S. moved away from amalgamation, and although mercury remaitled important to a
nwnber of teclmological and medical devices, demand was easily met by existing reserves and
by overseas production (CDM 1950:335; American Instihtte of Mining and Metallurgical
Engineers 1953:325--332). After 1878, only two notable mercury discoveries were made itl the

state: the Mirabel Mine in 1887 and the Corona Mine in 1895 (Ransome and Kellogg 1939:360).
In 1965, only 25 years after the end of the period addressed by this shtdy, California produced a
paltry 13,404 flasks, a stark contrast to the production of just the New Almaden Mine a cenhtry
earlier (USBM 1967:134).
Other Industrial Metals

Besides mercury, Califomia mines produced metals used in industrial processes or for
industrial purposes, especially those that developed in the late-19th and early-20th cenhtry. For
example, hmgsten became the metal of choice for use in electric light bulbs in the 20th cenhtry;
its high melting point made it valuable in producing hard and sharp steel tools for machining
steel and other metals, and as a hardening alloy in steel. The need for hmgsten was particularly
acute during wartime (CDM 1950:355-361).
Some industrial metals had relatively short periods of production during which limited
amounts were mined. Antimony appears in a variety of locations in Califomia, and was mined
as early as 1887. More than hall of the state' s production occurred during WWI. Antimony
mines were located in Kem and Inyo cOllllties, the most productive of which was the Wildrose
Mine in Wildrose Canyon, Inyo COllllty, which was most active during 1915-1917. Other mines
of note were in Kern County, including the San Emigdio Mine, which produced both antimony
and silver (COM 1950:288-291). Bismuth, used in medical and cosmetic preparations and in
alloys with cadmitun, zinc and lead, was also produced in limited amOtults. The Lost Horse
Copper Mine in Riverside County, for example, y ielded 20 tons of bismuth in 1904. Later
production came from the lead mines in the Darwin District of Iny o COllllty. TIle state's entire
production of cadmium was obtained as a by -product of smelting copper-zinc ores in Shasta
County in 1917-1918 (CDM 1950:291-293).
Copper. Copper mining began in California in 1860 in Calaveras COllllty, when Hiram
Hughes located the deposit developed as the Napoleon Mine near what became Copperopolis.
Miners in the area had been discarding valuable copper ore as a nuisance in their search for
gold; Hughes had it assayed and learned its value was $120 per ton. Over the next 90 years
more than 600,000 tons of copper were produced by the state' s mines and smelters. While this
production was small in comparison to that of states with major copper mines (such as Arizona
and Montana), copper ranked second only to gold in tenns of its value as a metal. Between 1897
and 1930, an average of 16,000 tons per year was produced. Output dropped between 1931 and
1936, owing to a decline in the price of copper. Most of the production came from Shasta,
Plumas, and Sierra foothill counties. By the end of 1946, 54 percent of the state' s production had
come from Shasta County, while 26 percent came from Plumas COtulty, and 12 percent from the
Sierra foothill cOllllties (of which Calaveras produced more than 80% of the total). TIle Iron
MOtultain Mine in Shasta County alone accounted for 42 percent of the state' s total production,
while the Walker and Engels mines in Plumas COllllty and the Pelli, and Key stone-Union in
Calaveras COllllty produced 37 percent. All the other copper mines in the state represented 21
percent of production. The California Division of Mines reported in 1950 that "only eight
counties in the state have no recorded copper production; these are Kings, San Francisco, San
Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sutter, and Yolo." (CDM 1950, 300-307).

Besides those mentioned above, 26 other mines produced significant amounts of copper.
Major copper mines in the state and their COllllty locations are found in Table 4.
Table 4. Important Copper Mines in California.
Major Mine County

Iron MOlUltain Shasta
Walker and Engelss Plumas
Penn and Keystone Calaveras
Other Sigllificallt Milles

Copper Hill, Newton Amador
Big Bend Butte
Napoleon, North Keystone, Quail Hill Calaveras
Copper King, Fresno Fresno
Pine Creek Inyo
Daulton Madera
Spenceville Nevada
Dairy Farm, Valley View Placer
Superior Pl=~
Copper World San Bernardino

Afterthought, Balaklala, Bully Hill, Hornet, Shasta
Keystone, Rising Star, Shasta King, Sutro
Blue Ledge, Gray Eagle Siskiyou
Island MOlUltain Trinity
Not surprisingly, the counties listed are among the most active mining cOllllties in the state
(CDM 1950:302). A smelter was built in Contra Costa COtmty in 1862, and by 1868 there were
nine smelters operating in the Sierra foothills. Falling prices for copper led to a period of
inactivity in the copper industry until the mid-1 890s, when the industry began to recover. Iron
Mountain Mine in Shasta County resumed operations, and erected a smelter near Keswick
which operated until 1907, when the company built its major smelter at Selby, near Martinez in
Contra Costa COtmty. During the first years of the century other mines, like the Afterthought,
Balaklala, Bully Hill, and Mammoth built smaller smelters on site. Problems 'w ith high levels of
zinc in the ores, and with pollution law suits, led to the Shasta mines being idled by 1919, and in
the years that followed there was only sporadic activity. According to the California Division of
Mines, California' s copper deposits were mined by familiar undergrotmd methods, and the ores
required fine grinding and use of flotation to fonn concentrates suitable for sending to the
smelters (CDM 1950:305, 307).
linc. Zinc in California came from two major sources: lead and silver mines in the eastern
California deserts, and as a by-product of the copper mines in the Sierra foothills and Shasta
County. The first recorded production was in 1906, and between then and 1950 some 186
million potmds were produced, hall of which came behveen the World Wars, a period of high

zinc prices. Between 1928 and 1943, virmally all of Califomia' s zinc production came from
mines in the desert, as copper mining largely ceased in the rest of the state (CDM 1950:364-367).
lead. Lead was another of the more important industrial metals. By 1950 (ten years after
the period smdied by this report), mines in California had produced 300 million potmds of lead.
Inyo County was the center of lead production, from three districts: Cerro Gordo, Tecopa, and
Darwin. Darwin and Cerro Gordo were located in the hlyO Range east of Lone Pine, while
Tecopa was in the Nopa Range of southeast Inyo COtmty. Lead was mined using standard
tmdergrotmd methods, and was first produced by Mormon miners working silver deposits in
the Panamint Range in 1859. The mines at Cerro Gordo were discovered and worked on a small
scale by Mexican miners starting in 1862. The California Division of Mines reported that
"American interests" took over these mines in 1869, and increased production. They erected a
smelter at Cerro Gordo and another at Swansea, on the eastern shore of Owens Lake. TIle mill
and smelter site at Swansea is Califomia H istoric Landmark No. 752, the site of a mill and
furnace that produced silver bars. Cerro Gordo's mines were substantially worked out by 1877,
but interest revived after a railroad reached Keeler, just south of Swansea, and the mines were
worked intermittently thereafter. Mines of the Cerro Gordo district produced more than $17
million in lead, silver and zinc. Prospectors discovered deposits in Darwin in the 1870s, and
before 1880 some small mills and smelters were in operation. The town reached a population of
5,000, but price flucmations and its relative isolation led to only intennittent production tmtil
World War I. After the war, mining ceased, resuming again only in World War II (CDM
1950:323).
Alloy Metals. California mines also contributed large amounts of metals that serve
primarily as alloying agents, mostly in steel. For example, chromite was produced in significant
amounts. It was first mined in 1868, and during 1869-1889 some 1,500 to 2,000 tons of ore were
obtained each year from mines in Del N orte COtmty, as well as from smaller deposits in San
Luis Obispo, Placer, Sonoma and Lake counties. The Califomia Division of Mines reported that
there were 1,200 deposits in the state, of which 46 had shipped at least 1,000 tons of ore each. At
this time the mines were in the Sierra foothills and the Klamath Motmtains, as well as a
scattering in the Coast Range from San Luis Obispo to Tehama cotmties. Between 1921 and
1941, the state averaged only 500 tons of ore per year (CDM 1950:297- 298).
Other metals, such as manganese and molybdenum, were fotmd in widely scattered
locations around the state. Manganese was first mined on Red Rock Island, located just south of
the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge in San Francisco Bay, in 1866; mining continued on the island
through 1875. Between 1888 and 1915, statewide production (ranging from zero to 1,500 tons
per year) came mostly from mines in the Mad River Valley of Trinity COtmty, east-central
Mendocino COtmty and neighboring areas of Lake COtmty, the motmtains southwest and south
of Tracy in San Joaquin, Alameda, Santa Clara and Stanislaus cotmties, and in western San Luis
Obispo COtmty. These areas contributed 80% of the total. Some production came from desert
areas, including mines in the Owls Hole District in north central San Bemardino COtmty, the
Ironwood and Little Maria Mountains in eastem Riverside County, and the Pay master District
in Imperial COtmty. Miners obtained manganese through standard drift and stope methods,
although some small deposits were tapped with open cuts. From 1915 through 1919, the

wartime market led to production of 70,000 tollS, but between 1919 and 1941 very little was
mined (CDM 1950:327-329). Molybdenum was first mined in 1915, and from 1915 through 1919
there was small production centered in Plumas, hlyO, Mono, San Diego, and Shasta cotmties.
Molybdenum is often fotmd in conjunction 'w ith tungsten, and mined in standard underground
workings . Between 1919 and 1933 there was no production at all, and only a small amotmt in
1934. Mines in Inyo COtmty began mining molybdemun again in 1939, as demand grew in
defense industries (CDM 1950:337-340).
Commercial production of tungsten began in 1905, and between that year and 1950 some
40,000 short tons of 60-percent tungsten concentrates were processed. The Pine Creek Mine near
Bishop in Inyo COtmty was the principal producer of tungsten in both the state and nation, and
held the largest known reserves. It also produced molybdenum, copper, silver and gold.
Tungsten was geologically connected with the fonnation of the Sierra granitic batholith, and
deposits of the metal occurred along the slopes of the Sierra Nevada from Kern and San
Bernardino cotmties north to Madera and Mono cotmties . It was mined tmdergrotmd like the
metals with which it was fotmd. Production from all mines flu ctuated in the years between 1905
and 1940, with production peaking during World War I. Between 1921 and 1922 there was no
production at all, followed by peaks and lulls through 1940. TIle Division of Mines noted,
"tungsten production reflects the eras of depression and prosperity, and has been further
affected by tariff, war, and preparation for war" (COM 1950:355-361).
The Cajalcoffemescal Tin Mine in Riverside County played a role in the United States'
attempt at tin independence, an ambition not abandoned until the 1940s. The southern
California mine, in fact, was the nation's leading producer in 1891 and 1892, although the
output paled in comparison to global production. lTItimately California could not compete in
this metal (Chaput 1985:1-24). TIle Division of Mines reported that while tin was discovered in
the Temescal District of Riverside COtmty as early as before the Civil War, it only produced tin
ore in 1891-1892, along with some later production in 1928--1929. A total of about 113 long tons
of ore were shipped from the district during these years. TIus did not constitute a significant
amotmt, when one considers that domestic use of tin in the u.S. in 1940 was over 123,892 tollS.
TIle Califonua Division of Mines reported that "the few scattered tin deposits of the continental
United States and Alaska have contributed less than 0.02 percent of the world' s production.
California is among the few states 'w ith a recorded production of the metal" (USBM 1941:673-
675; COM 1950:349-352).

C HAPTER 3. PROPERTY TYPES
INTRODUCTION TO PROPERTY TYPE CATEGORIES
TIlls chapter introduces types of archaeological resources associated with historic mining
processes. 111ese property types do not exist in isolation, but must be identified and interpreted
within their functional context. As used here, property types recognize the individual building
blocks of mining sites such as prospect areas, shafts, mills, and tailings ponds. Sim p le sites may
have only one or two types while complex sites m ay have m any, linked by function and time.
111ese linked property types are what Donald Hardesty referred to as "feature systems" on
m ining sites in Nevada to distinguish "a group of archaeologically visible features and objects
that is the product of a specific human activity" (1988:9). TIlls is a useful way to tie together
different features into a functional process. In general, site significance increases with the size,
visibility and focus of these systems: focus indicating the clarity w ith which the stOlY of
archaeological remains can be "read," while visibility refers to the quantity of remains (Deetz
1996:94).
A similar, process-based approach to identifying property types is recommended in
N ational Park Service' s Guidelilles f or ldell tifying, Evaluating, and Registering Historic Mi lling
Properties (Noble and Spude 1997).
Accurate interpretation of property types and feature systems - establishing function and
time period - is critical Determining that a pile of rocks is the result of p lacer or hard-rock
m ining, or that it dates to the Gold Rush or Depression era, directly affects its significance
values. In addition, for many of these sites that will not be preserved (whose limited data
potential is exhausted by its recordation), and 'w ill be affected by development projects, this
identification may constitute its last examination and recording by archaeologists and
historians. It is important that our final record of this mining activity be accurate. Interpretation
is made more difficult when a mineral source is worked over several different time periods,
with subsequent m ining techniques and occupations erasing or overlying earlier rem ains. For
sites with several property types or feature systems, interpretation is greatly facilitated by
phy sically reconstructing deduced mmmg processes on a map, and perhaps in a flow chart, to
ensure an accounting for all the potential resources and their relationships. For complex sites, a
mining engineer can contribute much to this exercise.
The links between processes or activities and the conunon types of archaeological m ining
resources are drawn below, grouped under five categories:
1. prospecting and extraction;
2. ore processmg;
3. intra-site ancillary facilities;
4. domestic remains pertaining to social, non-tedmological elements of mining;
and
5. larger, regionallmear sites that support the m ining endeavor.

A description of the process that created the physical remains is provided, visual
representations added to assist interpretation, and common tangible remains for each
sununarized. Mining sites can contain multiple property types from multiple categories.
PROSPECTING AND EXTRACTION PROPERTY TYPES
Mining involves locating and extracting various minerals from naturally occurring
deposits . Prospecting is the act of searching for new mineral deposits and testing their value
(Fay 1920:540). The two primary forms of deposits are lode and p lacer. Lode deposits are the
original mineral occurrence within a fissure through country rock, also variously known as vein
or ledge. Hard rock and quartz mining are two conunon tenns referring to mineral extraction
from lode deposits. Extracted lode minerals, especially those deep underground, generally
require additional refinement, called beneficiation (discussed in Ore Processing Property Types
below). Placer deposits are sedimentary formations containing minerals that have eroded from
their parent lode into a variety of natural contexts, both shallow and deeply buried. The
ubiquitous image of a 4ger panning for gold along a gravel bar is well known, although
hydraulic, drift, and dredge mining also targeted this type of deposit. Placer minerals are
generally "free" from parent material and do not require additional refinement once separated
from worthless sediment. Placer miners followed "color" up drainages looking for the source,
and often thereby discovered the parent outcroppings of lode ore. They also discovered eroding
ancient riverbeds, now elevated above the modem landscape, which contained naturally
deposited placer gold as welL Later, geology played a larger role in locating minerals. Miners
often used ingenuity and itmovation to tailor their operations to local conditions for both lode
and placer deposits. Prospecting and extraction tedmology differed for the two types of mineral
deposits.
PLACER MINING PRO PERTY TYPES
Placer Mining Property Types:

Tailings Piles
Small piles of Placer TailitlgS
Oblong piles of Placer TailitlgS
Long litles of Placer Tailings
Pits with Placer Tailings
Surface Exposures of Placer Rock
Cut Banks, Channels and Placer Tailings
River Diversion
Dredge Tailings
Adi ts and Placer-Tailings Dumps

The primary means of separating gold from auriferous sediments relies on water and
gravity. Water flow is used to move and agitate gravel, and gold's specific gravity ensures that
it naturally settles under proper conditions. Dry placering, su ch as winnowing, may have been
used in the absence of water; here wind blows the lighter component to the side while heavier
material drops. 11lere are several general references regarding historic placer tedmologies
(Wilson 1907; Boericke 1936; Peele 1941; Rohe 1986; Silva 1986; Meals 1994; Tibbetts 1997;
Lindstrom et al. 2000).
The simplest placer prospecting is typically done with a metal gold pan, a rOlllld shallow
dish with flat bottom and slanted sides; wooden bateas and baskets were also used in the
earliest years. Palming involves swirling a small amollllt of dirt and gravel with water in a
marmer that allows the lighter material to rise to the top for removal while the heavier fraction,
particularly the gold, concentrates at the bottom. Parming can be carried out at the location of a
placer deposit, or auriferous sediment can be collected using a variety of hand tools and taken
to a convenient parming location. For example, gravel can be scraped out of crevices, with
various kinds of metal bars, into a bucket and taken to a bar along a gently flowing creek where
it can be easily panned. The metllod is limited to coarse gold, as fine particles tend to be lost
with the gravel. The gold pan has endured, however, and metal and plastic versions can still be
found in modem supply stores. Because of its simplicity, the pan is used for prospecting, as an
extraction tool, and in combination witll other technologies discussed below. Although widely
used, evidence of pamling in archaeological contexts is generally limited to the presence of the
pan itseli. Any evident cllanges to the grolllld surface would have been so nlinor that, combined
with natural processes, they would have been erased. Hand tools such as picks, shovels,
buckets, and wheelbarrows were the donlinant metllod of transporting placer deposits to
separating devices.
Tailings Piles
The most distinctive indicator of a placer m:i ning site
is the waste rock, or tailings piles left from tlle prospecting Small Piles of Placer Tailings
or mining. These rock piles - located in creek drainages, A placer deposit worked by a
along bars and riverbanks, or at locations of ancient, rocker or cradle exhibits an
exposed river deposits - consist of water-worn rocks and undulating ground surface
formed of piles of uniform-sized
general lack of soil. Tailings piles come in different shapes
gravel and cobbles where the
and sizes, as noted below, depending on where they are on
hopper was emptied. Piled or
the landscape and how they were separated from gold-
stacked cobbles and boulders
bearing gravels. Boulders and cobbles were often moved may also have been moved out of
out of the way and piled or stacked to the side, while the gravel bed. Metal, perforated
gravel and smaller cobbles were generally processed for screens (riddle plates or grizzlies)
gold. Water, necessary to wash the deposits, could, for are diagnostic artifacts that are
small operations, consist of seasonal nmoff or include typically square, and range "16 to
short water diversions from nearby drainages. Large-scale 20 inches on each side with one-
mining might involve large ditch systems bringing water half inch openings" (Silva 1986:3).
from afar. More extensive, long-term placer mining areas
also often included habitations for the miners, and

domestic remains may be found on some smaller operations as well.
The rocker, or cradle, is one of the simplest mining tools and can be operated by one
individual. Named for its likeness to a baby cradle, it is essentially a wooden trough with a
screened hopper on top and a handle that allows the operator to rock the device. Auriferous
gravel is dumped into the hopper and enough water poured in to transport the finer sediments
through the sieve, across an apron, and through a series of riffles. "Dry washers" were similar
devices that did not require the use of water. Cobbles and gravel caught in the screen are
cleaned out and dumped to the side. The apron, whicll was historically made of a cloth-like
material such as canvas or burlap, collects coarse gold and directs fine material to the head of
the riffle-lined trough, where fine gold settles. Riffles are a series of parallel slats of various
designs fixed to the bottom of collection troughs that "retard the gravel and sand moving over
them, and so give the gold a chance to settle" (Boericke 1936:62). Material collected from behind
riffles was typically palmed. The entire device is relatively portable, typically two to five feet
long, one to two feet wide, and less than two feet in height. It was popular in California by 1849,
and although designs continue to circulate in modem mining books, they are no longer widely
used.
The long tom operates much like a rocker (Figure 1).
Gravel is dumped into an open, inclined trough and drains Oblong Piles of Placer Tailings
through a screen into another box fitted with riffles. Coarse The use of long-toms leaves a
gold settles into perforated sheet iron that lines the initial landscape similar to that of
trough, while the finer particles are captured in the riffle rockers, although the rock and
box below the sieve. The device relies on a steady current gravel removed from the longer
of gravity-fed water to move material instead of rocking, troughs create linear or oblong
and no pressure, or head, is necessary. TIle flow is piles of unifonn-sized gravel and
controlled, and must be stopped during frequent cobbles, as much as 15 to 20 feet
long. Other associated artifacts
cleanouts. Material collected from behind riffles was
may include the flared, per-
typically patmed. Widespread adoption of long toms in
fora ted sheet-iron plate.
1851 awaited development of a necessary water supply
system (Rohe 1986:136). Perforated metal used in long
toms may vary in dimensions, although designs generally include a flared riddle plate
llllconunon in other collection devices (Boericke 1936:60; Silva 1986:7; Lindstrom et al. 2000:68).
As described by Wilson (1907:39), "the feed end of the tom is about 18 inches wide, while the
discharge end is about 32 inches wide, atld terminates in a perforated sheet-iron plate."
Conunon water systems include a penstock, hose, flume, atld ditch, or a combination of these.
A box or board sluice is a wooden, riffle-lined trough that operates much like a long tom,
although typically 12-foot sections were interconnected to construct much longer devices (Peele
1941:10--561; Rohe 1986:137; see Figure 2). As with the long tom, the chain of sluice boxes was
supplied with a controlled source of water, and was constructed to a suitable grade for
collection, often requiring trestles. Water atld gravel were introduced at the head, gold and
heavy sediment collected behind riffles, and water and gravel-and fine minerals -exited the
tail into a dump. Flow had to be stopped periodically to cleatl out concentrate from behind the
riffles. Material collected from behind riffles was typically panned. Gravel could be shoveled in

manually, or brought to the feed slu ice by w heelbarrow. long Lines of Placer Tailings
Various means were employed to prevent clogging and The use of sluice boxes resulted
damage by large rocks, such as a m u d box fitted with a in a landscape similar to that of
grizzly, or metal grate; "oversize material and boulders are a long tom, although straight
forked out and thwwn to one side after having been linear p iles of tailings usually
cleaned" (Boericke 1936:55). Undercurrents were u sed to exceeded 20 feet in length.
increase collection of finer, gold -bearing sediments by Metal grates or angle iron riffles
diverting finer material throu gh a grate along the bottom of might be present. Steep cut
the sluice to a large box designed to slow the flow of water banks are absent.
enou gh to allow fine gold to settle . Sluice boxes were widely
u sed by 1852 (Rohe 1986:137). Variou s metal grates or sieves u sed to help screen gravel and
riffles were generally wood, although there are some metal designs such as angle iron (Peele
1941:10-566; Silva 1986:7). A water convey ance system would be present, although exclusive
u se of the sluice box would not result in steep cut banks, which would ind icate ground sluicing
or hydraulic tedmology. Slu icing resulted in impressive, distinctive landscapes (Figure 3).
Hillsides com posed of the eroding remains of ancient
river chatm els could be prospected by surface prospecting Pits with Placer Tailings
and by ground sluicing. Small, shallow pits were excavated Small-scale prospecting of slope
into the grotmd surface, atld the soils removed for deposits resulted in an lUldu-
processing in a patl, cradle, or other sorting device. Water lating landscape of depressions
did not need to be brought to these prospecting locations. and mounds located on hill-
TIle pits were usually less than eight feet in d iameter atld sides and ridges fanned of
only a few feet deep. A pattern of small, deep prospects is ancient river channels. The
called "post-holing." Archaeologically they survive as depressions are less than ten
shallow depressions w ith small adjacent piles of stream- feet in diameter and cobbles
washed cobbles. Where buried gold deposits were located, and other river rock are piled
adjacent. Abundant pits with
either in exposed modem river bottoms or elevated atlcient
large adjacent rock p iles may
ones, prospects were enlarged by "coyoting" (mining in
indicate an area of coyoting .
irregular openings or burrows into the auriferous gravels;
also see discussion below on Adits and Tailings). Dry
placering em p loyed this method as well. TIle work was considered quite datlgerous as the
ground matrix was unstable atld cave-ins common. A rchaeologically these prospects have
collapsed and eroded and are d istinguished from pit prospects only by the size of the adjacent
tailings p iles.
Cut Banks, Channels, and Placer Tailings

Comb inations of cut banks, cllalmels, and stacked or piled rocks are the result of ground
sluice or hydraulic operations, or a combination of these methods. Both processes of excavating
auriferous deposits relied on collection teclmologies described above. Disposal of the vast
quantities of water and waste material needed for these operations was a major concenl, and
the variety of methods used for draining and managing waste is evident in the material
remains. TIle feature systems resulting from sluicing and h ydraulicking methods are similar.

A ground sluice is a channel or trough in the grolllld through which auriferous earth is
washed. It may require carving into the bedrock to obtain the correct slope or grade for the
bottom of the channel (Wilson 1907:40). Grolllld sluicing is also the act of caving-in and eroding
the grolllld into a prepared channel u sing a steady stream of water and hand tools to remove
overburden (Peele 1941:10-541). hl all respects, what sets grolllld sluicing apart from box or
board sluicing is the large quantities of water needed to excavate the ground. Booming is a
variation in which the water was impollllded nearby and released suddenly to cause a powerful
gush of water against a bank or over a grotuld surface. A variety of material can be used for
riffles in a grolllld sluice, including natural irregularities in the chatmel, cobbles, and wood
poles. Cleatung out the concentrate from a grolllld sluice took place as needed. It involved
removing all riffles and large stones, collecting all the sediment, and often extracting a few
inches of bedrock; the result was an empty chatme1. The collected material would then typically
be run through a board sluice, long tom, or rocker, and eventually the pan. It was also conunon
to use board sluices at some phase of ground sluicing operations, including at the tailor in place
of a grolllld sluice. Like the board sluice, grotuld sluicing became conunon in the early 1850s,
and relied on dependable sources of water.
H ydraulic mining is a method in which a batlk of
auriferous material is washed away by a powerful jet of Cut Banks, Channels,
water and carried into sluices (Fay 1920:352). As the name and Placer Tailings
suggests, an ablllldant water supply-and the meatlS to GrolUld sluicing and hydraulic
build sufficient head, or pressure - is necessary. Water is mining produce similar land-
scapes characterized by sub-
typically conveyed from high on atl adjacent hillside into a
stantial water conveyance
metal pipe (penstock) to build head, and then into canvas
feahtres, and the presence of
hoses fitted to a metal nozzle, or mOlutor, wluch directs the
steep cut faces of varying
jet of water. In large operations giants were hooked directly heights at the edge of the
to penstocks to contain the high pressure. Gold was worked area.
collected in extensive sluice systems, often similar to the
ground sluicing described above. Low-pressure models
were developed in the 1850s, although substantial technological developments in high-pressure
water wheels atld delivery systems were accompanied by far greater gold production beginning
in the early 1870s (Limbaugh 1999:34). Far greater dumping of processed waste sediment (i.e.,
mining debris) in waterways was another result. Judge Sawyer's 1884 decision in Woodward vs .
North Bloomfield led to the 1893 Catninetti Act, federal legislation controlling hy draulic
discharge into public waterways. Large-scale operations that could not control their discharge
for whatever reason began closing down.
Lindstrom et a1. (2000:62) noted the difficulty 111 differentiating hydraulic atld grotuld
sluice operations in arcllaeological interpretation, particularly for small-scale operations. In
large-scale h ydraulic mines, pressurized water systems, steep cliffs, and abtuldatlt tailings in
noticeable hydraulic pits atld dumping grounds should be apparent. Typically small operations
elevated a m01utor on a stable platfonn to keep it dry and above flowing gravel and water (see
Figure 4). Arcllaeologically this looks like a flattened rock pile in front of a con caved batlk (see
Figure 5); there is no equivalent need for such a feature in ground sluicing. whereby the water is

delivered via a race, or d itch , above the cut face . Peele (1941:10--551) d escribes ideal monitor
placement for larger operation s.
River Diversion
Mining the beds of existing n vers required special
tedmiqu es. One historically p opular meth od involved River Channel Diversion
While a river will typically
turning a river from its bed in order to process the
reclaim its course and obliterate
tmderlying gravels, popularly accomplished by win g dams,
evidence of this activity, some
flwnes, an d chatm el d iversion . A w ing d am was con structed elemen ts of the diversion means
down a stretch of river, p arallel to the bed, co[mecting upper m ay survive alon g bank s, SUcll
and lower cross dam s in a manner th at would box a as dams and ditclles. For
segment of riverbed (Figure 6). The flow that continued sm aller courses, evidence of
down behind the wing datn sometimes operated a p wnp - parallel cha.tUlels and stacked-
often called a Chinese pu mp - th at would continue draining rock retaining walls may
the contained portion of the riverbed . Fluming involved indicate a temporary cha.tUlel
con struction of a head atld tail dam, atld a flwne erected diversion. Sedimentation may
h ave p artially buried some
between them, thereby exposing an entire width of a river
elem ents.
segment. hl channel diversion, a parallel channel was made
for the river alongside the n atural one, atld the river
diverted into it. A stream course could be moved back and forth across a d rainage over a period
of mining. River mining was w idely p racticed in California beginning in the early 1850s (Rohe
1986:140), and reached its peak in the mid-1 85Os (Meals 1994:10), althou gh miners used these
methods as late as the 1880s.
Dredge Tailings
Dredge mining allowed the profitable recovery of gold -bearing material that paid as little
as five cents per cubic yard . Su ccessfully used in California by 1898, and continuing into the
196Os, the bucket-line dred ge consists of a "mechatu cal excavator and a screening and washing
platlt, both motmted on a floating hull" (Peele 1941:10--577). The dred ge, anch ored by a spud or
post that could be raised or lowered at the stem of th e hull, was floated in an artificial p ond
w h ere it excavated a channel in d eep gravel plains. Gravel was processed throu gh a series of
gold-saving devices, atld the large volume of waste cobbles deposited by con vey or into a series
of unifonn tailings p iles. TIle dredge would p ull forward, following the excavated chatm el and
leaving the tailings to fill in behind. Large-scale mod els were adapted to Califonua's gravel
plains, p articularly w here th e Feather, Yu ba, atld Am erican rivers, flowing from the Sierra
Nevad a, entered the Sacramento Valley .
The dragline or doodlebu g d redge was developed in the 1930s atld operated for abou t a
decade in California. The dred ging unit consists of two parts: a shore-based power sh ovel
equipped w ith a dragline bu cket, atld a fl oating washing plant, sinular to but smaller than the
one on a bucket-line d redge. The d ragline works from the edge of the bat* above the pon d
w h ere the washing platlt is floating . TIle bu cket was cast into the pond , hitting the bottom teeth-
first. TIlen it was rotated atld filled by p ulling it toward the p ower shovel w ith the d ragline.
When the bu cket was hoisted up it was SWlUlg over the h opper on the washing plant and

dumped; then the cycle started again. TIle bucket cut away Dredge Tailings
the bank on w hich the dragline sat, so it had to move Large, multiple piles of river
backwards as the pond and washing plant advanced toward cobbles with little or no soil
it. Dragline dredges were "generally well suited to relatively covering. extending over a large
small, shallow deposits which are too small to amortize a area.
bucket-line dredge or too wet or low grade to be profitably Buckel-line
worked by hand or other small-scale methods" (Wells Vast tailings fields with high,
1966:12). rotulded, parallel rows of
cobbles.
When the washing plant is mounted on wheels or Dragline
skids, the dredge is called a dry land dredge (Wells 1966:13). Ousters of conical, or rotulded,
TIlese machines were only used in special situations su ch as individual piles; a pond was
places where the grotmd had to be put back to its original once p resent.
state by returning the tailings into the p it, leveling it over Dry-land dredge
and p lanting it. The existence of very shallow deposits Ousters of conical, or rotulded,
would also make it more appropriate because it could only individual piles; no pond
dig about half as deep as the draglines. These dredges p resent.
operated in Califomia in the 1930s and 1940s.
The signal outcome of bucket-line dredging is vast tailings fields that encompass htmdreds
of acres. Tailings left by bucket-line dredges are distinctive in that they consist of high rotmded
rows of cobbles created by the arc of the stacker as the dredge pivoted on its spud (Figure 7).
TIle rows angle away from the forward direction of the p lant and each one represents a single
pass. Ponds, dredge parts, and w ire rope are also items that may be noted in an abandoned
dredge field.
Dragline dredge tailings are deposited in large individual p iles, rather than in continuous
arcs. They are usually conical, tmless they have weathered down to more rotmded shapes. TIley
are often in clusters, or in rows if the dredge was following a stream course. Because of their
size, shape, and configuration, dragline dredge tailings are easily distinguished from bucket-
line dredge tailings, but not from dry-land dredge tailings. Also fotmd in clustered and conical
piles, dry land dredge tailings can be confused with those from a dragline (Figure 8). TIle most
reliable way to differentiate between the two would be by detennining whether or not a pond
was present, which would indicate the presence of a dragline. Mining company records would
be helpful as well.
Adits and Placer-Tailings Dumps

Accessing buried p lacer deposits u sing tmderground mining teclmiques of adits and shafts
is called drift mining. Prospecting for bench or Tertiary placer deposits elevated above
drainages or locked beneath ancient volcanic flows often results in a pock-marking of small p its
spread over a hillside. When fertile grotmd was fotmd, larger excavations included coyoting or
drift mining into the old river cllatmels (see discussion above on pits). TIle "pay streak" is
reached through an adit or shallow shaft and wheelbarrows or small rail-cars may be used for
tratlSporting the gravel to a sluice on the surface . If large, the paystreak Catl be taken in a series
of regular cuts or slices. Drift mining is more expensive than sluicing or hydraulicking and is

con sequently u sed only in rich ground (Thrush 1968:351). Adits and Placer Tailings
Substantial d rift mines were operating across California by Drift mines will be located in
the mid -1850s (Rohe 1986:146-147) . The metllod reached its geological deposits containing
peak in the 1870s, before virtually ceasin& only to be old riverbeds. Waste rock w ill
revived after 1933 (Peele 1941:10-606). Excavated look like placer tailings,
sedimentary material d eposited n ear a drift mine is com posed of cobbles. The adits
an d shafts m ay h ave caved in.
distinguish ed from a lode mine' s angular w aste rock by its
Water is n ot required on site so
water-wash ed cobbles and gravels. Openings into the
ditches m ay n ot be p resent. Ore
ground may be barely n oticeable slumps, or extend into the car rou tes m ay be evident.
slope a measurable d istan ce. Rail or hoist remains may be
p resent. The facilities for processing gravel, most likely a
sluice, could be on-site, or some reason able distan ce away
depending on the transportation methods and water source.
HARD ROCK (LODE) MINING PROPERTY TYPES
Hard Rock (Lode) Minin~ Property Types:

Small Pits and Surface Vein Workings
Waste Rock Piles
Shafts and Adits and Facilities in their Vicinity
Underground Workings
Open Pit Mines
Lode refers to a mineral deposit located in fissures in COtmtry rock, an d is nearly
syn onymou s 'w ith the term vein as u sed by geologists. Lode deposits are tabular an d d early
bounded, witll orientations measured by their "dip" (an gle from tlle h orizontal) and "strike"
(an gle from the vertical). Althou gh lodes may extend to the surface, they primarily lie
tmdergrotmd and are accessed by excavations such as shafts and adits, or by open p it mines.
O re (mineral-bearing rock) extracted from tlle lode is u su ally processed first throu gh crushing
and tllen by physical or d lemical sep aration devices. Lode sites produce waste rock (excavated
rock that is not ore) an d tailings (the disch arge of unwanted processed material from mills and
separators) . Good d iscussions of lode teclmologies are fotmd in Peele (1941), H ardesty (1988),
Bailey (1996), Pearson (1996) Bunyak (1998), Limbaugh and Fu ller (2004), and Twitty (2005) .
Lode deposits, varying greatly, define the n ature of tlle extraction and milling teclmologies
applied to them. They are often grou ped into geologic occurrences id entified as zon es, the most
fam ou s of w hid l in Califomia is the Mother Lode, exten d ing through five counties. Lode
deposits can vary greatly in depth and w id th, w ith some surface qu artz leads pind ling ou t
within a few hu ndred feet of the surfa ce w hile a few extended to a depth of more than six
thou sand feet w ith 'widths sometimes exceeding fifty feet. Most lode miners on the Mother Lode
did n ot en counter major ore bodies tmtil their workings reached five htmd red or more feet in
depth (Lim bau gh and Fuller 2004:42-43).

Lode mining tends to be more complex than placer llUlUllg. requuing advanced
tedmologies, skilled persormel, and substantial capital investment. Also, tmlike placer gold,
extracted ore requires processing to free its minerals. Surface ore was n aturally oxid ized and its
values could often be retrieved through simple crushing and physical separation. As veins
extended deeper into the earth , however, gold was typically ch emically bound ·with sulfides
and oth er mineral compounds. Miners developed variou s chemical processes to separate them
(discussed below in Section 2: O re Processing). Althou gh extraction and processing
tedmologies evolved over time, older tedmiqu es continued w here newer ones were too
expensive or ina ppropriate for the scale of the effort. What was the state-of-the-art in the
industry was not necessarily w hat was practiced on the grotmd. As pointed out by the co-
authors of Calaveras Gold: The Impact of M ining on a Mother Lode County, Mother Lod e historian
Ron ald H. Limb augh and geologist Willard P. Fuller:
It must be remembered that many goldmines on the Mother Lode and most of those
on the adjacent belts were small operations too poorly financed to afford trained staff
and the most recent improvements in mining machinery. In general, California mines
probably modernized slower than those in other western districts, partly because of
the size and cost factors, and partly because of a traditional conservatism among
Mother Lode mine owners and operators that persisted down nearly to the present
da y [20040183-184[.
Many hard -rock miners worked only season ally, on weeken d s, or between jobs. The
ingenuity and inventiveness of these frugal miners also produ ced uniqu e solutions to mining
problems. Rancher Jam es D. McCarty set up a two-stamp mill on his Defiance claim in 1910,
putting a tractor-boiler u p on b locks to su pply steam power (Figure 9).
The range of h ard rock teclm ologies is vast and com p lex and will n ot be d etailed in this
section; instead, a d escription of the types of features com monly p resent on sites is described
and som e examp les provided. Examples of mines from th e Copperop olis d istrict in Calaver as
County, recorded for the Historic Am erican Engin eering Record (H AER), are available online
(HAER 2007).
Small Pits and Surface Vein Workings

Surface vein workings are amon g the oldest eviden ce Small Pits and
of h ard-rock mining in California. Du ring even the earliest Surface Vein Workings
years of the gold rush, placer miners were following "color" lhis includes pits with adjacent
(gold) up gulches and encountering outcrop s of qu artz quarried rocks (not stream
veins. Althou gh "bull" veins (those ·without ore) were the cobbles), or exposures of
m ost conunon, traces of gold were evid ent in some uplifted strata of COtmtry rock
outcroppings an d prospectors learned to searcll these out. with excavated-out veins. Adits
and other evidence of hard-rock
Float, mineralized rock b roken out from erod ing veins,
mining an d exploration will
indicated a nearby source, and "gossan s" - surface
likely be in the vicinity. On
mineralization s of iron-heavy d eposits - signified mineral larger workings, an arrastra or
veins tmdemeath. Prospecting tools included p icks, bars, small mill might have been
and shovels an d, in larger operation s, w heelbarrows and ore located nearby.
cars to m ove ore and waste rock.. Typically, an exposed vein

was simply followed down into its outcroppin~ leaving an exposed rock strata with its center
gouged out like a cavity in a large tooth. TIle sides of these excavations are usually tmeven as
digging simply ceased at the limits of the ore. The floors of these workings have generally filled
in over the years with silt and nahtral debris, but larger exam p les often exhibit an "exit" on a
downhill side for removal of rock, or a platform for a windlass or hoist in deep excavations.
Waste rock 'w ill be conveniently disposed of near the workings. Included in the waste rock may
be chtmks of bull quartz, a good sign that the excavators were following a vein.
Some kind of crusher was required to pulverize the recovered ore to release the gold or
other minerals. TIus might have been a small stamp mill (two to five stamps) or an arrastra (see
discussion below). The facility might have been near the vein workings, or next to a source of
water w ith the ore transported to its location. If the mining is productive, and the vein deepens,
there might be an adit driven in on the lode further down the hillside. At Carson Hill, on the
Statu slau s River, the original 1850s surface vein workings that led to nearly a cenhtry of rich
mining operations are still extant on the crest of a ridge.
Waste Rock Piles

Perhaps the most visible evidence of tmderground
Waste Rock Piles
workings is waste rock. In following a vein, the vast majority of COtmtry rock dumped into
excavated rock is that surrounding the ore, and tlus waste rock gravity-formed piles with
is discarded immediately at the opening to the mine, allowed little or no topsoil and
to accumulate in a downhill, gravity-formed motmd or dump. vegetation . Their presence
Piles of waste rock not only indicate the location of uphill indicates the locations of
shafts and adits (wlu ch may be caved in and therefore not mine portals and under-
easily identifiable), but the size of the pile reflects the extent of grotmd workings.
the undergrotmd workings. Waste has also been used for
roadbeds atld other improvements, however, so the size of the
pile should be viewed with caution. Waste dwnps are visible as urmahtral contours on hillsides
and for the lack of soil development and vegetation. For larger operations, waste-rock piles may
be fonned by dumping rock from ore cars, producing a long, flat-topped ridge that begins at the
mine portal and is extended as the workings deepen. Mines that operated for a long time often
incorporated waste rock dwnps into later development, terracing them for p lacement of
buildings or other facilities (Figure 10). As mineral-recovery teclmiques improved over time,
old waste rock with low mineral values was (and still is) processed to extract its values.
Shafts and Adits and Facilities in their Vicinity

The entrance to tmderground workings is called a portal, and opens into either a shaft or
an adit, providing access to the lode. Shafts sink down into the grotmd from the surface atld Catl
be vertical or on an incline, while adits are driven horizontally into hillsides (adits are often
referred to as "ttmnels," however, among miners this latter tenn is reserved for horizontal
passages that have an entrance and an exit, as along roads and railroad grades). Shafts atld adits
vary according to the size of mining operation and the nahtre of the surrotmding rock. Portals
will often be first identified by their associated waste-rock piles (see discussion above) as their
openings may have caved in or been closed by dynamiting. Shaft-like openings that do not have

any associated waste rock. are likely air vents co[mected to Shafts and Adits
deeper w orkings, or d aylight stopes (where ore and Facilities in their Vicinity
excavation s break the surface). When cut into a stable Sh afts are squ are (or caved in)
matrix, shafts are typically square w hile adits may have a holes in the su rface an d may h ave
curved ceiling . Where the surrotmding rock is unstable, surrotmding footings for head
square shoring is u sed to reinforce the sides. frames and hoists. An adit's
entran ce into a hillside m ay be
Sh afts an d adits require mechanisms for removal of evident, or appear as a caved-in
tmdergrotmd waste rock and ore, an d remains of th ese trench. Sh afts and adits are
facilities are commonly p resent arotmd the openings. Adits accompanied by waste rock piles
most frequently h ave ore cars numing on tramways, or on their downhill sides. Shafts
ju st a dirt path for w h eelbarrows on smaller operation s. without waste rock m ay be air
Sh afts require a h oisting device to raise the excavated vents or daylight stapes.
material. While small sh afts may operate w ith h an d -nm
windlasses, larger operation s require head frames with cables, bu ckets, and drum h oists (Figure
11). Footings for head fram es straddle the sh aft opening and rem ains typically con sist of
con crete bases topped w ith metal p lates or bolts. Adjacent to these would be similar footings for
the h oist drum . As mines d eepen ed, devices su ch as Comish pumps were installed to both
ventilate an d de-water th e tmdergrotmd workings. H oist power was provid ed by animals,
steam, water, fossil fuel, and, later, electricity. Evidence for the power source might be found in
massive boiler footings, a compressor, or engine mounts rtm by im ported electricity or a
generator.
The openings to deep sh afts were u sually collared w ith timbers and p lanks (Figure 12), or
con crete (after the 1880s) to stabilize the work area, although collapse of these openings after
abandorunent often makes them appear as large craters. In ranchlan ds, aban doned sh afts are
often surrounded w ith fencing to keep out livestock. The bottoms of these large depressions
are very unstable - often consis ting of only a thin soil developed over fallen timbers and tree
limbs - and should HeVey be entered.
Underground Workings
Sh afts and adits are bu ilt to access un derground workings, a series of excavation s
p roviding access to the lode. Drifts (horizontal connectors) link variou s p arts of the mine w hile
mining the ore body itself is frequently referred to as stoping. Underground miners sort the
material they are sen d ing to th e surface into waste rock and
ore so th ose at the top can handle each ore car lode U nderground Workings
efficiently. Exa miuation of undeYfrouud w orkiufs is v en/ These are indicated by sh afts,
dangero us aud is prollibited bl/ Caltraus. TIle size, nature, adits, and waste rock dumps.
and su rrotmding geology of mines are vital to They are NOT to be explored
bu t must be srndied through
tmderstan d ing its history. TIu s infom lation m u st be fotmd
docrunen ts.
in documentary records.

Open Pit Min es
Low-grade ores located near the surface could be
mined through an open pit system, much like a large quarry Open Pit M ines
Large pits excavated in stepped
where rock is removed systematically in stepped benches.
layers with haul roads. They
Excavation is generally by controlled blasting, the ore
may have facilities nearby.
separated and hauled to the m.ill and the waste disposed of Glory holes remove ore and
nearby. hl modem times both ore and rock are typically rock tmdergrotmd from the
loaded with large shovels and carried out by truck. Support center of the pit.
facilities include a road system, machine shop or garage,
and office . Some open pit mines used a leaching system to
extract gold, and such ponds may be located nearby. Pit excavations are also sometimes called
"glory holes," although this ternl more accurately indicates surface excavations where the rock
and ore is gravity-fed out from the bottom, as in a flllUlet, and removed through an adit. In this
case, waste rock, milling, and transport systems will accum u late near the adit portal and not the
excavation area.
ORE PROCESSING (BENEFICIATION) PROPERTY TYPES
Once ore has been removed from a mine, valuable minerals must be separated from the
gangue (tmdesired minerals). Beneficiation is a broadly applied ternl and can include crushing,
stamping, screening, flotation, amalgamation, and smelting (Cowie et al. 2005:13-24). The
tedmology of beneficiation developed diverse and sophisticated processes over the past
cenmries and only those most conunonly found on sites in California are mentioned below.
Milling sites often contain innovative and complex tedmologies that were added to and
modified over time. Interpretation of these types of sites is dependent on thorough use of
mining reports and documents and frequently requires the help of mining engineers.
Ore Processing Property Types:

Arrastras
M ills: Industrial Foundations, Pads, and Mach ine Moun ts
Mill Tailings
ARRASTRAS
An arrastra (or arrastre) is a shallow circular pit, rock-lined on its sides and flat bottom, in
which broken ore is pulverized by drag stones. TIlese are attached to horizontal poles fastened
to a central pillar and typically rotated by use of animal or hwnan power, although later
maclune-powered examples can be found. TIle base or floor stones are usually of a hard
material su ch as marble and exhibit a polished surface (Figure 13). The upper drag stones also
have a polished, smootll undersurface and evidence of a bolt attachment imbedded on top.
Although not conunonly encotmtered in the field , these simple grinding devices are significant

indicators of early m ining activities atld were also used into the Arrastra
20th century on low-budget projects (Figure 14). A shallow, flat-bottomed
circular depression typically
Introduced by Mexican miners (arrastrar = to drag), they
less than 20 feet in diameter,
could be constructed with materials at hand and were quite
lined on its edges and floor
effective in reducing ore to a powder, from which gold could with stones. The base and
be recovered by am algamation or other simple separation drag stones are of a hard
processes. This type of m illing is most productive for surface quality and exhibit polished
vein workings, where the ore has been naturally oxidized and surfaces.
does not require chemical processes for mineral recovery.
Arrastras are rarely fotmd intact as, upon abandonm ent, the
floor stones are typically pulled up and the underlying soils patmed to retrieve gold that sifted
between the cracks. Discussion of arrastras are fotmd in Kelly atld Kelly (1983) and in Van
Bueren (2004) .
MillS: INDUSTRIAL FOUNDATIONS, PADS, AND MACHINE MOUNTS

Mills are not necessarily constructed adjacent to mine portals, although they may be. Mills
require a power source and a steady supply of water, atld it m ay be more expedient to locate
the m ill in the best place to access those requirements atld transport the ore. Mills may also be
centrally located to serve a series of mines.
The first step in ore processing is crushing the rock into a powder that can be treated. The
most conunon teclmology for accomplishing this was stamp mills, where ore was fed into a
cast-iron mortar box located under a battery of heavy vertical rods (see also discussion of
arrastras above) . TIlfough use of overhead cams, the rods were repeatedly raised about six
inclles and then allowed to fall, their heat-treated shoes falling on the mortar dies. TIle camshaft
was rotated eighty to one htmdred times a minute by a belt-driven bull wheel, powered initially
by water or steam (Limbaugh and Fuller 2004:65). Small, m obile, one- or two-stamp mills were
effective on sm all sites, although batteries of five stam p s were soon fotmd to be the m ost
effective. Statnp mills often grew in increm ents of two five-stamp batteries as operations
expatlded, resulting in some large mills of 100 atld 120 statnps.
Archaeological evidence of mill sites increases 'w ith their size and permatlency. Small,
early mills were relatively ephemeral atld temporary, leaving few traces. Unless the stamp m ill
itself was abandoned - leaving cast-iron shoes, cams, rods, and hopper-m ortars in p lace - their
short-term operations may not be identified. Larger stam p m ills can involve large excavations
of earth and leave distinctive terraces, often with equipment m ounts or fotmdations (Figure 15).
TIley were nearly always built into hillsides, taking adVatltage of gravity feed to move ore
through the stages of processing. At the upperm ost level, ore was delivered to the facility by
tratn or other vehicle, stored in bins and then fed into the hopper of a primary crusher where it
was reduced to a uniform size. Jaw crushers were initially preferred, later largely replaced by
ball m ills (Figure 16), where ore was rotated with iron balls in large barrel-like devices (worn
iron balls often m ark these locations). Crushed ore was then fed through a grizzly (screen) into
the statnps, where it was pulverized with the controlled use of water, creating pulp. The

nwnber of stamps is documented by footings fo r the Mills
batteries, grouped into five or ten per footing. The w idth of The remains of these sites
the stamping floor often defines the w idth of the mill generally appear as large terraces
bu ilding itself. on hillsides, the size reflecting the
number of stamps present. TIle
Below the stamps, the lower level of the mill contain s stamp terrace has a large back
the amalgam ation or con centrating tables. Here the wall to stabilize the stamps, and
disch arged pulp, with the addition of sm all atnollllts of footings for the batteries may be
m ercury ("quicksilver" ), was p rocessed to recover the evident. The lower terrace is for
gold . This level h as d rains to carry off excess water from concentrating the pulp, and mill
this wet processing area . Below the am algam ation level, tailings will be fOlUld below.
pulp may be further processed in chlorination or cyanide Various pads and machinery
tatlks, or other innovative device, for final recovery. After mounts arolUld the mill reflect
necessary support devices. A
1870, variou s devices were introduced to improve this
water source and method of
process and m aximize the recovery of free gold in the
transporting are to and from the
con centrates, the vanner being am on g the m ost im portant mill may be evident.
(Lim bau gh atld Fuller 2004). The am algatn was then
retorted to d rive off (and then recapture) m ercury w ith the
resulting gold "spon ge" shipped to a mint or sm elter, or sometimes ingots were p repared on
site . The final discards are dum ped downhill as tailings.
Simple am algam ation worked well 'w ith free-milling gold , but n ot with refractory ores
w h ere gold was tightly bonded with other metallic minerals. In these, w hile gold was often
clearly visible in ore satnples, m illing and the use of mercury d id not permit its recovery. It took
years of experimentation before solutions were fOlllld , atld m atlY tailings p iles from early mills
were later reworked to recover their gold or silver with improved processing. In the 1870s,
chlorination was the first breakthrough, but even this was expensive atld relatively ineffective
and was only produ ctively u sed on large ventures. Cyanide was u sed w ith some su ccess in the
early 19OOs, applied to regr olllld slimes from ore initially treated w ith clu orination . Later
flotation methods subjected the treated pulp to a fr othing agent which sep arated the minerals in
cell-like devices. H eap leaching of chwlk ore was also som etimes successful in recoverin g
values from low-grade ores. No single recovery method worked in all mills, however, because
of the different composition of local ores. For most mines, the final step was smelting throu gh
the application of heat. Prior to 1863, copper was shipped to the east coast or SWatlsea, Wales,
for sm elting; after th at time it was sent to a facility at Antioch and later to the only West Coast
smelter in Tacom a, Washington. Califomia' s only m ajor smelter (for gold , silver, copper, lead
and zinc) was started in San Fran cisco but soon m oved to Selby, inunediately east of Martinez
alon g the margin of SUiSllll Bay . The Selby smelter was the OIUY one operating in 1940 (USBM
1941:230; Limbaugh and Fuller 2004:66-<;7, 80, 176-191).
In the early years, mills were run by steam, produ ced in boilers or fumaces, atld by water-
powered impulse w heels, m odeled on those m ade by Pelton. Remains of boilers m ay be evident
ad jacent to mill sites atld are d istinguished by rectangular platforms of b rick or other refractory
insulating m aterial which encompassed large, iron h orizontal-boilers. Fumaces also powered
steatn p latltS and compressors atld their remains may be accompanied by a below-grade slot, or

"well," to accommodate the fly wheel. Pelton-type w heels were often installed along the side of
a mill where they would tum a bull wheel. TIley required heavy fotmdations and motmts, and a
"well" to accom modate the w heel's rotation. A steady stream of p ressurized water, delivered
by an adjacent ditch or canal, blasted "buckets" at the end of the spokes, and remains of these
devices w ill inclu de ch annels for runoff.
In the 1890s electrical power plants began to be built, sometimes by independent entities
and sometimes by the mining in terests themselves. Engine motmts in mills are characterized by
raised concrete footings topped by heavy bolts. Evidence of electrical power may also be
evident in wire condu its, switcll boxes, and insulators. hl later years, on remote sites, local
generators may also have been used .
Mill Tailings
The tmdesired portion of the ore discllarged from mills is identified as tailings. TIley were
generally in the fo m l of slurry, and for most of the 19th century were allowed to nul down
adjacen t creeks and gullies. A federal anti-debris law, the Caminetti Act of 1893, prohibited
miners from du mping their waste into rivers and streams. While aimed primarily at hydraulic
mining debris, this act also addressed lode mine tailings. As a resu lt, mills began constructing
impound areas. These tailings ponds were typically fom led by constructing a dam across a
down stream ravine and allowing the tailings to build up behind it. H eavier portions of the
tailings settled into flat, meadow-like fonnations while the water portion ran over a sp illway.
Abandoned with their mills, the dams for these holding ponds were typically breached in later
years, allowing the stream to cut throu gh the accum u lated tailings and reach its bed once again.
TIlese breached pon d s can be identified by the cliff-like sides of the stream exposing mineral-
colored fines u nlike the surrotmding soils, and renmants of the flat pond surface preserved
along the sides of the drainage.
Tailings could also be carried as slurry to neighboring ravines and pond locations some
distance from the mill. This is the case in Jackson, w here the u nique Kennedy Tailing Wheels
lifted mill tailings to a retention pond over an adjacent ridge. Mill tailings contain high levels of
minerals and are often distinguish ed not only by their coloration but by an absence of
vegetation. At the New Melones Reservoir a valley filled with stark white tailings from the
Carson Hill Gold Mines mill is visible from H ighway 49 at low water (Figure 17). Many modem
reclamation efforts are designed to contain old tailings and prevent water from leaching their
often toxic contents into waterways.

ANCILLARY MINING PROPERTY TYPES
These are other site-specific facilities and systems that are commonly found in association
with extraction and beneficiation activities. They represent important internal components
assisting mining and milling operations.
Ancillary Mining Property Types

Structural Remains (ruins)
Office
Change Room
Black.smith/Mechanic Shop
Shed/store/warehouse
Garage
Stable/corral
Site-Specific Transportation Features (ruins)
Ore car routes, trestles, tramways
Trails, paths, walkways
Roads, haul roads
Railways
Site-Specific Water Conveyance Systems
Dam/ reservoir
Ditch/flume/conduit/siphon/penstock
Tanks/cisterns
Drains
STRUCTURAL REMAINS
Mining sites may contain a myriad of buildings related
to their mining and milling operations. Although some may Other Structural Remains
be identifiable by distinctive artifacts, construction Foundations or pads located
tedmiques, or locations, identification of most are achieved arotmd mining or milling sites
through comparing docwnentary records (mine inventories, represent various ftmctions,
some of which may be evident
photographs, and maps) with remains on the grotmd. Long-
from the related artifacts. Those
operating mines periodically upgraded or revamped their with domestic artifacts are dis-
operations, and over time buildings may have been moved, cussed tmder mining commun-
demolished, or changed in function. Every building or ity below.
structure in evidence on a site may not have been
functioning at the same time.
Building remains may be from offices, sheds, storage buildings, stables and shops,
locations of which may be indicated by concrete or stone fotmdations or simply leveled pads
and retaining walls. Wooden structures were often covered with metal sheeting and may be

evidenced by lwnber, cut or wire nails, building hardware, or fragments of window glass.
Assay offices m ay be distinguished b y the rem ains of £Umaces or retorting facilities, as well as
fragments of crucibles and cupels.
Change rooms, where company gear and workers' personal equip m ent could be stored,
are located next to mine portals or mills and later m ay have feahtred concrete floors and p iped
water for sh owering. These facilities were installed not only for the convenience of the workers,
but to prevent high-grading (theft) of are by em p loyees.
Powder houses stored the mine' s explosives and were usually located som e distance from
other struchtres. These were u sually small windowless rooms, often semi-subterranean
(com monly built into a hillside) and feahtred thick walls of stone, b rick, or concrete.
Blacksmith sh ops maintained a mine's equipment and vehicles, and their former locations
may contain various pieces of worked metal, raw m aterials, coal or coke, and slag from forging;
the rem ains of the forge may also be evident. One of a mine blacksmith's principal duties was
sharpening miners' drills. Nineteenth-cenhtry mines had stables and corrals for livestock used
to haul ore cars and wagons. Stone foundations and wood posts with wire fence lines m ay be
evident. At the Empire Mine, mules were stabled underground . More recent mines required a
garage and shop whicll may feahtre tanks for oil and gasoline, grease pits, and vehicle parts.
Struchtral remains w ith domestic artifacts (ceramics, bottles, and cans) are discussed below
tmder "Mining Com munity ."
SITE-SPECIFIC TRANSPORTATION FEATURES

Within a mining site, transportation systems were
Trails, Roads, and Tramways
needed to m ove ore, waste rock, and people . On the
These linear feahtres are visible
sim p lest sites, hauling was done by the miners themselves
as continuous grades leading to
or by pack animals on single-track trails. Even modest
critical areas of the mine or mill.
development, however, had to address how to rem ove Tramways fearnre rails and ties.
waste rock from lode mines and deposit it out of the way . Aerial tramway sites where
Ore cars were often utilized w ithin undergrotmd workings artifacts have survived are
to move excavated material toward the surface. For adit typified by cables, head frames,
portals, tramways for a re cars comm only ran out the and buckets.
entrance along a level grade to the adjacent waste rock
dump, both being extended as the mine deepened . Tramways were also used to haul are to
mills for processing, either nm along prepared grades or on trestles. The ore cars could be
powered by animals, gravity, fossil fuels, or electricity. In the 1890s before the Royal Mill was
constructed, tram mules hauled are cars down hill from the Royal shaft to the Pine Log Mill,
rehtming with em pty cars on their own for a ration of oats (HAER 2007: Document No. CA-81).
Tramways can be recognized by their uniform grades and the presence of rails and ties.
Overhead tramways with buckets suspended on cables, were also used to COlU1ect mines in
inaccessible locations to mills or transportation facilities (Figure 18).

Roads were always present to COlmect mine facilities, and these grew in importance when
trucks replaced tramw ays for hauling both ore and waste rock..
SITE-SPECIFIC WATER CONVEYANCE SYSTEMS

Water played an important role both in placer mining
and in processing lode ore . For placer minin~ refer to role in Water Conveyance Systems
placer extraction section above. Reservoirs, cistems and tanks
are located uphill of mills to
Water was required for all types of milling; conveyance
allow for gravity feed. Ditches,
and storage systems 'w ill be present on sites. Reservoirs, pipes and penstocks were used
cistems, and water tanks may be fOlllld above m ills to allow to move water arotmd the
for gravity feed while distribution m ay have been done in facility. Drains removed spent
pipes. Remains of old riveted penstock. systems may be water from the mill area.
present. Drains and methods to direct nm-off from the mills
will also be in evidence.
Water con veyance systems bringing water to a mill from sources some distance away
(outside of the site botmdaries) are recorded separately as individual sites. They m ay have
tapped resources many miles away and served several mines or com munities in the vicinity.
111ese are discussed below under Inter-Site Mining Support types. Water conveyance systems
for mines are also described in detail, 'w ith recordation m ethods and registration requirements,
in the JRP/Caltrans Water Conveyance Systems in California GRP and Caltrans 2000).
MINING COMMUNITY PROPERTY TYPES
Miners often lived at the mines, and this property type addresses facilities related to the
domestic residential activities of the miners, the mine' s support staff, and their families.
Although often m arked by impermanence, mining-camp residents created a d istinct com munity
(Douglass 1998:106) that is integral to the study of the mining site. The domestic property types
discussed below must be physically and historically associated with prospecting, extraction, or
milling activities. Resources related to mining-site residences, if present, are generally found
integrated within or adjacent to mineral operations. Metal detection can help identify associated
sheet refuse useful for interpreting foundations. There may be numerous remains of structures
on mining sites, especially more developed ones, that generally fit the architectural remains
described below (see Property Type Structural Remains under Ancillary Mining Property
Types). H owever, the residential property types addressed here must be distinguished by one
or more of the following:
1. presence of domestic artifacts,
2. distinctive domestic features such as hearths or baking ovens, or
3. identification as residence-related in docwnents.

In many respects the nurung conununity reflects a work camp composed for nU11lng.
Conununities brought together primarily for the mineral industry may also grow into
townsites, with diminished cOlmections to their mining roots. Modem towns along the Mother
Lode' s Highway 49 amply demonstrate this evolution. Mining community resources can
resemble types discussed in the Work Camps and Town Sites Research Designs, and additional
discussions of these types of resources may be found in those companion documents. Isolated
residential sites may also be fOlllld along water conveyance, transportation, or utility lines, as
well as in areas of agriculhtral development. Such sites should be addressed by research
designs appropriate to those topics, although they may share many attributes of Mining, Work
Camp, and Townsite properties.
Mining Community Property Types:

Domestic Structural Remains (residential and/or service)
Earthen pads
Foundations
Cuts/dugouts
Chinmey/oven
Domestic Artifact Deposits
Sheet refuse
Hollow -filled feahtres
Domestic Landscape Features
DOMESTIC STRUCTURAL REMAINS

The simplest temporary dwelling form is the tent, or
Earthen Pads
lean-to 'w ith a canvas cover. An improvement was a haU- Located close to placer-mining
walled version where the lower sides of a one-room remains, these leveled pads may
dwelling was made of logs or lumber and the sides of the have a downhill retaining wall and
canvas roof could be rolled down to close the walls. a stone hearth. They are character-
Located on nahtral earthen flats or leveled pads, these ized by a sparse scatter of domestic
simple dwellings required little in the way of site artifacts as sheet refuse.
improvements and could be easily moved to the next
opportunity. A tent flat can be barely noticeable if located
on a nahtrally level area but on slopes may be distinguished by a small retaining wall (as
minimal as one row of stones) on the downhill side. Improved earthen pads may be surrounded
on one or more sides by a shallow ditch created by building up the pad; these also provided
drainage. Sparse sheet refuse is u sually found on the flat itself or extending downhill away
from the shelter. Metal detection can help identify associated sheet refuse. The presence of a few
large stones may indicate a U-shaped hearth or fire ring. 111ese hearths may consist of flat
stones set on end to fonn firebreak, or a few courses of stacked local rock. Stone oven remains
have also been fOlllld associated with placer mining tent pads (see discussion below ). 111ese
types of dwellings are generally found in close proximity to small-scale placer mining remains

(more extensive placering and hard-rock mining required Foundations
greater inveshnent in developing the mine and housing All the types below are associated
was similarly more pemlanent). with domestic artifacts or have
been identified as domestic facil-
More substantial dwellings employed stone
ities through historical research.
foundations to raise wooden walls and floors above Any may be located on nahlral
ground level; these can include stone piers to support level areas or on prepared struc-
posts or floor joists as well as complete stone perimeter hire platfonns with retaining walls
foundations. Flat stones used as post footings on a flat and may have evidence of fire-
can be barely noticeable, such as those used for simple places. Structures over 30 feet long
cabins like the ubiquitous, two-room miners' cottage (Bell may be btmk-houses or dining
1998:31). Post-and-pier construction was used into the halls.
early-20th century for frame dwellings as well as for Stone Piers or
btmk-houses and dining halls found on some mining Perimeter Foundations
sites. Domestic structures with stone masonry walls, or of Arranged symmetrically to sup-
adobe or rammed-earth, may also be present (Figure 19). port a frame building.
A full or partial cellar, typically reinforced with stone Stone, Adobe, or
masonry, may have been incorporated. Roofs were Rammed-Earth Walls
conunonly of metal or wood . Supervisors or managers Collapsed or partially standing
may have resided on-site in large or tmique structures, stone building; adobe or rammed-
possibly higher in elevation or across from conunon earth may have "melted," leaving
laborers housing. an earthen berm.
Concrete Piers or
Later, poured con crete slabs and perimeter
Perimeter Foundations
foundations were used for housing. Concrete
Generally post-dating 1900, they
constructions are common on well-developed mining have bolts, sill boards, or other
sites after 1890. Board-fonned poured fOlllldations date devices to affix the overlying frame
to after the First World War, although smaller sites may building.
have continued using simple stone technologies. Sites
dating to the 20th century show increasing evidence over time of utilities for electric lighting,
telephone, and domestic water supply .
On more developed mines, evidence of large foundations (exceeding 30 feet in length) in
association with personal domestic debris may represent bunkhouses or other collective
housing. Commtmity dining halls and kitcllens will be distinguished by large refuse piles
containing tablewares; large cans, bottle, and jars; and faunal remains.
A dugout describes an open, often rock-lined cavity
in a hillside, u sually the size of a single room (Figure 20).
Cuts/Dugouts
In the mining community these generally served the Commonly appear as collapsed
same functions as discussed above for fOlllldations: they cuts into the hillside, or basement-
were used as dwellings as well as for other functions like areas, possibly stone-lined,
such as storage. Most simply they could appear as a associated with domestic house-
single slumped-in cut into the hillside. Better developed hold artifacts.
examples were fully excavated and may have been lined
with stone, poured concrete, or milled lumber framing,

and supported m etal or wood roofing . Wood con struction ele ments, if n ot entirely
decayed, will likely be collapsed w ithin. Dugouts a re typically at least p artially filled-in, often
burying structural elements and living surfaces. For large dugouts, the re m oved fill should be
visible around the structure.
Some m:ining residen ce areas may contain cooking
features, and any of the features described below m ay be Cooking Features
found on d om estic mining sites. Simple hearths are Stone features on a residential site
discussed above under "earthen pads." More developed may be associated with fireplaces,
residences m ay contain evidence of ston e fire place 'w ith a ovens, or other cooking facilities.
chinmey. The h earth itself was typically m ade of ston e,
and the chinmey of stone, mud -and -stick, or pipe. Similarly, a separate a rea for prep aring food
or a m ore fon nal cookhou se m ay have contained a d om e-shaped ba ke oven. Where collapsed,
these app ear as rOlllldish p iles of stones, about 10-15 feet in diameter, 'w ith the centers collapsed
into a cavity and stones typically resting at steep an gles (Figure 21). hl th e Mother Lode, these
are m ost commonly associated with Italian s, althou gh they were also con structed and u sed by
Fren ch, Gen n an, and Hispanic residents (Costello 1981; Wegars 1991). In late r years, they
incorporated mod ern materials such as brick, concre te, and cast-iron d oors. A distinctive curved
free-stan d ing w all - an asado - was u sed by Chilean s and Pe ruvian s to cook flayed cattle.
Overseas Chinese also con structed U-shaped stone hearths in the vicinity of their diggings
(Tord off and SeId ne r 1987; Tordoff and Maniery 1989; Medin 2002) identified by the presence of
ceramics and othe r artifacts from their h omeland. Often these su spected piles of stone must be
carefully excavated to reveal their original fon ns and function s.
DOMESTIC ARTIFACT DEPOSITS

Domestic a rtifact d ep osits are also discussed in the Work Camps and Town Sites Research
Design s. The examples below identify th ose commonly fOlllld on mining sites.
Domestic sheet refuse d escribes a h orizontal scattering of
discarded items typically fOlllld arolllld a dwelling. and is one Domestic Sheet Refuse
Domestic artifacts fotuld in
of the m ost conunon types of d om estic artifact deposits on
the vicinity of a dwelling.
rural nU11lng sites. Artifact accumulation results from
conveniently deposited on
unintended loss as well as intentional waste disp osal such as the surface by the occupants.
casting d ebris away from a dwelling. Sh eet refu se m ay be
found throu gh out the living a rea of a dwelling. or as de posit
located adjacent to and d ownhill from the residen ce area. Disposal of d ebris into na tural
features su ch as gullies may crea te vertical interfaces similar to the "h ollow filled features"
discussed below. Metal d etection is helpful in identifying boundaries of d iscre te surface
de posits.
In both situations, sheet refu se m ay re tain a fon n of h orizontal stra tigraphy that re presents
uniqu e activities or episod es; one occupant may have discarded d ebris on e d irection, w hile
anothe r m ay have tossed d ebris in an othe r, the reby creating d istinguishable deposits. Don
Hardesty (1987:85) n oted this qu ality on mining sites, recognizing that site com ponents m ay be

organized horizontally instead of vertically. The implications of this for research and integrity
have been recognized as an important element of evaluations (Cowie et al. 2005:62).
Developed mines with sedentary communities that
resemble a town more than a camp may exhibit more Hollow-Filled Feature
intentional methods of refuse disposal, such as designating a Concentrated deposits of
conununal dwnp. Artifact deposits are fotmd buried or artifacts disposed of in fea-
hues such as trash pits, pros-
partially eroding from features such as trash pits or prospect
pects, privies, cellars, or
pits, or from privies, wells, dugouts, cellars, or ditches
other abandoned features.
abandoned at the time of disposal. It should be noted that
artifacts found in abandoned features, such as basement
depressions, likely reflect activities after the facility was abandoned, not the period of u se.
11lese hollow-filled features offer a rich assemblage of artifacts potentially with traditional
vertical stratigraphy . Many of these types of feahtres are buried, however, and must be
explored through excavation or use of documents. TIle location and excavation of these types of
features is discussed in the Town Sites Research Design.
DOMESTIC LANDSCAP E FEATURES

Members of the mining community may have made a
munber of minor improvements to the landscape. Residents Plantings
may have planted a garden or orchard, or created areas to pass Exotic plantings that can
the time or socialize. TIlese activities survive in the fonn of survive tmtended such as
stone garden terraces or retaining walls, surviving plantings, bulbs, trees, and rose bushes.
Stonework
bedding borders, or walkways. In some more developed
Lined paths, retaining walls,
operations the ruins of more sophisticated recreation facilities,
and terraces.
such as parks or ball fields, may be present - features discussed
tmder the Tow ns Research Design.

INTER-SITE, MINING SUPPORT PROPERTY TYPES
These are separate, distinct sites that may extend many miles, creating a link between the
mining site and the outside world. They represent linear systems for delivery of services or
access and are recorded as individual and distinct entities. TIle nexus of these conunon property
types with a particular mine, however, are contributing elements of that mining site.
Inter-site. Mining Support Property Types:

Inter-site Transportation Features
Trails
Roads
Inter-site Water Conveyance Systems
Ditch
Flume
Inter-site Utilities
INTER-SITE LINEAR TRANSPORTATION FEATURES

Early access to mines was by way of single-track trail,
Trails and Roads
such as the network of mule trails that quickly developed to Trails were narrow and
service mining camps during the Gold Rush. Such trails are often marked with downhill
narrow and often have stone masonry retaining walls; their rock retaining walls on
width is most accurately measured at switchbacks and hillsides. Wagon roads were
outcrops. Segments of trails are often completely erased by wider and less steep, and
later activities. Wagon roads replaced portions of these systems later roads for motorized
as som e areas grew into viable settlements. These typically vehicles were often paved.
have stone masonry, and often a beml on the downhill side
from grading and often replace the steeper grades of trails with longer routes. Over time,
additional road improvements, su ch as oiling, m acadam, or paving, became standard practice.
Earthen and paved roads fonn a network across the rural landscape_Mining operations patched
into existing transportation networks or financed their own service connections. Large,
capitalized operations, in particular, typically improved road systems linking to the larger
transportation network. Byrd (1992) provides a general history of road development to 1940,
while Bethel (1999) offers an overview specifically for 19th-century gold mining.
INTER-SITE WATER CONVEYANCE SYSTEMS

Water is necessary for many aspects of mining, and when an intra-site supply was not
developed (see discussion above for intra-site, ancillary mining property types), operations
depended on an inter-site water convey ance system for its delivery. TIle mining com pany may
have developed its own water supply -buying up and improving on earlier claims and

systems-or purchased water from the owner of a ditch Ditches
system. These linear systems can be quite large, extending Paths of streams of water
for miles beyond a mine. Typical components include excavated across the landscape
catdunent or take-out, storage, and delivery features. on contours; downhill berms
Elements are discussed at length in the JRP/Caltrans (2000) are typical and may be
report on water conveyance systems, and by Shelly Davis- reinforced with rock.
King (1990), both of whicl1 provide the general features of Reservoirs
numng ditches. Intra-site water conveyance systems Dams were typically made of
typically took water from an inter-site system, often first stone and earth.
directing water into the mine's own storage feature, via a Flumes
ditch, flume, or penstock. The history of a mining site's Often no longer extant, may be
indicated by missing segments
water system is vital to understanding its development and
of ditches over creeks or steep
the source of water should be identified for eacl1 operation.
hillsides.
The primary feature that will be archaeologically Pipes
visible in the vicinity of a mine is an earth-bem1 ditch, Riveted iron pipe carried water
possibly with associated stone masonry or penstock. Ditch down hillsides, or siphoned
segments may be filled 'w ith sediment, or in places entirely over creeks.
eroded away. As the grades of ditches remained steady,
their routes can be detennined across a landscape even when large segments are no longer
extant. Natural gullies were often used to move water quickly to a lower elevation, where it
would be picked up again by a lower section of ditch. Remains of parallel ditches are often
found in close proximity and may represent water from the same source being taken to different
destinations, or an improvement in the grade of a ditch at a later period of time. Small side-hill
ditches - long. narrow reservoir-like hillside features - caught seasonal surface runoff and
supplied mining operations below. Flumes of any antiquity are usually in disrepair if extant at
all; more likely they exist as an aligrunent of fasteners. Remains of gates, pipes, or penstock may
survive as ferrous metal and poured concrete reinforcement. During World War II many
abandoned segments of riveted pipe were collected for scrap and shipped to coastal shipyards.
INTER-SITE UTILITIES
Some mining operations required servtces, sucl1 as power and conununication, to be
delivered via utility lines. The development of electrical generating plants in the 1890s was
pioneered by mining companies to supply their needs as they had
both capital and incentive (Limbaugh and Fuller 2004:182). Later, Poles
power companies were established to provide electricity, linking Cut or standing poles
mines to complex networks of power generation and storage and glass and ceramic
reaching far and wide. Telephone conununication also became insulators.
important and large enterprises had lines laid into their operations.
Utility poles might be present, although lines were often hllllg from existing trees fitted 'w ith
insulators. 111e mines near Copperopolis were, in 1901, linked by a telephone service run
partially along the barbed wire of fences (Fuller et al. 1996:69).

C HAPTER 4. CURRENT RESEARCH THEMES
INTRODUCTION TO MINING RESEARCH
TIlls chapter explores research themes for mining resources important to both historians
and archaeologists. They are:
1. Technology: general works related to the Gold Rush, and to mining and teclmological
development;
2. Historical Etlmography : culture history and individual stories of mining sites and their
populations;
3. Ethnicity: shtdies of distinctive culhtral groups and ethnic interactions;
4. Women and Family: the role of women and children;
5. Economy: market development, consumption, and class; and
6. Policy: law, regulation, and sell-governance.
Themes are integrated through references and examples with the historic context and
property types presented in earlier chapters. Research themes change over time as scholarly and
public interest advances. Following each theme are examples of specific questions; the lists are
suggestive rather than exhaustive. Under every research topic are questions designed to
establish base-line knowledge useful toward advancing the themes discussed. Considered in
isolation from their scholarly context, many of these research questions may seem
tmsophisticated for they are not intrinsically important and are not posed to elicit simple
tmequivocal answers. 111eir role is to stimulate the researcher's imagination in productive
directions in relation to the research themes from which they were developed . Higher order
questions that rely on these site-specific particulars are also illustrated. Answers to the
questions may be found in both or either the docwnentary and archaeological records, and oral
history may also be available. A solid wlderstanding of all data sets extends the conclusions
that can be made in a complimentary manner. The final cllapter will explain how these themes
link to evaluation of mining sites and implementation of mitigation measures.
HISTORICAL STUDIES OF MINING
The history of the Gold Rush and of mining in California is one of the most documented
and shtdied aspects of California history_ Almost from the moment the Gold Rush began,
authors began documenting the experience of "seeing the elephant." In later years, trade
publications, industry journals, govenunent publications and reports, and a myriad of other
sources have examined the development of the mining industry in the state. It is not the
purpose of this chapter to create a comprehensive bibliography or synthesis, or sununarize all
of these works; rather, the goal is to present a discussion of some of the major works, and

characterize the research themes, interests, and questions historians have posed or addressed in
the recent past. For example, a review of periodicalliterahtre for the years 1990 through 2006 for
the subject of mining in Califomia revealed htmdreds of joumal articles, theses, dissertations,
and scholarly works. It should be noted, however, that the overnrhelming majority of these
focused on aspects of Gold Rush history.
Monographs and periodicalliterahtre during the last decades have focused on the several
principal topics noted as TIlemes in this chapter. TIle following discussion is not meant to be
exhaustive or all-inclusive-rather, it is meant to point out the main areas of shtdy. Many recent
works will be discussed, but space does not pennit a full discussion of all such items.
Famous standard works such as Rodman Paul's (1947) California Gold: The BegifUlillg of
Mining in the Far West or (1963) Millillg Frontiers of the Far West, 1848-1880, provide a broad
contexhtal narrative regarding the Califomia gold rush and its expansion, while J.S. Holliday's
(1981) The World Rushed In, provides a wealth of primary accounts of the early Gold Rush era.
TIle Califomia Historical Society's A Goldell State: Millillg and Economic Development in Gold Rush
California, edited by James J. Rawls and Richard Orsi (1999), contains a compendium of articles
from the society's Quarterly (now California History) that focus on a wide variety of subjects
related to the Gold Rush and mining industry that is a valuable starting place for anyone
shtdying mining in CaWornia. Many of the articles collected in this work are discussed below.
Duane Smith's (1993) Mining America: the Industry alld the Environment, 1800-1980 provides a
national view of the mining industry that places California in that context. Mark Wyman's
(1979) Hard Rock Epic: Westerll Millers and the In dustrial Revolution, 1860-1910 and Richard
Lingenfelter's (1974) The Hard Rock Miners: A History of the Minillg Labor Movemellt in the
Americall West, 1863-1 893 address issues related to labor and capital in the mines, mine safety,
and other subjects. Although they focus on the mining areas of the West rather than just
California, they provide important background for tmderstanding the role of labor in the
mining industry. More recent works, such as Susan Jolmson 's (2000) Roaring Camp: the Social
World of the California Gold Rush, applies social history'S methods to the Southern Mines of the
Mother Lode. An example of a work addressing mining towns and their development is Ralph
Matm's (1982) After the Gold Rush: Society ill Grass Valley and Nevada City, California, 1849-1870,
which exatnines the evolution of those two mining camps into mining towns. Finally, Charles
Wallace Miller Jr.'s (1998) The Automobile Gold Rushes alld Depression Era Millillg looks primarily
at small scale mining during the years of the 1930s, prior to the advent of defense buildup in
industry before World War ll.
Over the last three decades, mining and related subjects have been frequent topics of
articles in periodical historical literahtre. A review of recent articles on mining and related
topics addressed hundreds of articles and classified them according to themes (see Table 5). The
following discussion focuses on some of these articles atld the questions raised by them.

Table 5. Published History Articles on Mining by Topic
Topic N umb er of Articles
Tedmology
• General mining 13
• Mining m ethods and teclmiques 9
• Mining m etals other than gold 9
Historical Ethnography
• Specific locations (m ining cam ps, sites, towns) 29
• Individuals 5
Ethnicity
• Race 55
• Race and gender issues 9
W om en and Family 12
Policy: Law and Govenunent 9
Economy
• Bu siness 9
Transportation 13
Envirorun ent 14
Agriculture 6
After the Gold Rush 6
Miscellaneous 11
Total 209
STUDIES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES
Arch aeologists are anthrop ologists, an d therefore are n ot simply interested in sites and
objects as interesting relics, bu t in w hat stories these rem ains can tell u s about the people w ho
m ade them. TIle interests of arch aeologists h ave evolved with th e discipline an d tod ay includ e a
wide range of approaches from scientific description s to imaginative musings. This diversity is
u seful as each site presents its uniqu e record of the past. It is also important to n ote that m ost
archaeological stud ies of mining sites are a result of cultural resource managem ent evaluations,
w h ere sites are not selected for size or prominen ce or uniqu eness, but becau se of their relation
to some tmdertaking . TIu s very democratic process of resource selection has allowed
archaeologists to examine a b road sample of mining remains in the state. Below are highlights
of the archaeology of mining over the last half century, and many other exam ples are provided
tmder the p revailing researcll themes that follow.
Som e of th e earliest and largest investigation s of gold mining resources in the State were
conducted in preparation for large dam projects during the 1960s and 1970s. hutial "salvage
archaeological reco[maissance" alon g th e Am erican River, for exam p le, identified 45 historic-era
sites, 18 of w}u ch contained fotmdation s and 14 had clearly mining-related elem ents (Child ress
and Ritter 1967). Most h ad shafts or adits, and two arrastras were noted. Subsequent work on 34

of the sites investigated for the Auburn Dam project, however, categorically dismissed gold
mining resources, concluding. "when artifacts are absent and there is no associated culmral
deposit, there seems little basis for additional archaeological work" (True 1976:6).
Development of New Melones Lake led to extensive culmral resource smdies behveen
1968 and the early 1980s along the Mother Lode' s Stanislaus River drainage. Of the 442
recorded historic resources, more than 60 percent were mining sites (Moratto et al. 1988:v).
Multiple phases of work were carried out by teams of historians and arcllaeologists, only a
portion of which is documented in reports (Fitting et al. 1979, Moratto et aL 1988). One
approach examined the results within Frontier (self-sufficiency), Victorian, and Dependency
theoretical frameworks (Greenwood 1982; Greenwood and Shoup 1983). Here, contrasting
social strucmres of placer and lode gold miners was observed: placer miners exhibited a
mixmre of Frontier and Dependency models characterized by labor-intensive cooperatives,
sharing, and using simple technologies; whereas lode miners reflected strictly dependant
attributes evidenced by imported and expensive industrial tedmologies, a large wage-labor
force, and financing and management by "metropolitan based corporations" (Greenwood and
Shoup 1983:273).
The Cottonwood Creek Archaeological Project in Shasta and Tehama Counties provide
additional comparable data on gold mining resources Uohnson and TIleodorams 1984a; 1984b).
TIle Cottonwood Creek area was heavily placer mined from 1848 tmtil 1870, initially by
Euroamericans and later by Chinese. Within the 45,OOO-acre project area, 405 culmral resources
were documented, 89 of whicll related to gold mining. Of these, over 70 percent of the placer
mining sites were considered potentially eligible to NRHP: 54 contributed to the proposed Gas
Point Historic Mining District; 9 were "evaluated as a group;" and another particularly large
site spanning over 50 acres (CA-SHA-1330H) was considered a "complete mining system"
Uolmson and Theodorams 1984a:333). The 13 historic sites selected for additional arcllaeological
testing represented temporary habitations adjacent to placer mining (Tordoff and Seidner 1987).
Research questions addressed issues related to chronology, water use, mining organization,
ethnicity, and social interaction. Of special concern were the Chinese occupation and this
group's relationship with Euroamericans. TIle smdy of historic Chinese has achieved special
recognition in archaeology owing in large part to the presence of distinctive imported artifacts
at their sites (see Theme 3). Addressing research questions was hampered, however, by the lack
of either exclusively Euroamerican or Olinese mining habitations as well as poor llistorical
associations (Tordoff and Seidner 1987:221). The researchers concluded that, "Given the namre
of these sites as demonstrated by this and other recent projects, careful recording can result in
obtaining, at the survey level, much of the data necessary to identify the system and its parts,
settlement patterns, and some infonnation on etlmicity" (Tordoff and Seidner 1987:248).
Rising gold values in the 1980s led to a resurgence of mining which, combined with new
envirornnental regulations, fueled archaeological smdies of mining sites (Spude 1990a:3). hl
1982 the South Dakota State Historical Preservation Center (SDSHPC) detemlined that mining
sites "had received insufficient research, interpretation and preservation attention" specifically
in response to the Homestake Mining Company's proposal to reopen a large mine (Torma
1987:1). hl1987 SDSHPC and tlle State Historical Society sponsored a workshop to pull together

their findings on historic mining resources in order to define research questions for evaluation
and preservation (Buechler 1987). The multi-disciplinary team swnmarized a variety of
advances made in mining research and included perspectives from social and industrial history,
mine engineerin& geology, cultural geography, and historical archaeology. The idea that
mining remains should be considered part of a feature system instead of isolated elements
(Spude 1987:55; Hardesty 1987), the concept of mining landscapes (Alanen 1987:61), horizontal
stratigraphy in mining contexts (Hardesty 1987), and the notion that mining history benefits
from archaeological resource-based analysis (Miller 1987:31), all gained traction at this
workshop.
Cultural geographer Arnold Alanen's workshop findings are particularly useful for
interpreting the physical remains and social behavior correlates of a mining landscape. He
offers a typology of mining conmmnities and several social comparisons, recognizing that
archaeological investigations can reveal much about daily life that is otherwise llllobtainable
(Alanen 1987:63--67). Landscape historian Richard Francaviglia (1991), in his book Ha rd Places,
also documents the distinctive imprint of mining on the land. He interprets these sites as
representing more than teclmological processes, but also reflecting the opposing forces of
culture and the envirorunent, and the traits of "competitiveness, risk taking, male identity and
power, and dominance over nature_"
Donald L. Hardesty, of University of Nevada, Reno, is arguably today's most influential
mining-sites archaeologist. Two decades ago he suggested that sites be measured against a
"significance evaluation matrix" of seven topics-environment, technology, diet and
consumption, social organization, demography, ideology, and chronology. Each topic could be
addressed on any of three scales: world systems, mining district, or feature systems (Hardesty
1987:88). Hardesty (1988) compiled two decades of compliance-based mining archaeology in
Nevada for the Society for Historical Archaeology's publication The A rchaeology of M ining and
Miners: A View from the Silver State. Using the state's extensive lode gold and silver mining
history between 1860 and 1930, Hardesty's monograph employs case studies to illustrate
various property types, historic context, and potential research avenues. Hardesty distinguishes
between historical archaeology and industrial archaeology, noting that limiting studies to
"detailed architectural and engineering descriptions of surviving machinery and buildings"
does "not seem broad enough to take advantage of the infomlation contained in the
archaeological record of mining sites" (1988:17).
The National Park Service added to this growing dialogue by sponsonng a weeklong
historic mining conference in 1989 to improve the management of mining resources. TIle
resulting proceedings covered topics on historic context, inventory and evaluation measures,
compliance and management considerations, views on interpretation, the use of HAER forms,
and several case studies (Barker and Huston 1990). Several participants (including Feierabend,
Huston, and Spude) reinforced the view that abandoned mining regions should be evaluated as
distinct landscape districts, while case studies by Rogers and Waters demonstrated the
advantages of interpretation at this scale. Ronald Reno (1990:56) reminded fellow conference
attendees that "the mining district has been recognized by most researchers as an ideal study
unit for mining activities."

Hardesty (1990:41) applies the term "historical etlmography," citing Schuyler (1988), to the
reconstruction of past lifeways using site-specific particulars as an interpretive approach to
mining resources. An excellent example of this is found in George Teague's early smdy of the
Reward Mine and two related camps inhabited in part by Papago miners from the 1880s to the
1920s (Teague 1980). The detailed integration of historic context and artifact analysis provides
an intimate picmre of tlle mining sites as well as illuminating their p lace in the emerging nation.
His observations on the evolution of camp buildings document "an aimless aligrunent in the
earlier years, and a rigid, sYllunetrical, and parallel arrangement after the mrn of the cenmry,"
leading him to posmlate an essential human tendency to move toward order and homogeneity,
demonstrated in this region's transition from a frontier setting to an industrial cOllummity
(Teague 1980:152- 153) .
The teclmology of mining is feamred prominently in Robert Gordon and Patrick Malone's
(1994) The Texture of IItdustry. In this overview of industrial archaeology the authors stress tlle
development of tedmological processes and how workers used space and adapted to changing
work envirornnents, citing numerous examples. Archaeological smdies of tlle social fabric of
mining sites are presented in Social Approaches to an Ind ustrial Past: the Archaeology and
Anthropology of Mining (Knapp et al. 1998). Mining cOllununities are addressed, as well as the
role of women in these male-dominated settlements. TIlese smdies, and many others, are
combined with works by historians in the following thematic discussions.
THEME 1: TECHNOLOGY
TIlls vital topic addresses tlle mining process itseU including teclmological development,
regional diversifications, and spread of teclmologies. National Register Bulletin 42 (Noble and
Spude 1997:14) advocates interpreting tlle layout of industrial feamre systems to elucidate the
namre and sequence of industrial development, emphasizing the identification of variability
and change in the smdy of mining technology and mining landscapes. It suggests looking at
"conditions tmder which innovations in mining teclmology take place and are accepted or
rejected," as well as the "characteristics and evolution of mining landscapes" (Noble and Spude
1997:17). Just as interesting as irmovation is the persistence of older and simple teclmiques in
the fa ce of more modem alternatives. Historians and historical archaeologists have contributed
to bodies of literamre on mining technology. Understanding tlle history of complex sites with
various phases of work benefits by synthesizing archival and archaeological resources.
Historian Phillip Ross May's (1970) The Origins of Hydraulic Mining in Califonlia explores
the origins of tllat mining tedmique. TIle teclmology of mining and beneficiation, particularly in
lode mining. are tlle subject of a munber of works, including Eric Twitty's (2005) Riches to Rust,
Lyrm Bailey's (1996) Supplying the Mining World: The Mining Equipmwt Manufacturers of San
Francisco, 1850- 1900 and (2002) Shaft Funtaces altd Beehive Kilns: A History of Smelting in the Far
West, 1863- 1900, and Dawn Bunyak's (1998) interesting Frothers, Bubbles and FlotatiOll: A Survey
of Flotation Milling in the Twentieth Century Metals Industry .

Applied technologies are dependent on the wllims and attihtdes of the nUllers. H .M.
Smith's (1903) Overland M onthly article, "Placer Mining," discusses the fact that while much was
written about the abundance of gold in EI Dorado County, fewer articles address changes in
mining objectives. Smith gives an accotmt of one instance, where miners in EI Dorado COtmty
concentrated first on placer mining, picking up all the gold they could wash out of the gold-
bearing soils. Only when this gold began to peter out, Smith reports, did they expend energy on
the considerable gold they knew was in local quartz deposits.
On any site where evidence of mining activities is visible, the first and perhaps most
important task is to identify what teclmiques were used. TIle remains provide clues to these
processes, and from this fotmdation the story of the site can be developed. Archaeological sites
containing feahtres of poorly documented practices offer particularly valuable data. Individual
and small-scale miners, for example, produced few technical records of their feats, aside from
occasional entries in a journal. One of the few large-scale interpretations specifically of placer
mining landscapes is Neville Ritcllie's (1981) development of a typology for placer tailings in
the Clutha Valley of New Zealand. Over 500 milling sites were recorded and divided into 11
types representing the most successful millillg methods developed by 1880, along with possible
regional preferences. By mapping out the process, Ritchie fOlllld that the organization of the
placer tailings, ditclles, and cuts varies depending on mining tecluliques and the type of placer
deposit. Although habitation areas, and issues of chronology and ethnicity, are not investigated
in this shtdy, Ritcllie suggests that fuhtre shtdies could incorporate these elements into the
typology, rendering an even more useful tool for extracting important infonnation from these
sites.
A landscape approacll that involves seriating related feahtres is useful to help sihtate
mining feahtres in chronological order. While most of this infonnation 'w ill come from millillg
documents and identification of mining systems, excavation of some rare mining feahtres -
such as arrastras -may also enhance tIlis relative dating exercise. Inter-site comparisons can
reflect technological development of entire mining districts in the same manner. A good
example of this is the reconstruction of tile evolving landscape in the long-lived Felix-Hodson
mining district near Copperopolis. Six maps of the district between 1848 and 1986, illustrating
the narrative llistory, depict tile changing locations and nwnbers of milles and habitations, and
illustrate the interdependency of mining, water, and conmmnities (Fuller et al. 1996). The result
of as-year shtdy by llistorians and archaeologists, the maps' detail and accuracy relies on data
from both disciplines.
Rohe (1986:154) notes, 'The often described progression of mining methods (pan, rocker,
tom, sluice, hydraulic, dredge) from simple to advanced is both an overgeneralization and
misleading for most areas of tile West." Tordoff and Maniery (1986:1-12) compared
archaeological evidence with the popular history tIlat depicts Chinese millers' use of shovel,
pick, pan, and cradle. Two small Olinese mining camps in Butte County dating to the 1870s-
1880s included stone hearth feahtres and artifact concentrations on terraces above mined-out
areas and placer tailings. Mining feahtres included "nearby small tailings piles and water
conveyance ditches" and artifacts recovered include penstock fragments, shovels, and picks
(Tordoff and Maniery 1986:63). While tile authors conclude that the Chinese relied on palming

and rocking. supporting the conu non image, the oblon g tailing p iles and attendant water
system also ind icate that th e more am b itiou s lon g tom or sluice was utilized .
Older teclmologies often persist well beyond their initial popularity, often because they are
simp le and inexpen sive to build and can be operated by a single miner (Van Bueren 2004:8). "As
a teclmological method and con cept, arrastras outlasted other mean s except p alming and sluice
boxes, but with ou t much chan ge in fon n" (Kelly and Kelly 1983:93). Arrastras persisted on
small lode sites into the 1950s, often identifying the location of a "part-time" miner. In 1880,
Guiseppe Torre acquired a su bstantial ranch near Sutter Creek on w hich h e built four arrastras
by 1884. Leasing the mineral rights to fellow Italian Antonio Canone, he reclaimed the poorly-
producin g mining operation in 1892 throu gh a loan d efault. It is tmlikely that th e arrastras
operated again (Van Bueren 2004:17- 21). Members of Calaveras COllllty'S pioneering Fischer
family developed cattle ranches arolllld Mokeltrnme Hill (H oeper 1995:19). A small arrastra of
cemented ston e sitting n ext to High way 26 remains from their efforts to earn some extra money
during the Great Depression.
Mining-site researchers are increasingly curiou s abou t Dep ression-era mining . The low-
tech methods u sed during the Gold Rush were also practiced in a subsequ ent century by
depression-era miners and by ran chers looking sporadically for ore, as n oted above. TIle second
all-time high of gold p roduction-totaling $50.9 million (Clark 1979:6) - occurred during this
period, and it is a topic of increasing interest as the 1930s pass farther into the p ast (Smith 2006).
O ral history can be a stron g com ponent of an y research into this era. The archaeology of two
small habitation s associated w ith Depression-era gold mining in Siskiyou County depict a
lifestyle characterized as "self-sufficient poverty," w h ereby gold provided a means for
acquiring essentials. Both sites con sist of cabin remains and artifact deposits surrounded by
mining features; one site surrollllded by large "prospect holes" resulting from pocket mining (a
typical small-scale form of lode mining), and the other by eviden ce of ground sluicin g
(Winth rop, Gray, and Winthrop 1987:34). Eviden ce from th ese sites - w hich are gen erally
poorly rep resented in the archival records - demonstrates th e renaissan ce of simp le
teclmologies requiring little investment.
Researcllers h ave d iscovered irmovative and vernacular teclmologies; notable adap tation s
unique to a site or region. Often these ind icate a lack of capital funding, cau sing the mining
operation to tum to inventive solu tions. At the Defiance mine and mill n ear Copperopolis, built
by local rancller Jackson D. McCarty in 1910, power for the two-stamp mill was supp lied by a
con verted tractor boiler, set up on blocks w ith its w heels pulled off (Figure 8). The mill ran lllltil
as late as 1938 (Fuller and Costello 1990a:6). Many early- to mid-20th-century desert-mining
sites have truck cllassis on mOllllts to provid e p ower to equipment.
Van Bueren 's (1998:32- 35) study of the small mine in Amad or County mentioned above,
demon strates the benefits of framing researcll around both industrial and social elements of a
mining site. TIle Canone Mine was a ca. 1880-1892 small-scale, owner-operated lode mine
employ ing multip le arrastras for processing. Besides the remains of arrastras, the site included
w ater con veyance systems, modest surface workings, and "meager evidence of occup ation"
(1998:54). Archaeological data h elped understand exactly how the arrastra operated and , 'with
the d ocumentary researcll, linked the teclm ology, scale, d uration, and su ccess of the operation

with the ethnicity (Italian), class (low-income and single), and residence of the operator (living
at the mine). By looking at the overall use of arrastras in Califomia and the West, Van Bueren
concludes that arrastra teclmology was marginalized by the industry because of culmral
preference. Its association with Mexican miners during the Gold Rush established its image as a
"poor man's" tool, shtumed by "modem" miners who embraced newer technologies even
though they could be more costly and less efficient (Van Bueren 2004).
Questions
• What type of mineral (or minerals) was mined?
• What mining processes are evident on the site? How did they operate/function?
• How were processes adapted to specific conditions? Is there evidence of reuse or
replacement?
• During what time period (or periods) was the nrine worked?
• How did mining processes change through time on the site?
• Do mining processes evident on the site agree with or differ from those documented in
records?
• Why were certain mining metllods selected (e.g., expense, cost constraints, limited
availability, culmral preference, irmovations)?
• Was the mine operated periodically (e.g., seasonally)? Why?
• How was water for industrial and domestic uses delivered? Did miners develop their
own water sources on site or satisfy their water needs (both domestic and industrial)
by tapping into a larger system?
• Who owned, managed, or operated the mine (e.g., individual, joint stock, corporate
investment, etc.)?
• Who made up the labor force? How did it change Witll time?
• Is there docwnentary or archaeological evidence that specific ethnic/cultural groups
are associated with identified m:ining remains?
• Did changes in teclmology or management practices influence tlle layout of the mine,
operations, or the workforce (e.g., sale of property, rise of labor unions, reduction of
laborers, change in hiring practices)?
• Are tlle teclmologies older than those conunon during the time period that the site was
active?
• Is there evidence of vernacular irmovation? Under what conditions did tlus innovation
occur?

THEME 2: HISTORICAL ETHNOGRAPHY
TIlls type of research focuses on compiling a detailed story - or culture history-of a given
mining settlement or individual, and is conducted by both historians and historical
archaeologists. Robert Schuyler (1988:39) first applied the teml historic etlmography to the
practice of compiling culture history at the comnnmity level using archaeological and texhtal
data equally . Etlmographic and oral history are also key ingredients if applicable. Hardesty
(1990:41) suggested u sing the concept for developing questions specifically about mining and
miners; "Questions that are important to historical ethnography have to do with the
geographical and historical context of conummity, household, ideology and world view,
ethnicity and ethnic relations, social geography and structure, political organization, economics,
and tecimology and the workplace, among other things." Historians have produced
considerable literature regarding specific mining camps and miners. Studies of archaeologically
definable households are conunonly carried out for cultural resources management projects as
they provide intimate glimp ses of the site's occupants. The following exam p les are grouped
tmder settlement, individuals, and households and comnnmity.
SETTLEMENT
There is a wealth of focused works on specific mining cam p s or districts. Many center on
remote locations or romantic stories, such as L. Burr Belden's (1985) Mines of Death Valley.
Others, like Robert Palazzo' s (1996) Danvi1l, Californ ia, or Leland Fetzer's (2002) A Good Camp:
Gold M ines of ]uliml and the Cuyamacas, describing the development of small mining towns and
the com position of their population. SUcil specialized books can be fotmd for m any mining
camps or towns throughout the state, and the collection of such works is often a valuable first
step in any study of mines in a specific area. Other works, like Remi Nadeau's (1992) Ghos t
TO""I1J1lS & Mi lling Camps of California: A History and Guide, are collections of short histories of
mining cam p s around the State. Kate W illmarth Green (2001a, 2001b) wrote her works, Like A
Leaf UpOll The Current Cast: A n Intimate H istory of Shady Flat, Neighboring Gold Rush Landmarks &
Pioneer Fam ilies Along the North Fork of the Y uba R iver Between Dowllieville & Sierra City, California,
and Like A Leaf Upon The Current Cast: Supplemett t to 2nd Editioll: Chapter 9; A dditi01lS &
Correcti01lS, to fill a gap in the history of Sierra COtmty . To this end, the books examine the
history of the little settlement of Shady Flat and its relationship to the other such settlem ents
along the Yuba River. Green sees Shady Flat as a "cross-section of the invading people who
came to settle these parts and the events that were played out in the gold camps of California."
She discusses its fonnation, the various ethnic groups that lived there, and early politics of the
area, and also looks at settlem ents down- and upriver of Shady Flat. Of course, one of the most
famous contributions to our tmderstanding of wom en's lives in the early years of m:i ning in
California are the collected letters of "Dame Shirley" (Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe), first
published in 1854 and republished in 1933 with an introduction and notes by Carll Wheat as
California in 1851; The Letters of Dame Shirley.

County histories are also valuable sources, although often dated or limited to the 19th or
early 20th centuries. W.A Chalfant's The Story of Illyo (1933), for example, has a number of
chapters on mines, mining camps, prospecting, small smelters, and other mining-related
subjects. Calaveras Gold: : The Im pact of Mjllillg OIl a Mother Lode COUllty is a comprehensive study
of mining in this COtmty, written by University of the Pacific historian Ronald H. Limbaugh and
mining engineer Willard P. Fuller (2004) . It recotmts the story of individual mines but also puts
this local history in the context of national and international economic events and teclmological
irmovations.
Malcolm Rohrbough (2000), in his California History article "No Boy's Play : Migration and
Settlement in Early Gold Rush California," addresses the accounts of men and women who
poured into California in search of gold. Rohrbough seeks to clarify patterns of migration and
settlement, noting tllat most miners did not fonn pemlanent settlements as they intended to get
ricll and go home. Only later in the Gold Rush did pemlanent settlements begin to emerge. TIle
late J.S. Holliday's (1998) California History article "Reverberations of the California Gold Rush"
notes that tlle historic record was filled with accounts of men flocking to tlle Gold Rush in
California, but not with the words of men yeaming to return home. Holliday reports the
transitory nature of most of the early settlers in Califomia, and his article is filled with accounts
of wives calling their husbands home, and husbands' explanations why they could not yet
leave. He celebrates tlle free and transitory nature of early California settlement and the
inventive and industrious nature of early inhabitants. Holliday compares reminiscences of
California's Gold Rush to tllose of the Civil War in the south. Both have been romanticized, both
invoked pride, and bOtll created a sense of a shared experience.
Archaeology tends to focus on specific sites or districts, presenting opporhmity to examine
settlement at a variety of scales. In her Logtown Historic Mining District study, Tordoff (2005)
combines social, economic, and industrial approaches. The remains tllere are associated 'w ith
placer mining and settlement dating to 1850, and tlle transformation into a small conummity
dependant on tlle local lode-mining industry that lasted tmtil about 1900. TIUs mixed approach
generated many links between the development of mining practices and the social evolution of
Logtown. Archaeology was the primary source for infonnation on organization of activities
both in and outside mining claims, how the layout evolved, and the lifestyle choices made in
the mining community. While most of the 95 historic-era features and feature con centrations
identified were in the boundaries of four patented gold mines, only 38 percent are industrial,
while 49 percent are domestic or commercial. Excavations of h vo buildings pinched behveen
the Pocahontas and Ophir mining claims -in the densest cluster of features that is now
Logtown - were related to different phases of tedmology u se. Artifacts from the larger structure
indicate a business along tlle road-possibly a boarding house-that started serving the town
when its lode mining industry began to develop; apparently a Victorian-style family household
continued occupation of the place during tlle industry's decline. The other building nearby, set
farther back from the road, and incorporating discarded arrastra stone into tlle hearth, was
erected w hen the local mines were in full swing, likely by a quartz miner with, judging from tlle
assemblage, a cluonic ailment or perhaps simply a propensity for "patent" medicines (Tordoff
2005:72); interestingly, bOtll medicine and liquor were absent in tlle boarding-tumed-

townhouse_Research showed that miners who also practiced agriculhtre resided in the district
the longest.
The story of the Felix-Hodson mining district is documented by historians Bill Fuller and
Judith Marvin and archaeologist Julia Costello (1996). The history of mining districts is
described as one of problem solving: how to remove the ore from the ground and separate the
precious metal from the gangue. Over a cenhtry and a half, this district struggled with these
problems, involving initial placer miners, lode-miners, and rancher-miners, several large
mills -including the 120-stamp Royal mill-and a modem open-pit operation. Archaeological
excavations were carried out at Maltos' 1893--1930s adobe store and the 1863--66 store and
saloon owned by James How ard; in addition, human remains from a ranch cemetery were
exhumed for relocation and reinterred. HABS recordings were completed on the mill site. The
story - the etlmography - of the mining district and its occupants was published as M ada m
Felix's Gold. As the authors note: "TIle history of a mining district, however, can be richer than
the value of its ore," acknowledging that the personalities and activities of district residents can
profotmdly influence the course of local mining development. All of the rancllers, their
employees, and retainers at some time or another dabbled in mining and allowed the local
population to weather the htrbulent tides of mining, producing a particularly long-lived mining
history.
Gold mining in the Castle Mountains, in tlle Mojave Desert, is chronicled by 15 years of
research related to recent expansion by the Viceroy Gold Corporation (Swope and Hall 2000).
Nestled within the mines are the ruins of Hart, a short-lived, early 20th-cenhtry mining town.
Investigators recognized that no comprehensive history had ever been compiled for the town or
Hart Mining District, and so embarked to fill the gap; particularly, they felt the arcllaeology
would refine and expand knowledge on "the sequence of events that took place at the
settlement including, but not limited to, periods of occupation, comnnmity disasters (i.e., fire),
town abandonment and decay, subsequent reclamation of struchtral and artifachtal materials,
and more recent industrial development of the locality" (Swope and Hall 2000:27). The
investigation succeeded in filling many of the historical gaps, and corrected some of tlle archival
documents' inaccuracies; it also served as an important reminder of the precarious nahtre of
mining sites: "field investigations demonstrate quite clearly the extensive nahtre of damage to
the site caused by decades of relic looting and other past land uses (e.g., clay mining and off-
road vehicular traffic)" (Swope and Hall 2000:335).
INDIVIDUALS
A variety of articles by historians described the personal stories of Gold Rush miners, or
miners in the period after the Gold Rush. For example, Charlotte Davis and Bemice Meamber' s
(1980 ) Siskiyou Pioneer article "Henry Levi Davis-Early Builder in Montague" provides a
detailed account of Henry Levi Davis, a su ccessful miner/carpenter/investor in the town of
Montague in near Yreka. TIle article covers his accomplislmlents from his arrival in Yreka to his
death sixty-tluee years later. Others address tlle experience of a variety of miners, in much the
same way as rS.
Holliday (1981) did in The World Rushed In . "Life hlTIle Diggin' s" (Oda111972,

1973) provides a number of first hand accounts of life in the nunes, which is valuable to
developing an understanding of the period. The journal article is a collection of letters from
miners in Tuolullme COtmty to their families back home relaying their experiences down to the
smallest detaiL The first letter is an account of the writer's envirornnent, the situation in the
mines and the hldians around him. The second focuses mainly on mining teclmiques used by
the letter writer. Both offer a glimpse of life as a miner. Michael Janicot's (1990) "The Weissbein
Brothers of Grass Valley and San Francisco: Banking, Mining and Real Estate," in W estern States
Jewish History, provides a brief history of the professional lives of the Weissbein brothers in
Grass Valley. By contrast, Jane Apostol's (2000) Southern California Quarterly article "Augustin
W. Hale: Hard-Luck Argonaut" notes that while letters from the mines abotmd, there are
comparitively few existing comprehensive journals kept by miners. Hale's is one such example,
and Apostol's article recotmts Hale' s experiences in California and documents his chronic bad
luck. TIle article is composed from Hale's journals and letters home and provides a personal
look at the life of a less-than-successful miner.
Historical archaeology contributes depth to the culhtre histories of particular individuals
when a site's material remains can be linked to the actual people who worked and lived there.
A good example is Seth and Asa Smith, brothers who left Baltimore to join the Gold Rush,
evenhtally staking out claims in 1854 along McCabe Creek, a tributary of the South Fork Feather
River. A series of unpublished letters combined with mining and water claims, other archival
sources, and numerous mining and habitation feahtres and artifacts, tell a strikingly rich history
of their mining endeavors, and their interactions 'w ith partners and competitors (Praetzellis et
aL 2006). Partway through their five-year sojourn working the ricll bank diggings the younger
brother Seth returned home, and the ensuing correspondence between them took on far greater
detail, elaborating on the mining methods used, gossip about the mining community, and other
ricll stories of daily life.
HOUSEHOLDS AND COMMUNITY

Generally the focus of archaeological shtdies, the household represents a definable unit of
measure, whether attributable to a specific individual, group, or family, or associated only to a
specific event (e.g., nearby mining feahtre systems). Attributes of domestic tmits can be
compared between different mining households and residence types.
Early miners were typically transient and their dwellings frequently left only faint traces.
Small leveled pads on the hillsides may be the only visible vestiges of tent locations and stone
hearths the only indications of dwellings. A few stones in alignment may suggest piers for a
wooden floor, although upper walls and roofs were often of canvas. Artifact deposits are
similarly sparse. While in much of California habitations are adjacent to mining sites, desert
miners often lived by more distant water sources and walked to work. Archaeologists who
excavated early placer-miners' cabin sites at Cottonwood Creek noted few material remains,
and found that multiple occupations made identification of a specific household difficult
(Tordoff and SeIdner 1987). For more permanent mining habitations, the artifact record
mcreases.

Sites of mining settlements that have multiple remains of stntctures hold greater potential
for artifact deposits. Two important studies of the gold mining community along Butte Creek,
in the northern mines of the Sierra Nevada, were carried out as Master's thesis projects. Daniel
Elliot (1995) focused on subsistence and diet in a small mining camp ("Forks of Butte") in Butte
Creek Canyon. The 7-acre placer mining complex consists of multiple stntctures and pads built
directly upon and surrounded by placer diggings on both sides of the creek. Excavations
focused on a single 1850-1860 deposit from what appeared to be a saloon that had been
constructed directly on top of a large placer tailing pile. The deposit yielded over 26,000
artifacts. Questions addressed in the study involve various historical particulars such as age of
the deposit and the activity that produced it, as well as a suite of more sophisticated issues
including consumption practices, consumer behavior, commodity flow, availability and range
of goods, and comparisons with urban deposits.
Jarith Kraft (1998) carried out an exhaustive academic investigation of the second mining
site along Butte Creek, involving tlle 10-acre mining camp named Butte Creek, located across
from the town of Centerville. TIus study focused on eleven mining community property types
adjacent to an extensive placer mining landscape of which only a small portion was mapped.
Most cultural deposits were less than 6 inches thick; one feature was a bum pit about 25 inclles
deep, while the rest were either shallow artifact deposits or rock aligrunents. The remains at
each feature were organized differently, but all three contained disposal areas away from the
building ruins, demonstrating integrity of horizontal stratigraphy. Analysis of the artifact
collection from three loci dating from the 1850s to the early 1900s indicated one locus to be a
Chinese occupation, while tlle residents of the other two appear to have been Euroamerican.
Historical research and cross-referencing mining and water claims produced a list of
associations. A landscape-based, contextual approach driven by a series of general research
issues reconstntcted the history of the mining camp. The study succeeds in providing a broad
characterization of this small-scale, "fringe" mining conununity that played a "secondary role
relative to other larger regional settlements" (Kraft 1998:501).
Additional discussions of the interpretive potential of milung sites' residences can be
found in the Town Sites and Work Camps research designs.
Questions
• What activities/events took place on the site? Was there one occupation or many?
• Was settlement exclusively associated 'w ith nuning?
• What types of services developed to support the mine and tlle miners?
• What time period or periods are represented? What was the duration of occupation
and mining activity? Are cycles of occupation and abandonment evident?
• Is temporal variation evident within or between loci or feature systems?
• Who lived on the site (munbers, gender, ethnic or cultural group, class, age, known
individuals) and did the demography change through time? If so, how and why?
• Is the migration or settlement pattern evident (early transitory or long-term)?

• Is variation in population groups (e .g., family, groups of men, single; class or ethnic
segregation) evident within discemable households?
• H ow did the "life" of this site relate to the locality, the region, broad national events,
and the Period?
THEME 3: ETHNIC AND CULTURAL GROUPS IN THE MINES
Popular among scllolars of both history and historical archaeology, research tmder this
theme examines multiple facets of ethnicity and discrete culhtre groups in a mining context.
NRHP Bulletin 42, ldelltifyillg, Evaluatillg, and Registering Historic Mining Properties (Nobel and
Spude 1997), also recognizes "etlmicity and etlmic relations" as important issues.
Of all subjects related to mining addressed in recent periodical scholarship by historians,
articles related to race and etlmicity are the most numerous single group . TIle survey of
periodical literahtre revealed more than 50 articles on the subject, the most conunon being
related to the experience of O linese (13), Mexican/Hispanic (6), and African American (5)
miners. In addition, articles recount the experiences of millers from a variety of European
cotmtries or far-off lands. Ten articles focus on the experiences of the Frencll, three on the
Cornish, and four on Jewish millers and mercllants. Other articles examine the Welsh, Gennans,
Belgians, Croatians, and Italians. Two address the roles of Native Americans, including
Cherokee millers, while another looks at the experience of H awaiians (Kanakas) . The articles
examine grou ps or individuals, and while often offering little specific infomlation about
particular aspects of their lifeways (i.e., culhtral practices, diagnostic artifacts, etc.) they do
provide valuable contexhtal information related to the variety of etlmic, racial and national
groups that made up California's mining conummity.
Historians have addressed social equality and tlle role of race, class, and gender in articles
over the last 70 years. One SUcll essay was "Unequal Opportunity on a Mining Frontier: The
Role of Gender, Race, and Birthplace," by George M. Blackburn and Sherman L. Richards
(1993), published in Pacific Historical Revie'"dJ. TIle authors note that while previous historians had
examined the demographics of early mining towns to determine the degree of development and
changes in social struchtre, they (Blackburn and Richards) used the same information to
determine the opportunities available for social and economic advancement. The authors fotmd
that the potential for advancement was, to a large degree, limited by birth, and that the fields of
employment open to women, O linese, African Americans and Native Americans, were limited.
Even white men fa ced barriers. They showed tllat Chinese and Afri can American men tended to
live in town, as did the majority of women, while most white men were scattered throughout
the surrounding countryside_O ccupations were limited for Chinese and black men, and further
limited for women. White men owned the majority of property and were often lawyers, doctors,
and mercllants. Overall, opporhtnities for women, Chinese and blacks were relatively restricted.
In "Kanaka Colonies in California," written for Pacific Historical Review, Richard H . Dillon
(1955) examilles the contributions of Hawaiians to tlle early history of California; H awaiians

were often called Sandwich Islanders or Kanakas. Such inunigrants were often treated with the
same distrust and disregard as the Chinese and Californios, even though some had been in
California before the discovery of gold in 1848. Dillon's article focuses on the treatment and
experiences of the Hawaiians in Califomia during the Gold Rush, and makes special note of the
Hawaiians' role as missionaries to the Indians. He also observes that Hawaiians quickly
assimilated and lost much of their culhtre.
Charles Wollenberg's (1971) California Historical Society article "Etlmic Experiences in
California History: An Impressionistic Survey" provides an overview of early Califomia race
and etlmic issues, a subject that did not figure prominently in the works of 2Oth-cenhtry
historians. His article is a brief overview of the types of discrimination the main etlmic minority
groups (Indian, Olinese, Japanese, Mexican, and African American) have experienced in
California. Delmis E. Harris' s (1984) valuable Pacific Historian article, "The Califomia Census of
1852: A Note of Caution and Encouragement," notes the census' shortcomings as well as its
strengths and provides a description of what the census covered. TIle federal census originated
as a means to re-align the House of Representatives, and historians have often htmed to it to
confirm the existence of individuals. Harris showed tllat tlle special Califomia cen sus in 1852
quickly became a tool to develop a demographic profile of California and suggests tlus tool is
still valuable today. TIle article is a reminder that the California census, the only complete one
done during this early period, is a valuable and available research tool.
Some of the negative aspects of the racial and etlmic issues are explored in William R.
Kermy's (1973) article "Nativism in the Southern Mining Region of Califonua" for Joumal of the
West. Kermy noted that it was commonly known tllat Mexicans were the subjects of anti-
inmugrant sentiment in the soutllern mines, but what was less tmderstood was that they were
not the sole subject to tlus treahnent. He focused on the anti-foreign attihtdes prevalent in the
southem nlines, recounting that Chinese and Native Americans faced discrimination along with
Mexicans in the area.
The shtdy of culhtre and culhtre change is of primary interest to archaeologists and the
enormous diversity of nationalities and etluuc groups pouring into the California mines during
the Gold Rush and after provides ricll material for shtdy. Etluuc minority groups are often
poorly documented and therefore infonnation gleaned from their sites may prove important for
tmderstanding their history. Distinctive archaeological remains and artifact types can identify
the presence of certain of these population groups. Discussed in more detail below, these
include mining teclmologies, domestic cooking feahtres, imported artifact types, and residence
patterns. Once the sites are identified, arcllaeologists can address topics related to culhtral
continuity and change.
For example, the presence of imported culhtral traditions suggests perseverance of
homeland traits, while non-traditional activities and artifacts may docwnent both culhtre
change and pragmatic adaptations to tlle new envirorunent. An example of tlus is found in
Chinese inmugrants' artifact assemblages, demonstrating primary reliance on native markets,
and selective use of Euro-American products. Distinctive traits of etluuc groups may also
change over time, particularly as second and third generations identify themselves as
"Californians." TIle gradual disappearance of the distinctive stone ovens of the Italian

inunigrants was dependent not only on acculturation, but on the availability of store-bought
bread (Costello 1998:72). Deborah Tibbetts (1997) developed a context specifically for early
California gold mining that offered "etlmic markers" for various culture groups.
NATIVE AMERICAN MINERS

A number of articles examined the role of Native Americans in numng. For example,
Patricia Cleland Tracey's (2000) Jountal of the West essay "Cherokee Gold in Georgia and
California" points out that there were few accounts of Cherokee miners in the Califomia Gold
Rush. Tracey contrasts the experiences of Cherokee miners in Califomia with those who had
mined earlier in Georgia. While the article is primarily a comment on the experience in Georgia
and the gold rush that began there in 1829, Tracey makes references to Califomia to compare
the Georgia experience with a better-known event. "Gold Diggers: Indian Miners in the
California Gold Rush," a Califontia Historical Quarterly, article by James J. Rawls (1976), notes
that while it is common knowledge that California N ative Americans were present during the
Gold Rush and that some were miners, the extent of their involvement in mining was less
known. Rawls addresses this gap - in our understanding of the relationship between whites
and Native Americans - in the historic record . H e claimed that Native Americans constituted
more than one half of miners in Califomia in 1848 and were most conunonly employed as
workers. In addition, some mined independently. Independent Indian miners usually traded
their gold for manufactured goods and food. TIlat Native Americans did not place the same
value on gold as whites became a source of unfair advantage to whites, who often sold Indians
badly damaged goods for large amotmts of gold. As Native Americans came to understand the
value of gold to others, however, they became more effective traders and, Rawls remarks,
remained honest in their dealings. N ative American miners virtually disappeared from the
industry by the end of the 1850s owing to the shift in mining from simpler placer mining
methods to h ydraulic and quartz mining, whose operators did not favor employment of Native
American labor.
In Arizona, George Teague (1980) studied two locations of ca. 1900 Papago occupation: a
locus at the Reward Mine and a small encampment nearby . Papago were known to have been
employed at the nrine as laborers and one of the researcll questions addressed the level of
adaptation or acculturation experienced by both hldian and European. TIle surprising results
demonstrated very little by either group. Fotmd at the Papago sites was a "complex of artifacts
and features virtually indistinguishable from those fOlllld at precontact aboriginal sites in the
region" including camp layout, building styles and materials, hearths, domestic ceramic
assemblage, and stone working teclmiques (seven tools were of glass) . Adopted traits included
a taste for calmed meat and soft drinks, although these contributed little to the diet (Teague
1980:146-147). TIle Papago showed a remarkable cultural stability for this tum-of-the-century
time period, particularly as their mining wages would have allowed greater participation in the
modem economy. Teague also notes that the American miners similarly adopted only a few of
the many indigenous practices which would have made their stay in the arid southwest more
comfortable: the ocotillo corral, adobe bricks, and the use of Papago ollas for water storage and
cooling.

It is as if the mines and their facilities were transported wholesale and intact from
Michigan or Appalachia to the heart of the American Desert, and this is probably a
fair statement of what happened. The result was a raw outpost of mainstream
America, expensive to build, and wasteful to maintain [1980:148}.
EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN MINERS

Articles addressing the experience of a variety of European national groups include Mary
Powell Flanders' (1983) "From Wales to Manzanita Hill: Eleven Boats, A Wagon and A Mule,"
published in The Californ ians . Because much of the scholarship on mining centers on the lives of
miners from other parts of America, Flanders sought to provide some history of miners from
Wales. In the article Flanders uses her great-grandfather's diary as her primary source and
provides backgrotmd from other historical sources . Similarly, George Metcalfe, M.J. Lowry and
J.A. Bauer's (1921) W es tern States Jewish Historical Quarterly article "A Memorial for A Blue-
Collar, Bavarian-Born, San Francisco Forty-Niner" notes that m ost accotmts of Bavarian-born
illunigrants focused on su ccessful m erchants. By contrast, the subject of this b iography was an
only modestly successful house and sign painter, and sometimes miner. TIle article served to
broaden the historic record, showing that Bavarian immigrants held many professions. Belgian
miners are the subject of "A Belgian in the Gold Rush: California Indians," consisting of the
Gold Rush writings of Belgian Dr. J.J.F. Haine, translated by Jan Albert Goris and published in
California Historical Society Quarterly (Haine 1959). While firsthand accounts of the Gold Rush
are not rare, Goris offers Dr. Haine' s view, from a Belgian perspective, as an addition to the
historic record. His ideas tracked with many other accollllts of the mining experience. Haine
devotes much of his accotmt to a description of local Native American tribes, focusing on living
conditions and wars.
C. Michael McAdams' (1977) "TIle Croatians of California and Nevada," which appeared
in Pacific Historiml, looks at this immigrant group. McAdams points out that the historical
record acknowledged miners from many cotmtries came to California before and during the
Gold Rush, but focuses on the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans. McAdams provides som e of
the history of the Croatian experience. The main stumbling b lock for documenting Croatian
settlers was the tendency of the time to adapt their names first to other European languages,
and then to English, which may have led to historians attributing the wrong nationalities to
many early Croatian settlers. The article briefly describes the history of Croatians in California;
their settlement patterns, similarities of California and Croatia, and the many names they had
for themselves. Like\vise, Patricia H Rhodes' (1988) "The Italians of Tuolullme County," in
Chispa, m arks the paucity of infonnation about Italians during the mining period. She notes that
among the VOltulleS of literature on the origins of gold miners, little had been said about the
ethnic groups who settled in Tuoltulme COtmty. Rhodes researched the history of Italians in
Tuolullme County, finding that early Italian immigrants to California were primarily m erchants
in medium-to-Iarge towns, miners, and later, fanners. Ongoing economic crises forced Italians
to emigrate to other cotmtries, but the discovery of gold drew them to California with its
promise of quick wealth. Most often, Italian men came to California with the intention of going
back to Italy. Those that planned to stay, however, came alone and sent for their wives and

families after they were settled and financially stable. These families settled near one another
and relied on one another for news and support from home. Rhodes' article provides a general
history of the motivations and methods of settlement of Italians in Tuolunme COllllty and
California in general.
Cornish were adept at hard-rock mining and brought numerous innovations to California
including the Cornish pwnp, vital for removing water and introducing fresh air into deep
workings. However arcllaeologists have not yet identified key artifacts or features to identify
their living or working areas. TIle contributions of Comish miners in California and the west
was the subject of Paul Friggens' (1978) "The Curious 'Cousin Jacks' : Cornish Miners in the
American West" in A merican W es t. Believing that the historical record showed little of the
Cornish experience in America, their contributions, their customs and tlleir private lives,
Friggens notes tllat Cornish inmligrants were predominately miners and introduced or
perfected many mining methods used in America. Elmer E. Stevens' (1964) "The Comish Miner
(from tlle Nevada Coull ty Historical Society Q uarterly)," presented in California Historian, provides
a history of Cornish miners in a specific area, in this instance, Nevada COllllty'S Grass Valley.
TIle author attributes the success of the community of Grass Valley to Comish miners. He
claims that General John C. Fremont brought Cornish miners to the area to "mine" their
expertise. Shirley Ewart (1981) also writes about Cornish miners in the area in her article for The
Pacific Historian, "Comish Miners in Grass Valley: The Letters of Jo1m Coad, 1858-1860." Ewart
notes that when one tlunks of the California Gold Rush, one usually thinks first of Americans
crossing the continent to reach the gold fields and tllen of men from other cOlllltries and races.
She provides the perspective of tlle Cornish in Grass Valley at the end of the Gold Rush ,
emphasizing the role of the Cornish family man. Often, men fOlllld they could not earn enough
as miners to support their families so they took on other tasks u seful to the conummity SUcll as
horseshoeing and watcll repair, to supplement tlleir mining incomes. TIle article, focusing on
the end of the Gold Rush and the experiences of one Conush miner, John Coad, stresses most
the frustration felt by Coad when he was not able to succeed in California.
Among the most discussed national groups of miners in California were the Frencll who
came to the state during the Gold Rush. More tllan 70 years ago, Rufus Kay Wyllys' (1932)"TIle
French of Califomia and Sonora," in Pacific Historical Review, sought to explain why the French
were more influential and respected than other immigrant groups. The article discusses both
California and Sonora, Mexico. When the French began to come to Califonua from France, they
usually came as part of a joint venture company in which they had bought shares. Wyllys
discusses this and details the most famous company, the Societe du Lillgot d 'Gr, or the Society of
the Golden Ingot. Frencll members of tlus society were conunonly known as "lingots." In
addition, there was a large number of French who came on their own to California, and by 1851
California had a sizable French population. The Frencll played a large role in the conmlercial
development of San Francisco as bankers, mercllants, theatre and restaurant owners, as well as
miners. Wyllys noted that many of tlle French in Califonua went to Sonora at the end of 1851 in
search of better opportunities in business and mining. Mexico encouraged French colonists and
offered them both nulitary and civilian positions. Wyllys also wrote The French in SO/lOra (1850-
1854); a chapter from this book provides a brief history of the French in California. Bereluece

Lamson's (1978) Pacific Historian article "The Frenclllllen's Dream" addresses the role of the
French in early California history from the perspective of the French. Lamson discussed the
French motivations for innnigration. More than the allure of gold drew the French to California;
they also were drawn by potential economic and political opportunities. Opporhmities such as
these had all but disappeared in France. Califomia was viewed as a paradise where land-
starved French could prosper, even if they never fotmd gold.
"TIle Lucky Frenclunen of the Yuba," Claudine Chalmers' (1994) article for The
Califom ia fls, gives a detailed accotmt of the lives of three particular Frenclunen who had three
very different experiences in Califomia, providing evidence that the California experience
varied greatly for French immigrants. Chalmers explains that the success of her subjects was
caused in large part by the low number of people working the Yuba area for gold and the
willingness of N ative Americans to assist with the labor. Chalmers also prepared an
introduction to the journals of Alphonse Antoine Delepine, presented in The Califom iaflS as "'A
Soul Lost in the Wilderness' : Tales of a Frencll Argonaut, Part I" (Delepine 1988a) and '" Among
an Eminently Warlike People' : Tales of a French Argonaut, Part II" (Delepine 1988b). Chalmers'
introduction provides a short history of both the French in California and Delepine's
experiences. W.W. Kallenberger's (1954) 'The French in Nevada COtmty's Early History" for
Nevada COWlty Historical Society examines the Gold Rush endeavors of six Frenclunen and one
Belgian. Nevada COtmty had a large population of Frencll. Many were miners who specialized
in hard rock mining. He notes the particular skills in mining and engineering that these men
displayed, and concluded that the reason the French were primarily miners and not farmers
was caused by the organization of societies in France that recruited miners rather than farmers.
Gilbert Chinard (1943), in "When the Frencll Came to California: An hltroductory Essay,"
written for Califomia H is torical Society Quarterly, opines that historians seldom investigated the
reasons why men emigrated to Califomia. He used the example of one society organized for
inllltigration to explain some of their motivations, Chinard pointed out that after the fall of
France's July MonarcllY in 1848, organizations fomled to provide orderly direction of
tmdesirables of every class and profession to French colonies. When the news of the gold
discovery reached France, Califontia became a destination as well. An aspect of California that
was particularly appealing to early inlllligrants was the lack of organized govenunent, a factor
that led the French to hope they could carve out a portion for themselves.
The experience of African Americans during and after the Gold Rush is another major
topic for historical research. One example, Albert S. Broussard' s (1985) "Slavery in California
Revisited: The Fate of a Kentucky Slave in Gold Rush California," in The Pacific Historian, find s
that the historic record did not focus on slavery in California gold mines. Broussard shows that
California was not seen as a land of freedom and opporhntity by slaves brought there by their
masters. He maintains that in the west they fotmd a lack of conllllUltity, as few African
Americans, free or slave, were in the mining camps. The independence that slaves were granted
in California was also not taken as a change in their status. TItis view was noted two decades
earlier, by Rudolph M. Lapp (1966) in the Califomia Historical Society Quarterly article "Negro
Rights Activities in Gold Rush California." Lapp found that there had been only lintited
ltistorical discussion about African American rights activities before the Civil War, and less

about African American civil rights activities in California. Lapp' s article discusses these
activities in Califomia to illustrate that African Americans were, in fact, active in securing their
rights. Additionally, Lapp recotmts the hurdles they sumlOunted to obtain and preserve their
freedoms. He points out that not only were there many free African Americans in California
fighting for legal freedom, there was also cooperation between whites and blacks. The article
covers issues such as the Fugitive Slave Act, the First Colored Convention in 1855, organization
in 1852 of the Franchise League that sought to change laws prohibiting African American
testimony, the 1858 attempt to bar African American immigration, and the African American
exodus to Victoria, Canada, in 1858. Lapp closes with the positive shift in forhme for African
Americans who remained in California. hl "The Negro on the Mining Frontier," written for
JourIlal of Negro History, W. Shennan Savage (1945) notes that much of the scllolarship on the
Gold Rush stated there were few African Americans in the mining camps. Savage shows that
there were, in fact, many African Americans in the California Gold Rush and later. Savage
provides examples of free and slave African American miners in California, and discusses the
prejudice they encotmtered as examples of cooperation between master and slave. Savage notes
that many African Americans did not work in the mines, but remained in camp or in town and
took jobs there.
Historian Otis E. YOtmg (1980) addresses the impacts on the mining experience by u.S.
inunigrants in his Southerll Califorll ia Quarterly article 'The Southern Gold Rush: Contributions
to California and the West," which explores the contribution to Califomia mining made by
miners from the southern states. YOtmg' s article contains a number of very brief accotmts of
discoveries of gold across the COtmtry, and discusses the influence of contributions made by
skilled southern miners, often forgotten in Califomia, by examining the census statistics of
states last resided in and the names of mining camps.
11rree articles address the role of Je\vish merchants and immigrants in the Gold Rush.
While not directly related to mining, both Muriel Weissberg's (1986) "Pioneer Jewish Merchants
of the Gold Rush Period hl and Arotmd Shasta," in Covered W agoll, and Dr. Robert E. Levinson's
(1971) 'The History of the Jews of Grass Valley, Nevada Gty and Vicinity," in Nevada COUllty
Historical Society, discuss the role of Je\vish merchants in mining conununities. hl addition,
Levinson' s article describes Jewish societies and organizations, and the role they played in the
county. Al Weissberg's (1985) Covered Wagoll article "Pioneer Je\vish Families of Shasta
County, " provides an accotmt of the first Jewish settlers to Shasta COtmty.
With a few exceptions, archaeological sites of Euro-American miners do not carry
distinctive arcllaeological markers that allow researchers to distinguish particular etlmic or
national sub-groups. Stone bread-baking ovens, however, have provided a key to identifying
culhtral groups adhering to the Mediterranean tradition of baking bread in domed ovens.
Witllout specific documentary and oral-history associations, however, the attribution of
archaeologically found ovens to specific groups is dependent on detennining whicll group was
most populous in the area at the time the ovens were constructed.
Italian domestic sites were identified in the Motller Lode by Julia Costello (1981, 1998)
using oven remains as clues. Excavations of the habitation sites of the placer miners along
Angels Creek in Calaveras County yielded meager artifact assemblages. However, using some

diagnostic bottle fragments to provide an 1870s time frame and with mining identified as the
occupants' vocation, the 1870 census was analy zed to establish when the census taker was in the
vicinity of the sites, between known ranch households. The Italian association of the sites was
thereby detennined, and the surprising presence of these formidable constntctions on otherwise
rudimentary living sites observed. The clustering of these late-coming Italian miners along a
creek demonstrates the propensity of foreigners to band together, and use simple placering
tedmologies to extract the limited economic resources of this locale.
The association of stone bread ovens 'w ith Italians is not exclusive, however. Of 55
documented stone ovens in Amador, Calaveras, and Tuolullme COllllties, 42 were associated
with Italian immigrants. The remainder represents the French (5), Chilean (4), Mexican (2),
Corsican (1), and German (1) nationalities (Costello 1998:72). This bias toward Italians is due to
the unusual concentration of those immigrants in this region. hl other parts of the State, where
other nationalities with cultural roots to the Mediterranean are more numerous, stone ovens
may indicate the presence of other etlmic groups. Priscilla Wegars (1991) associated ovens
alongside the railways in Idaho with an Italian workforce verified in documentary records.
Ovens associated 'w ith Mexican miners are discussed below.
Newland et al. (2006) used mining and water claims and the population census to attribute
ca. 1860s domestic and placer mining feature systems to Portuguese immigrants. Although not
part of the Gold Rush, these so-called New Illunigrants (like the Chinese discussed above) u sed
similar methods decades later, including sluicing and small-scale hydraulicking, to help secure
a livelihood in the Feather River goldfields. TIle investigation further demonstrated that
contemporary American miners upstream sluiced in a different manner, resulting in a different
tailings configuration.
Patrick Martin (1987) uses years of experience examining heavily capitalized mines in
Michigan's Copper COlllltry to show how archaeology exposes infonnation about ethnicity and
daily life. Evidence in the domestic artifact assemblage demonstrated etlmic segregation of a
Swedish mining community working for the Quincy Mining Company . The types of pipes and
pottery used in Swedetown indicated to Martin tllat etlmic conservatism is often evident in the
area of foodways (Martin 1987:98).
LATIN AMERICAN MINERS

The role of miners from Spain's fomler New World empire has been the subject a wide
variety of articles. For the purposes of tlus discussion, articles regarding tlle role of Califort/ ios in
the Gold Rush are included with otller works related to Sonorans, Mexican s, and Chileans.
Many of tlle articles focused on relations between miners from tllese areas and tllose from the
United States.
Duane Hale (1979), in "Califonua' s First Mining Frontier and Its Influence on the
Settlement of tllat Area," published in Journal of the W es t, addresses the small-scale mining tllat
went on in California prior to the Gold Rush. Hale discusses the mining that went on during
both the Spatush and Mexican periods of California's history, and notes that gold was

discovered in small quantities numerous times from the Bear Flag Revolt to Marshall's
discovery of gold in 1849, but little attention was paid to it.
Carlos U. Lopez's (1988) "The Chilenos in the Califomia Gold Rush," in The Califomialls,
examines the effects of gold fever on Chilenos, many of whom came to California early in the
Gold Rush. Of those Chilenos who came to California, the majority worked as miners, while
some became merchants. Olileno miners, bringing with them a wealth of experience from
home, were known for their role in teaching American miners mining tedmiques. Lopez
claimed that Chilenos were hated by American miners because of their refusal to be
intimidated. This stubbom resolve evoked competing feelings of fear and respect. More than
half of the Chilenos rehtmed home by the 1850s, but a large population remained in Califomia.
The contentious relations between Mexican and American miners was addressed by
Richard Henry Morefield's (1956) Califomia H istorical Society Quarterly article "Mexicans in the
California Mines, 1848-1853.", Finding that much of the scholarship about the conflict between
Mexicans and Americans in the mines centered on the experiences of Mexicans inunediately
before and after the passage of the Foreign Miners' Tax, Morefield examines what led to the
passage of the Tax, in addition to its effects on Mexicans in California. He stresses that the
national concern for establishing the rights of American citizens in Califomia led to passage of
the Foreign Miners' Tax and fostered anti-Mexican attihtdes in the mines. Morefield claims the
primary goal was to ensure that a large portion of Califomia gold remained in the U.s. and the
rush of foreigners to the mines threatened the success of this policy. He provides an interesting
contrast in the view of Americans and foreigners as seen from the perspective of mercllants.
Mercllants preferred foreigners to Americans because foreigners, primarily Mexicans and
Chileans in this account, spent their newfound wealth freely, while American s spent as little as
possible and left the state with it as soon as they could. While couched in the framework of anti-
Mexican sentiment, the article is really about anti-foreign sentiment. A similar article in Joumal
of the W est by William Robert Kermy (1967), "Mexican-American Conflict on the Mining
Frontier, 1848-1852," notes that scholarship regarding conflict in the mines u sually focused on
racial tensions and fails to address the reason why certain etlmic groups preferred one area to
another. Finding a clear difference between what happened in the northem (i.e., north of the
American River) and southern (i.e., the area between the American River and Mariposa) mines.
Kermy states that the northern mines usually had a predominance of Americans with relatively
few foreigners. The southern mines, in contrast, had a greater percentage of foreign miners.
Kermy provides several potential reasons for this, including the region the miner came from
and its relation to the mines, preferences in climate, and the reception by miners already in the
area.
Historian Richard H. Peterson wrote three articles that bore on the often-contentious
relations between Mexican and American miners. His 1976 Pacific Historian article, 'The Foreign
Miners' Tax of 1850 and Mexicans in Califomia: Exploitation or Expulsion?" notes that
discrimination suffered by Mexicans in California during the Gold Rush was well-documented.
He stresses how the Foreign Miner's Tax reinforced this discrimination, and posed two reasons
why it passed: was it to expel, or exploit, Mexican miners. Peterson contrasts the view that the
tax was designed to exploit foreign miners and protect Americans by blocking foreign

capitalists, with the view that the tax was designed to expel foreign miners, namely Mexicans.
He maintains that the latter view had the strongest evidence; Mexicans were skilled miners and
thus were often times more successful than American miners, who feared that gold would run
out, and feared the large population of Mexican miners. In Peterson's view, these factors fueled
anti-Mexican sentiment and strengthened the movement to expel them from the mines. His
1980 article for Southern California Quarterly, "Anti-Mexican Nativism in California, 1848-1853:
A Study of Cultural Conflict," notes that while most scholarship about Mexicans in California
mines focus on local economic conditions and conflict, these issues were a result of pre-existing
anti-Mexican attitudes. Peterson describes the rush of Mexicans to California that began soon
after the discovery of gold. Most were experienced miners who were willing to teach Americans
how to mine. As early as April 1849, however, anti-Mexican sentiment cllased Mexican miners
from their claims. He also addresses imposition of the Foreign Miners' Tax, persecution of
Mexican miners, anti-Mexican hostility seen throughout the state, and how these related to the
American idea of Manifest Destiny. Finally, his 1985 article in The Californians, "The Mexican
Gold Rush: 'lllegal Aliens' of the 1850s" added to our understanding of the relationship
between American miners and Mexican miners by discussing the experience of Mexican miners
after the passage of the Foreign Miners' Tax in 1850. Peterson describes the initial effect the
Foreign Miners' Tax had on Mexican miners, the continued effect it had after its repeal one year
later, and the results of its reinstatement the next year. Additionally, he discusses the effect of
discrimination and concludes that it was caused, in large part, by the su ccess of Mexican
miners. Other factors included the ease 'w ith which the Mexican-American War was won, the
poor treatment of Americans in Mexico, and the belief that white Americans were racially
supenor. Historian Otis E. Young's (1965) 'The Spanish Tradition in Gold and Silver
Mining," in Arizolla, notes that history often remembers the Spanish as conquerors searching for
the gold mined by others. YOtulg points out that the Spanish were skilled miners and later
American millers benefited from these skills. Spanish millers were skilled and hardworking, but
sought gold and silver that was relatively easy to obtain given their limited technological base.
TIley relied heavily on hldian labor and tended to abandon mines when the metal began to nul
out. YOllllg'S article discusses mining techniques, purification teclmiques, and treatment of
Indian laborers.
One of the most extensive studies of Mexican mining sites was the thesis completed by
Trish Fernandez (2001): Mexicall Miners in the California Gold Rush: a Historical alld Archaeological
Study. hl it, she provides an excellent context for this topic and sununarizes archaeological
studies on these and similar mining sites. TIle majority of Mexican millers worked in the
Southern Mines, along the Mokelullme, Stanislaus, Tuolullme, and Merced River watersheds.
Arriving in force from Sonora in 1848, their numbers peaked in 1850 and then declined rapidly
following implementation of the oppressive Foreign Miners' Tax. Her study of locations of
Mexican mining camps of "Lower Calaveritas" in Calaveras County con sisted primarily of
archival research , oral histories, and field survey and recording. Evidence was persuasive that
she had found the locations of the fabled camps but excavations were recommended for final
verification. The two primary settlements included remains of adobe structures, stone building
walls, large stone-fenced enclosures, two stone ovens, and artifacts consistent with Gold Rush
occupations. The larger site was later occupied by Frenclllllen who ran the "fandango" house

that entered local legend. Spanish place names were a more enduring legacy of the Mexican
miners than their short-lived camps.
While yet tmtested, sites of these Sonoran miners should be distinguished by artifacts
representing a settlement of families in contrast to the nearly all-male camps of virtually all
other early miners. Prejudices also segregated Mexicans. As part of the New Melones project
studies, historians W. Turrentine Jackson and Stephen D. Mikesell (1979a, 1979b) identified the
Mexican town of Melones (namesake for subsequent mines and reservoirs). Archaeologists
verified its location along the flanks of gold-rich Carson Hill, recording arrastra stones from
their milling operations (Costello 1983:12-18). Later, evidence of Mexican miners was fotmd
within the residence district of the riverside mining town of Melones (distinct from Mexican
Melones discussed above). TIle residence area for Mexicans in the workforce is suggested by an
artifact collection recovered from a privy and cellar, dated from 1890-1910, and containing two
shards of Mexican TIaquepaque Polychrome, a 1903 Mexican centavo, and a bottle of liniment
"ACEITEjMEXICANO" (Fitting et aL 1979; Greenwood and Shoup 1983:59; Fernandez 2001:47).
At this late time period, the distinctive imprint of a Mexican workforce in the Mother Lode
appears faint.
However, in the farthest corner of southeastern California, in the Cargo Muchacho
Mountains, Mexican family neighborhoods were identified as the adjacent HedgesfTumco and
American Girl mines. Operating from the 1890s through the 1930s, tailings from milling gold
ore filled the valley floor. Extensive study of the HedgesfTumco mining site was carried out by
Michael Burney, Stephen Van Wormer and others (1993). A segregated Mexican neighborhood
called "Adobe Ridge" was identified as being made up of primarily adobe and jacal (posts with
twined branches packed with mud) structures, with some stone buildings. The jacal structures
are distinctly Mexican, additionally having typical packed earth or adobe floors or adobe pavers
and roofs of earth packed over branches. Artifact collections indicated that the occupants
adhered to traditional dietary practices, distinct from their Euroamerican neighbors. TIus
pattern was also seen in an adjacent Mexican mining camp at the American Girl mine,
excavated by Susan Hector, Jim Manley, James Newland, and Stephen Van Wormer (1991). In
general, at the Mexican camps less catmed milk was consumed, countered by lugher use of
pepper sauce and spices. Ceratnics include significatlt quantities of N ative American buffware
and lead-glazed Mexican wares. Beef was the preferred meat-boiled or stewed-and bones
were more apt to be cleaver-cut than hand-sawn (Fernatldez 2001:63--64).
While domed stone ovens may be associated with several Mediterraniatl-based cultures,
the asado may be distinctly related to early miners from Chile and other Spatush speakers. It
consists of a semi-circular stone wall about 10 feet across, 7 to 10 feet high, and nearly 5 feet
deep. Serving as a type of barbecue, sides of meat were leaned against the wall, roasted atld
smoked by a small fire built against its base. One of these has been identified along with a
domed oven atld camp site next to placer-mining remains on the Calaveras River (Marvin 2005).
TIle feature is common today in the rancluands of Argentina, and may be the purpose of the
enormous "fireplace wall" identified at the Basque adobe at Los Vaqueros (Ziesing 1997:101-
103, 2(0).

Arrastras and Chilean Mills were imported by Mexicans and Olileans and adopted by
other miners as low-cost milling tools that could be constructed out of materials at hand. TIleir
prima facie association with Mexican mining CatUlot be made unless other evidence supports
this conclusion, as with the arrastra at Mexicatl Melones mentioned above. Arrastras continued
to be used occasionally into the 20th century, built of modem materials and used as atl
expedient form of ore reduction for enterprises ·w ith minimal financing: they exemplify modem
adaptations of an early teclmology (see discussions above).
Some adits of Mexican miners have been identified with carved niches in their walls for
religious icons. At Carson Creek in Calaveras County two niches (18 x 18 inches x 5 inches
deep) were found 8 and 10 feet from the entratlCe, approximately 3 feet above the grotmd
(Greenwood 1982:61). They correspond to a description by Borthwick of a nearby mine at
Carson Hill: "Numerous small wooden crosses were placed throughout the mine, in niches cut
in the rock for their reception, and each separate part of the mine was named after a saint who
was supposed to take those working on it tmder his immediate protection" (Borthwick 1997:74
in Fernandez 2001:46). Similar niches were found at the New Almaden mine at the location of
Mexicatl workings (Fernatldez 2001:241).
CHINESE MINERS
Among the groups generating the most interest of historians were the Chinese who came
to California during and after the Gold Rush. One of the earlier articles on this subject was
David V. DuFault's (1959) "The Chinese of the Mining Camps of California: 1848-1870," in
Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly . DuFault notes that strong movements to
remove the Chinese from their mining claims begatl in earnest in 1852 and continued through
the end of the 19th century. Miners often feared loss of their employment to Chinese who
would work for less, according to DuFault, as well as fearing atl unknown culture and religion,
and that mass inunigration that would overpower AmeriCatlS in California. He also provides a
brief history of the lives of the Chinese in mining camps; their pencllant for gambling, preferred
foods and entertairunent, religious beliefs, atld conflicts within the group. Liping Zhu's (1999)
article in Montana M agaz ine, "No Need to Rush: The Chinese, Placer Mining, and the Western
Envirorunent," points out that while it is well known that the Chinese were among the many
ethnic groups flocking to the west during the Gold Rush, there is little known about the
contributions made by them at that time, specifically why the Chinese were more su ccessful
than others in placer mining. Zhu examines the Chinese in California as atl example, concluding
that the Chinese were drawn to California not only by gold, but in reaction to the ravages of
thirteen years of civil war in China.
The voyage across the Pacific took only six weeks, and soon there were more than 30,000
Chinese in California. In the ensuing years more followed, and Chinese miners spread
throughout California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Chinese miners came from a long
tradition of working in foreign lands through fraternal-like economic companies (Tongs) atld
were able to use this to their adVatltage when staking and working claims. TIley also commonly
created private gardens that provided ample greens for their own u se, as well as extra for sale.

TIle Chinese had the expertise of their own doctors to maintain their health, and the health of
other local miners. Finally, knowledge of water systems brought 'w ith them from China helped
manage the scarce water supply often found in mining sites and ensure enough was available
for their use. Zhu reports that the advent of hard-rock mining, and the Chinese Exclusion Act,
forced many Chinese out of mining. hl a similar vein, Shih-Shan Henry Tsai (1988) in The
Califom iafls, writes of "TIle Chinese and 'Gold MOlllltain'," an examination of Chinese
inunigrants who came to California as well as those who traveled beyond Califomia to work for
wages. After the Civil War, southem plantation owners recruited Ounese immigrants in the
hope they would replace the newly-freed slave population. Railroad builders lured them as
cheap labor. Of course, California miners used them for their skills and patience in mining.
Chinese immigrants worked willingly, but Tsai shows they were quick. to leave if they feared
they were not being dealt with honestly or they would not be paid. Because most Chinese
inunigrants could not speak English, their employment was arranged through a broker. The
broker was paid directly and he distributed the wages to the workers. Tsai notes the Olinese
persevered through the anti-Chinese laws, such as the Foreign Miner's Tax and the Chinese
Exclusion Laws, and came to be regarded as honest hard workers.
Other articles focus on the experience of the Chinese in specific locations. For example,
William A. Jones (1986) describes "Yreka's Chinese and the Great Flood of '90" in The
Califom iafls, providing and interpreting photographs of the Chinese. Jones gathered and shtdied
the collection of photographs from Dr. Charles R. Larison, who recorded the flooding of Yreka
Creek and the resulting destruction of Yreka' s Chinatown. He provided a brief history of the
Chinese in Yreka and the flood in February 1890 that led to the departure of the majority of the
Chinese living in the town, as well as seven photographs of the period inunediately before and
after the flood. Likewise, Dolores Yescas Nicoline, Richard Yescas and Roberta M. McDow's
(1972) "Chinese Camp," in Pacific Historian, sought to document the little town of Ounese
Camp. The authors discuss the elements of the town that could still be viewed in 1972, and
recount settlement of the town by Chinese miners, mining in the area, the so-called Tong War,
and the development of a permanent settlement. A closer view of the Chinese experience in
Shasta County was provided in "Chinese Chronicles of Shasta COllllty" by the Shasta COllllty
Historical Society (1985) in their journal, Covered Wagon. Noting the substantial documentation
of the Chinese in Shasta COllllty, the Society presents a short history of tlus group and their
customs, and includes a time line composed of newspaper articles reporting on tlle arrival of the
Chinese to tlle county, and subsequent happenings there, including their work on the railroad.
Beverly Barron's (1974) ''TIle Celestial Empire," in Chispa, provided a collection of anecdotes
about the Chinese in California and in Tuolunme County. Included are accollllts of mining,
cooking, living conditions, entertairunent and persecution, and tlle remituscences of two long-
time residents who remembered the Ounese in tlle county. Ronald H. Limbaugh's (1993) article,
"The Chinese of Knight's Ferry, 1850-1920: A Preliminary Study," in Califomia History,
describes the Chinese who lived in and arolllld Knight's Ferry in Stanislaus County, and the
effects of anti-Chinese sentiment. Limbaugh also covers Chinese-owned and -operated
businesses in Knight's Ferry as well as professions (doctor, lawyer, etc.) held by the Chinese.
His analysis ends 'w ith an examination of gender, age and taxpayer rolls in Stanislaus COllllty.
In a brief Nevada County Historical Society article, "Nevada County' s Chinese in Two Parts: Part

I-Prior to 1900," Patrick Tinloy (1971) described the arrival and early history of the Chinese in
Grass Valley and the attihtdes toward them.
Andrew Jolmston (2004), in "Quicksilver Landscapes: TIle Mercury Mining Boom, Ounese
Labor, and the California Constihttion of 1879" (Journal of the W est), describes the legal
difficulties faced by some employers by the violation of an article in the California constihttion
of 1879 that provided no corporation could hire Chinese or "Mongolian" workers. Tiburcio
Parrott, president of the Sulpher Bank Quicksilver Mining Company, was arrested for
employing one Chinese worker, an act done to challenge the provision in the new state
constihttion. Jolmston uses this example to discuss the battle over clleap Chinese labor, which
evenhtally became a national issue and culminated in new, restrictive Chinese inunigration
laws.
Finally, a summary of the Chinese mining experience is fotmd in Randall E. Rohe's (1982)
M ontalla article, "After the Gold Rush: Chinese Mining in tlle Far West, 1850-1890." Rohe
suggests that the historic record addressed the predominance of white Americans in mining
camps but paid little attention to tlle Chinese in tllese camps. Rohe discusses the role of Chinese
miners in the mining regions of the West, focusing his article on the role of foreign miners in the
California Gold Rush. He averred that foreign men replaced American miners after the initial
rush, and in placer mining areas, replacement miners were usually Chinese. Rohe claimed that
historians' common emphasis on discrimination in the mines obscured the importance of
Chinese miners on the frontier. He believed tllat the Chinese complemented white miners and
slowed population decline in mining areas abandoned by others, spent a large portion of the
gold they fotmd in their local economies, and paid their share of taxes. A later Rohe article
contests the conception tllat Ounese miners "consisted entirely of small-scale, primitive mining
tedmiques," and suggested that archaeology is in a position to help investigate the extent of
mining habits by v arious groups (Rohe 1994:73).
Roberta Greenwood (1993) swnmarized the status of archaeological shtdies of Overseas
Chinese at the time, in a chapter of Priscilla Wegars' (1993) edited book Hidden Heritage,
Historical Archaeology of the Overseas Chinese. In it, Greenwood describes how previous shtdies
had primarily focused on identification of Olinese material culture and reconstruction of
Chinese lifeways in the land known as Gum San (Golden Motmtain, or Califomia). She calls into
question tlle assumption of a linear process of "acculturation", as well as the cllaracterization of
Chinese in California as "sojoumers" -temporary workers who plaruled to rehtm to
homelands. TIus oversimplified a complicated history where many Chinese rehtmed home
because of being driven out by discrimination, or remained to begin new lives. The history of
the Chinese in the mines was seen as similarly complex, but tlle first order of business was to
simply identify the locations and nature of tlleir largely tmrecorded camps.
Stmdahl and Ritter (1997) investigated two miners' habitation sites sihtated in heavily
mined areas near Redding. One site contained the remains of a cabin with a collapsed cllinmey
and stone footings; the otller site contained a substantial hearth-like feahtre. TIle assemblages
indicated 1865-1870 and 1870-1880 occupations by Chinese placer miners "cleaning up the
auriferous remains from high-grading Euro-American miners who were also in tllese
drainages" (Stmdahl and Ritter 1997:67). The authors discuss the the possibility that the earlier

site represents Chinese placer miners reusing an existing Euroamerican cabin, while the post-
1870 site represents more traditional Chinese settlement. Peter Bell (1998:33) found hearth-like
features like the one from the Stmdahl and Ritter traditionally Chinese site, describing them as
"knee-high structures of earth and stone, one to each hut," only on post-1870 Chinese mining
settlements in Australia. He links the feature types to a substantial increase in Chinese
inunigration. Before 1870 the Chinese in Australia made up between 15 and 25 percent of the
mining population, while after 1870 it was over 50 percent, and at times over 70 percent. He
notes that earlier Olinese miners "lived exactly as European nliners did: at first in tents, then
mostly in sawn timber huts with iron roofs" (Bell 1998:33), attributing the absence of the hearth
features typical of later decades to earlier abandornnent of traditional practices. The pattern
suggests to Bell that "there is a threshold proportion of population below which a particular
ethnic group is lost in the backgrotmd, but above which the group can successfully preserve its
material culture" (Bell 1998:33).
Tordoff and SeIdner (1987) investigated 13 sites in Shasta and Tehama COtmties that, like
those of Sundahl and Ritter (1997), demonstrated perhaps the major problem in distinguishing
artifact assemblages of Chinese miners: that the Chinese tended to re-occupy not only the
diggings but the habitation sites of the Euroamerican nliners. Due to the short time periods of
occupation, the artifacts from both groups are generally merged into one strata of sheet refuse
arotmd the dwelling. impossible to separate. TIle artifact collections from the 13 sites at
Cottonwood Creek revealed a typical repertoire of Chinese items, particularly ceramic
tablewares and food jars indicating use of traditional foods. Opium-related items, gaming
pieces, and medicines were also imported from China. Also present were American ceramics,
can fragments, nails, horse tack, liquor bottles, and mining tools. While the Chinese are clearly
identified by their artifacts, the non-Chinese artifacts could have been used either by them or by
earlier Euroamerican s. The same problem of overlapping occupations was noted by Tordoff and
Maniery (1986) on other mining sites in California. Sisson's (1993) work with Chinese mining
sites along the lower Salmon River in Idaho ran into similar problems identifying habitation
sites with exclusively Chinese occupants. His study of vernacular Chinese architecture indicates
that nliners' dwellings might be distinguished by rammed-earth construction, cllinmeys near
doonvays, or rock-wall enclosed rock shelters (Fernandez 2001:36).
A distinctive "hairpin" shaped stone stove appears to be exclusively related to Olinese
sites and has been identified in both the Mother Lode (Costello et al. 1998) and on abalone
fishing sites on San Oemente (Berryman 1995). Consisting of two long. parallel anns between
3-11 feet in length spaced about 2 feet apart, the fire is in the enclosed trough and the cooking
vessels span the arms; a chinmey may be located at one end. A Gold Rush sketcll shows one
depicted in a mining camp (De Long 1929:349). More precision in describing stone features on
sites may help identify additional examples of these utlique Chinese cooking stoves. Other
distinctive Chinese cooking features-wok ovens and cylindrical roasting ovens -are indicative
of established Chinatowns in urban areas (Costello 1999; Medin 2002; Costello et al. 2004).
Jeffrey LaLande (1983) addressed a popular notion reiterated by Rohe (1986:150) that
Chinese placer miners followed after expedient Euroamericans and meticulously reworked
abandoned claims. Although in general tllis llistoric pattern is true, a conunon nlisconception is

that therefore all neat and tidy, stacked-rock. p lacer remains were created by Olinese miners
(e.g., McGie 1956:78). TIlese are commonly called "Chinese walls" across the West. A number of
archaeological investigations have struck down tllis persistent notion, and recently tllese
contributions made by historical archaeologists are finding tlleir way into the llistorical
literahtre (Limbaugh 1999:30). LaLande (1983), for example, shtdied tllirteen large documented
h ydraulic placer mining sites in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon and confinned
Euroamerican and Chinese associations for three and six of them, respectively, based on
archival documents and artifact classes. Finding tllat bOtll Chinese and Euroamercian miners
produced neatly stacked rock walls and amorphous piles, he argues that they "should not be
taken as prima facie culhtral evidence" (Lalande 1983:6).
Archaeological excavations at a 13-acre placer mining complex in Sacramento COtmty
provided data on the site's placer miners (Maniery and Brown 1994). Surface feahtres included
placer tailings, ditch segments, rock aligrunents, six: circular stone hearths, and artifact deposits.
11uee spatially discrete, historic-era occupations were defined, including an 1850s Gold Rush-
era component, a Chinese occupation begitming in the late 1860s, and a Euroamerican presence
startitlg a decade or so later. Altllough archival documents show large numbers of Chinese
mitlers itl the region tluough the 1880s, the material culhtre at this site shows tllat here
Euroamerican placer miners edged their Asian competitors off potentially rich deposits in the
mid-1870s, in conjunction with the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments. Field data also showed the
enduring u se of sluice technologies long after the Gold Rush.
Questions
• Are tllere arcllaeological markers of an etlulic/culhtral group OCCUpyitlg tlle site
(distinctive feahtres or artifact types)?
• Is there docwnentary evidence of ethnic/culhtral occupation of tlle site or the vicinity?
Is there a historic context for the presence of this group and identification of their
inunigration and work history? What litlks were itl place with the homeland (for
example: Chinese Tongs, chaitl migration)?
• Is there other evidence of tllis etlmic group in the vicinity or region? Was the site
isolated or part of a conunwlity?
• What is the time period of occupation? How many people occupied the site (reflected
in domestic feahtres)? What were tlleir demographics?
• Were tllere multiple occupations of the site? Periods of abandorunent in between? Did
specific groups mine the site sequentially (e.g., Chinese re-working previously-mined
deposits)?
• Were the site occupants independent workers or employed by a mining
company/enterprise?
• How did the miners organize themselves? How did organization change through time
for various groups of mitlers?
• How was space organized: sleeping areas, cooking areas, work areas, refuse disposal?

• Is there evidence for the type of structures that may have been present?
• How does the evidence for etlmic groups on this site compare to similar sites? How
does it compare to Euroamerican sites of the same time period?
• What continuities of traditional culhtre are evident? What has been adapted from the
dominant Euroamerican or other cultures? What irmovations are present?
• What types of mining methods were employed by distinct groups through time, by
region, and for different mineral types?
THEME 4: WOMEN AND FAMILY
The history of women as pioneers, mothers, wives, and miners, during the Gold Rush and
after, and their roles as developers of the general economy of California and the West, has been
the subject of a variety of scholarly studies during the past years. Noted Gold Rush historian 1.5.
Holliday's (1957) paper "The Influence of the Family on the Califomia Gold Rush" points out
that scholarship of the Gold Rush usually focused on the individual, as most men came to
California without their families, and either sent for tllem or retumed to them later. Holliday
urges us not to forget the role of those families that the men left behind. A great many men left
their families not out of greed or a selfish desire to begin again, but out of a duty to provide for
them. TIle Gold Rush, to tllese men, was not a gamble; it was an opportunity not to be missed.
Women and children remained home primarily because the men were plarming to retum
quickly. Those that decided to remain in the West often sent for tlleir families as soon as they
had established a somewhat pennanent home.
It has often been thought that women were virtually non-existent in tlle gold fields during
the Gold Rush. JoAIm Levy's scholarship, in articles and books, describes the roles and
contributions of women. Her 1988 O verland foun/ al article, "We Were Forty-N iners Too! Women
in the Califomia Gold Rush" notes that there were, in fact, many women bitten by the gold bug
and they traveled in great numbers (though fewer than men) to Califomia in searcll of tlleir
fortunes. Levy show s that women did a little of everything, from cooking, latmdry, to rurming
boardinghouses, mining, prostihttion, and and a range of otller occupations. She discusses the
experience of women both in traveling to Califomia in wagon trains, and their life in the gold
camps. Women sought first to care for tlleir families on the joumey, then to build a home, and
finally to make money. They had opportunities to make money during the Gold Rush, and
found they were justly compensated for their efforts. Cooking, washing and mending, or
rum1.i.ng a boarding house or restaurant were tlle primary pursuits, but owning businesses such
as a theatre, barber shop, photography shtdio or mercantile were also conunon. Only about one
in five women were prostitutes, and often these were drawn to it for economic necessity, rather
than the common misconception they were forced or tricked into it. Levy's (1992) book They Saw
The Elephant: W01nW ill the Californ ia Gold Rush provides additional infonnation on tlle many
female Argonauts rushing to find gold side by side with men. She shows that women were not
just prostihttes and boardinghouse keepers, and that tlley often took jobs fonnerly reserved for

men. Additionally, women were Qften quite 'w illing to travel to CalifQrnia and many were eager
nuners.
In his Pacific Historian article "Proper Women at the Mines - Life at Nevada City in the
1850s," David A. Comstock. (1984) shows that while women in mining towns were often
stereotyped as prostihttes and other "hard luck" women, there were plenty Qf "prQper" WQmen
in mining tQwns. Comstock. notes that women were able to maintain their mQral standards even
when faced with the crudeness of a mining tQwn. Using the letters and joumals of a WQman in
Nevada City as an illustration of these larger issues, he provides examples ranging from the lax
attihtde toward religion to the Qffensiveness Qf the tO'wn shopping district 'w ith its mix of
mercantile, salQon, shop, and prostihttes. ComstQck also addresses the rough quality Qf bQth
men and women in mining towns and the stntggle of women to maintain their standards.
Annegret Ogden (1986) also addresses these issues in 'The Frontier HQuse"vife-
StereQtype vs. Reality" (in The CalifomiaflS) . She notes that when one thinks of the image of a
frontier housewife, it is usually Qne Qf a hardworking, deferential, yet strong woman who Qffers
her tmcQnditional SUPPQrt in whatever her husband seeks to accQmplish. Ogden shattered that
image. She shQWS that women played a PQwerful role in maintaining the family, and contrasts
the CQmmQn concem s Qf women to those of their husbands. Men, in Ogden's view, were
con cemed most with gQld and how quickly they would get it, while women fQcused on the
dangerous jQumey, the tQll it WQuld take on their health, and the difficult living conditions to be
faced. The perceived role Qf women was not to open the West but to' follow after to settle and
pQpulate it, and as such, WQmen had to' be prepared nQt Qnly to handle the affairs of the
househQld but to bring in extra incQme to' help supPQrt the family. They did this by selling milk,
butter, eggs, and poultry. If a husband proved unable to support his family, a wife often htmed
to divQrce to better her chances Qf survival. TIlese matters were also explQred in Robert C.
Griswold's (1980) "Apart But Not Adrift: Wives, DivQrce, and hldependence in California,
1850-1890" in Pacific Historical Review. He reports that when a shtdy was dQne of a Gold Rush
town and its inhabitants, the rate Qf divorce was often overlooked. Griswold shQWS there were
real legal optiQns open to' women wishing to' end their marriages, and uses divorce recQrds in
San Mateo and Santa Clara Cotmties to illustrate his view that the majQrity of women did not fit
the Victorian stereQtype. These recQrds demonstrate both the options for women to end a bad
marriage, and that courts were often sympathetic to' them. Divorced women could take cQmfort
in knQwing they could put their domestic skills to use to support themselves.
In the Joumal of the West article "Women and Mining in the Old West," Margaret S. WQyski
(1981) takes on the stereQtypes Qf miners as men, and of women in mining camps as cooks or
prostihttes. Woyski looks at the contributions of women to' mining, from staking a claim or
financing one, to providing the dQmestic labor to keep the mining camp numing. The arrival of
wives lent respectability to a mining camp and schQols and churches were built SOQn after. She
pays particular attention to the additiQnal, and often CQmmon, occupatiQns Qf wives and
prostihttes. Both "vives and prostihttes ran boardinghQuses, cooked and did the latmdry of
single miners. The task of nursing the sick and injured alsO' fell to them. Women also ran
businesses and wQrked in professions nQt u sually open to' them, including numing dry goods
and grocery stores, post offices and liveries. TIley also were miners, detectives, and dQctors.

Single women tended to quickly marry, and even "fallen women" (prostihttes or women who
had otherwise been shamed) were able to do so or otherwise better their lives. Woy ski also
conunents on the leavening role women played in establishing law in mining camps and towns.
TIus participation led to mO're equality for wO'men and, she believed, laid the grotmdwork for
women's suffrage. Christine Fischer (1978), in the Southem Califomia Quarterly article "WO'men
in CalifO'rnia in the Early 1850s" describes the circumstances that drew women to Califonua, the
conditions in which they fO'und themselves upon arrival, and their adaptation to' these
conditions. She notes that early arrivers were treated with respect, primarily because of their
scarcity and without regard for their employment. As more women joined the men in the West,
the social envirorunent came to resemble what they had left in the east. In her boO'k Women's
Voices From The Mother Lode, Susan G. Butruille (1998) discusses many of the same topics as
Woyski. Buttruille focuses on the periO'd leading to' the discovery O'f gO'ld in California and
through the 1850s. She deals mainly 'w ith the inhabitants of what she called "gO'ld districts." She
emphasizes the dual roles women had to' play, the first as cO'mpaniO'n to her husband, and
second as a strong-nunded able partner in her husband' s endeavors. Buttntille notes that some
behavior fO'und tmacceptable in "civilized society" was acceptable in mining towns and this
affO'rded women a degree O'f freedom they must have enjoyed.
ArchaeO'IO'gists also began writing about gender issues in the 1980s, and Alexy Sinunons'
(1989 ) Red Ligh t Ladies: Settlement Pattem s and Material Cultu re on the Mi lling Frontier was the first
comprehensive shtdy of women in the West. SimmO'ns shtdied the growth and changes in the
industry using examples from JacksO'nville, Oregon; Silver City, IdallO; Virguua City, Nevada;
Helena, Montana; and Cripple Creek, CO'lorado. Particularly, using dO'cumentary records, she
mapped the IO'cation of these busulesses as they related to' O'verall town development. This
shtdy importantly lulked changing attihtdes toward prostihttes to the mahtring of the frontier
and evolving social and mO'ral attihtdes of the COtmtry.
In Ius sununary O'f the mining archaeO'IO'gy of gender, and its nexus with class and
ethnicity, Donald Hardesty (1994:129) argues, "Gender is one O'f the principles that stntchtre the
sO'cial and cultural organization of human groups and that must be cO'nsidered in ulterpretulg
the dO'cumentary and archaeological records of the past." He stntctures his O'wn analysis of
multiple mining conunU1uty sites throughO'ut the West at the househO'ld, cO'mnnmity, and
regional scales. Assemblages O'f family households are consistently dominated by alcohol-
related artifacts, while the all-male boardulg houses contained few, demonstrating the social
habits of the twO' groups, or at least where they did their drinking (Hardesty 1994:138). At the
conunU1uty level, Hardesty explO'res the neighborhood divisions with regard to brothels and
family househO'lds that are visible Ul depO'sits. TwO' notable pattems were observed at the
regional level, reflecting entire mining districts: first, wO'men lived "in town, with families at
outlying ranches, or at toll stations managed by families," while the male-dominated workulg
class O'ccupied satellite cO'mmunities; second, Ul regiO'ns dominated by company-controlled
mUles, working class women also made up a sizeable part of satellite towns serviculg the
muung wO'rk force.
Deborall Tibbetts (1997:64) provides a discussion on female markers, nO'ting that men
would have used mucll O'f the material culture often associated with wO'men in their absence,

and concluding that the best indicators are clothing, adornments, and cosmetics. Pemu
Cannosino (1998) fonnulates hypotheses regarding men, women, and children to examine the
relationslup of family and household strucmre to Victorian ideology . Both of their case smdies
demonstrate the presence of women in separate mining COnmltlluty households in the Sierra
Nevada, one the placer mining camp of Harrison Diggings and the other the lode mining town
of Forbestown. Cannosino specifically draws from archival documents and artifact deposits to
demonstrate the presence of women and children within a 1890s household, and to examine
what impact that had on the material expression of the family; a nuddle-class American family
influenced by Victorian ideology of the period.
The most comprehensive smdy of women in mining camps-particularly in saloons and
brothels - was conducted by Catherine Holder Spude in her article Brothels and Saloons: An
Archaeology of Gender in the American West (2005). Seven of her eight artifact collections were
from mining towns and camps, and she demonstrates the ability of the archaeological record to
distinguish these two enterprises. Like Tibbetts, she argues for classifications of artifacts
generally lumped into "personal" categories into female- and male-specific items. Female items
include fancy buttons, hairpins, earrings, pendants, makeup and cosmetic containers, corset
stays, thimbles, douching paraphernalia, and curling irons. Male-specific items include pocket
knives, suspender buttons, watch fobs and cllains, collar stays, cuff links, shaving mugs,
straight razors, and large belt buckles. Spude's statistical comparison of artifact categories
related to gender, alcohol consumption, medicines, tobacco, household items, armaments and
other topics by site type includes control assemblages from all-male camps and both temperate
and drinking domestic households. Her interpretations provide important discussions on
women's lives and, perhaps more significantly, a method for distinguishing saloons and
brothels in the archaeological record. Structures with large number of bottles in poorly
documented mining camps are conmlOnly labeled as saloons where this occurrence is also
typical of brothels. Until an effort is made to " pry gender from the discards of the past," this
important story of women's western lustory will remain tmtold.
Susan Lawrence (1998) takes a feminist approacll in her comnnmity smdies of gender at
Dolly's Creek, a placer gold-mining community in the Australian gold fields occupied during
the third quarter of the 19th cenmry. Lawrence fotmd households that included women
contained decorative items suitable for a parlor, further substantiating the notion of
"maintaining a proper household envirornnent as women's work" (Lawrence 1998:50). TIle
households without evidence of women in the assemblage lacked diversity, and represented
"basic goods necessary for subsistence in a short-teml diggings camp" (Lawrence 1998:53).
Children are rarely targeted as a topic for mining sites by either historians or
archaeologists. While certainly not numerically significant during the Gold Rush, their munbers
grew with those of women. During the 1870s at the nUning town of Melones, between the rush
of the 1850s and the hard rock boom to come,
... the town asstuned as decidedly domestic narnre ... The seven women listed in the
1870 census contributed twenty-eight children to the conummity, and the ntunbers of
children appear to have exceeded those of the adult male population until the arrival

of the mining companies in the late 1890s. Appropriately, a public school appears in
the historic documen ts after 1883 [Costello 1986:26}.
The ch aracter of a town is affected not only by women but also by the presen ce of you th s
and eviden ce for them sh ould be sou ght both in d ocuments and in the grotmd.
Questions
• Is the presence of women or children visib le in the arch aeological record?
• Were th ey part of a family hou seh old or some other context?
• H ow d id mining h ou seh old s or conummities conta:in:ing women and/or children differ
from those with out?
• Did women or children mine? Were women or children em p loyed at a mine? In w h at
capacity?
• H ow are sites w h ere women or children are evident d ifferent from those without?
• Wh at activities were women involved in? Did women or children support mining by
p roviding other services?
• Did women or children arrive to a mining site during a later period, and how d oes this
fit into the context of the region ?
THEME 5: ECONOMY
TIlls them e explores the econ omics of mining at various scales, from the h ou sehold to the
world system. N ation al Register Bulletin 42 reflects this em p hasis by recognizing issu es of
"p rodu ction and consumption of commodities in the mining frontier marketp lace" as important
topics (Noble an d Spude 1997:17). TIlls research theme provides a m easure of the rate at w hich
broad cultural trends and teclm ological umovations reached the mines. Historian s and
historical archaeologists often explore th ese themes in b road, generalizulg terms, comparulg
archival or archaeological data and observing contradictory or complimentary pattem s.
Theod ore S. Solom on s (1938), in his Califonlia History N ugget article "'Making Money' in
Early Califomia," notes that before the goverrunent establish ed a mint in California, p rivate
mUlts m ade gold coins ·with their value stam ped on their face. These COU1S were u sed in p lace of
the gold dust w hich had becom e an increasulgly impractical m ethod of exchan ge. The need for
a regularized system of curren cy led to the establislunent of th e federal mint Ul San Francisco. In
his Califonlia Historical Society Quarterly article 'The Fotmding of th e San Fran cisco Muling
Exchange," Charles A. Fracchia (1 969) notes that there are only a few accounts about foundulg
the San Fran cisco Muling Exch ange in spite of th e fact that it played a crucial role Ul the
development of Comstock m ines and in the growth of San Francisco. Robert A. Weinstein's
(1970) article, "Gold Was for the YOtmg," (Califonlia Historical Society Quarterly) d escribes the
requirem ents for safe storage and sllipment of gold an d preciou s metals, and noted that banks
were fonned to provid e tIlis. One bank that su rvived to today is Wells Fargo & Co.; Weinstein

uses illustrations and photographs to tell the history of the bank and depict the physical
structures it used.
The injection of foreign investment capital in Califomia mining was the subject of Clark C.
Spence's (1961) article for New M exico Historical Review, "British Inveshnent and the American
Mining Frontier, 1861-1914." Noting that the amount of British inveshnent in California during
the Gold Rush had been described as " ... a lake of money, bank full and nnming over" he
nonetheless urges a skeptical view of this statement. Although there was a great deal of British
investing in California during the Gold Rush, Spence shows that these investments were often
not as extensive as they may have seemed. Many investors were non-British (often Americans),
and many of the shares remained unsold when investors lost interest. He also demonstrates
how British inveshnent in America was part of a larger inveshnent in mining allover the world,
and their levels of investment in Califomia were in direct competition with possibilities
elsewhere.
Insight into amine's financing can be gleaned from the physical evidence of specific
tedmologies: well-funded mining sites tend to be on the cutting edge of tedmologies, while
poorly capitalized enterprises often rely on simple inexpensive techniques that have been in use
for considerable time. The first 60 stamps of the Royal Mill at Hodson, an operation well-
financed with money from abroad, were constructed in 1898 of the newly popular Portland
cement (Fuller and Costello 1990b); and the first electric power plants in Calaveras COtmty
opened in 1895 near Murphy s to serve the Utica Mine in Angels Camp, expanding by 1903 to
reach the mines of Sheep Ranch , Hodson, and Carson Hill (Limbaugh and Fuller 2004:149).
Elliot (1995) demonstrated how archaeologists link objects to their sources to study how
local mining economies changed as the West developed. Hardesty also examined this issue,
specifically showing how artifact source data can contrast sharply with docwnentary evidence;
although he stresses both are important elements of understanding the prevailing interaction
spheres (Hardesty 1988:3). The archival documents shed light on Nevada' s reliance on a
Westem-dominated distribution network, particularly for its heavy machinery, while the
archaeological imprint demonstrated the mining state's dependence on Eastern manufactures,
especially for its bottles and cans.
Historian Robert A. Burchell' s (1989) "The Faded Dream: Inequality in Northem California
in the 1860s and 1870s," in the U.K.-based Journal of A merican Studies notes that while there was
a substantial body of scholarship on the instant wealth of the Gold Rush, there was little on the
fluid nature of class. Burchell' s article illustrates that inequality was as much the nonn in
California as it was elsewhere in the United States. Using data for distribution of property,
wealth and income, he shows there was substantial inequality in Califomia.
Spatial organization of households may also convey status. At large nurung sites, the
owners and management were located higher on the hillsides, and farther from the mills, than
the workers. Richard Francaviglia (1991:99-105) discusses the social geography of mining
settlements where residence locations depend on etlmic as well as economic status. Hardesty
describes the stratification of homes in Virginia City:

On the upper streets of the town were the large and luxurious houses of mine and
mill owners and wealthy merchants. TIle commercial and govenunental districts were
on B and C streets just below, along with "working class" residences. Below C Street
in descending social and geographical order were the "red light" district and
Otinatown. And at the very bottom scattered around the mill tailings were the Native
American residences [1988:14].
TIlls predictable distribution of residences occurs in mining communities of all sizes. It
was noted at the townsite of Melones (Costello 1986:47-48) and at the small settlement arolllld
the Edel Consolidated Quartz Mining Claim (Walker et al. 2006). At this latter site, plat maps
depicted a supervisor's residence across the street and higher on the hill than a workers'
boardinghouse. Fieldwork at these locations discovered additional dwellings at these locations
that followed the same pattern. Francaviglia (1991:107-108) also notes that mining camp
residents lowest on the social ladder often were not employed in mining but in support
industries. Archaeologists can take advantage of this stratified residential pattern to look for
both recorded and unrecorded minority settlements in marginal areas of mining sites. They can
then compare the household assemblages from these segregated households to reveal
additional aspects of class and/or etlmicity.
Business and mining is relatively little discussed by historians; most of the emphasis has
been on finance or the role of market trading with miners. Randall E. Rohe, a historical
geographer, has written extensively on the mining industry of the West. His article, "Feeding
the Mines" TIle Development of Supply Centers for the Goldfields" (Rohe 1985), in Annals of
Wyoming, shows that miners devoted as little time as possible to gathering and preparing the
food necessary to sustain them. Local traders who met their needs were, in tum, restocked
through quickly established supply routes.
Archaeologists use a variety of material indicators to infer class. Sclunitt and Zeirer (1993)
contrast two classes of artifacts-ceramics and faunal material-to examine the socioeconomic
starns of households in the historic mining town of Grantsville, Nevada. TIle community grew
from a small mining camp in 1877 into an averaged-sized town, but when ore output declined
by the 1890s, so did the town. The value of ceramic assemblages and simple quantity and
variety of fallllal bone were fOlllld to accurately convey the diversity of household means. Meat
quality-typically relied on to identify class-reflected more about market access in mining
contexts. "Fresh meat purchases were dictated by what the butcher had on hand," the principal
customers being large volume consumers like boarding houses or restaurants. TIle "inhabitants
of small, isolated communities such as Grantsville were restricted to products offered by local
suppliers, and households could not as readily or consistently express their starns through high-
quality cuts."
The period after the Gold Rush has been discussed in a variety of works. Particularly
helpful is an article by Lary M. Dilsaver (1985) entitled "After the Gold Rush" in Geographical
Revie""dJ. Dilsaver reports that most scllolarship on the Gold Rush focused on the transitory
nature of settlement, implying movement to other sites left behind abandoned camps, mines,
and ghost towns. He demonstrates that primary economic activity began to shift from mining to
agriculrnre and otller functions during the Gold Rush and continued through the 60 years that

followed. TIlls shift was marked by changes in patterns of settlement, the replacement of mining
camps with settlements devoted to other industry, and the concentration of settlement in fewer
areas. Dilsaver shows that while mining towns in placer areas declined, new towns less directly
related to mining emerged near railroad lines. Most of tlus shift occurred between 1855 and
1914. Dilsaver's article was based on his 1982 Louisiana State University dissertation, From Boom
to Bust: Post Gold Rush Patterns of A djustment in a California Mi llillg Regioll (Vol umes I and lI). The
dissertation examines tlle change tllat Califonua underwent from a nearly exclusively gold-
mining economy to a more diverse structure, especially with the decline in mining. Miners that
left California were replaced by other settlers, and the economy, sparked by the railroad, shifted
to lumber, agriculture and tourism.
Mining has filled a variety of economic niches as a primary means across income levels:
self-employed members of a joint company, wage-workers at a mine, the mine superintendent,
local and distant investors. It also supplied supplemental income in various survival strategies.
Tordoff's (2005:83) Logtown report documented residents who "combined mining ·w ith
agriculmre or ranching ... these are tlle people who resided the longest."
Patricia Nelson Limerick's (1998) Californ ia History article 'The Gold Rush and the Shaping
of tlle American West" focuses on how tlle Gold Rush shaped the American West. She states
miners' interaction with, and removal of, Native Americans was an important factor in shaping
the West. Limerick also found that the truly American trait of claiming ownership of the land
with complete disregard for those who had already settled tlle area (Mexicans) or otller groups
(Chinese) who arrived at the same time as white Americans was another important factor.
Others included areas that were heavily populated (the precursors for urban centers), poor
sanitation, the heavy reliance on food from outside sources (such as farmers), and the paradox
of needing farmers yet destroying the fanners' farms, and squabbles over water rights, a battle
that continues today. Also noted were tlle nostalgia of women in mining towns and the
experiences of miners, felt at different times, but with the same intensity. She ends the article
with a comment on the continuity of mining today and asks if this stems from a kinship ·w ith
California' s mining past or if it constitutes an association fonned by choice.
Hardesty (1986, 1990) argues that the physical record of mining must be viewed in tlle
context of world system phenomena. The study of globalization can focus on linkages or
networks between various components, mining systems being one (Wolf 1982). Self-sufficiency,
a central component of the Frontier Model (Greenwood 1982:11), is relevant to the analysis of
gold mining comnnmities. Early placer miners, for example, have been characterized as young
single men imbued with strong laissez faire individualism (Hardesty 1988:103), who were
generally egalitarian and anti-corporate (Cornford 1999:87; Jung 1999:53; Zerbe and Anderson
2001:122). TIle level of self-sufficiency in a mining conunututy is a common theme; Jenson (1980)
and Tordoff (2005) synthesize archaeological data with tlle Self-sufficiency model.
Greenwood (1982:246) argues that the gold-nuning frontier is not explained well u sing the
Self-sufficiency model; instead she fOlllld mining sites "not econonucally independent or self-
sufficient; they were closely connected with the outside world, and tlley focused on rapid
exploitation of the environment rather than on permanent development." hl contrast to self-
sufficiency is the measure of dependency of a frontier on tlle homeland . Shoup (1983a:7)

highlights key aspects of the Dependency model, including reliance for material culture,
reproduction of labor force, social values, resource ownership, decisions, and capitaL Tordoff
(2005:37) has recently supported this characterization for mining sites, noting that "the focus is
on dominating the environment in order to extract whatever wealth is available; often most of
that wealth is exported to absentee owners."
Winthrop et al. (1987) explore Self-sufficient, Dependency, and Metropolitan models
developed by Shoup (1983b) and Robbins' (1986) "plundered province" thesis in their study of
Depression-era mining sites in Northern California. They recognize a pattern to the region's
industrial history associated with a shift in inveshnent from urban entrepreneurs to the federal
govenunent prior to World War II (Winthrop et aL 1987:50); a pattern that can be examined
throughout the West. TIley tenn one aspect of the pattern "self-sufficient poverty;" typically
characterized by small, self-sufficient farmsteads, but during the Depression also including
large numbers of single men who relied on gold mining to get by. Hardesty (1998) incorporates
this concept in his exploration of power in mining comnnmities of the West. In this context
mining is portrayed as supplemental income balanced with other seasonal occupations such as
wage labor or ranching; consumption was dominated by hunting, gardening, and barter, with
gold providing a small cash income for manufactured goods. Miners were seen as resilient
during the Depression since they depended little on the national economy.
Questions
• Who invested in the mine (the miners, joint-stock company, outside capital)?
• Was the mining venture heavily capitalized? Is there evidence of expensive and/or
imported materials and/or teclmology?
• Are a variety of socio-economic classes evident at the site? Is class segregation evident?
How does the material culture of different mining classes compare?
• What role did the mine (or mines) play in the region's growth and economic
development?
• What were the labor patterns in the region? Was tllere competition for labor or a strong
labor pool, and how did these dynamics change tllfough time?
• How does the socio-economic profile of households and the site change through time?
• What businesses were present, and in what phase did they develop?
• Where did the miners get tlleir food and other goods and services (supply networks,
local vendors, self-sufficient gardens and htmtinglfishing, company store)? How did
this change tllfough time?
• What types of access to markets was available during different periods?
• What types of changes are evident (mining machinery, goods) following the
completion of the transcontinental railroad? At what pace did industrial infrastructure
develop?

• Did miners invest much time preparing food at home, or did they eat away from their
residences? Did they reside in rooming houses and eat at boarding houses?
• Was mining only a fa cet of a more complex survival strategy, in which other pursuits
such as fanning or wage labor also played roles?
• How did the role of mining change with time for individuals, households,
conununities, or regions?
THEME 6: POLICY
TIlls theme explores the nature of gQvenunental development and regulatiQn. Company
PQlicy may also be relevant. Particularly in California, this has often been examined at the
mining district level, although federal and State gQvemments exerted cQntrol Qver time.
Included here are issues relating to' mining's environmental effects.
HistQrians' articles addressing issues Qf law, gQvemment, and the develQpment of Qrder in
CalifQrnia, particularly during the GQld Rush, tend to fQCUS Qn three major tQpics: crime and
criminals, the develQpment Qf mining law and water rights system s, and the relatiQnship Qf the
State govenunent to federal gQvenunent. Perhaps unsurprisingly, archaeolQgists have
cQntributed little to' this theme.
ViQlence and cmne in the mines has been the topic Qf several articles. Clare V. McKatma,
Jr.'s (2004) Pacific Historical Review article "Enclaves Qf ViQlence in Nineteenth-Century
CalifQrnia" described the ongoing debate about whether Qr not CalifQrnia Gold Rush towns
were actually viQlent. McKatma's article offers a system of measuring violence to assist
historiatlS in deciding if Gold Rush to'wns actually were viQlent or nQt. TIle key element in his
system is detemlining the existence Qf a sen se of cQmmunity and the degree it was felt by
townspeople. He believes that towns that had a large populatiQn of pennanent settlers,
primarily families, had a greater sense of conununity and were therefore less viQlent. In
contrast, towns with a predominately single male population that was transient and etlmically
diverse had high levels of violence. Of course, this system is equally useful fQr archaeologists
measumlg violence since the contrasting cQmmunities WQuld produce distinguishable
signatures. McKatma asserts the difference was caused by a lack of local systems of cQntrol, or
IQcal govenunent. BQomtowns, mining catnps and other such temporary settlements often
lacked such systems. Added to' this were rapid populatiQn growth atld a culture of alcohol and
gun use, creating a climate of viQlence. He cQncludes that w hile much of the AmeriCatl West
was relatively nQn-violent, some parts Qf it were extremely viQlent.
In a similar vein, Roger D. McGrath's (2003) "A ViQlent Birth: DisQrder, Cmne, and Law
Enforcement, 1849-1890" in Califomia History adds to the historic recQrd with atl accotult of
viQlence in Gold Rush California. The author gives a lively aCCQunt Qf two bands Qf Qutlaws that
terrQrized the West: Joaquin Murieta atld his band, and the so-called "HQunds" of San
Francisco. He alsO' describes the vigilante violence that was cQmmQnplace in the west. McGrath
includes accotults Qf individual Qutlaws, the Qften limited actiQn taken by fonnal law

enforcement instihttions, and the fonnation Qf vigilante committees to' uphold the law. He
believes that the root of this violence was a code of honQr that made men duty bQund to fight
when insulted Qr wronged. Martin Ridge's (1999) M ontana essay "Disorder, Crime and
Punislunent in the California GQld Rush" focuses on lawlessness and violence as well. He
repQrts that while many believed Califomia mining towns were lawless viQlent places, they
were neither, as IQng as person and property were respected. His article is primarily an accotmt
of the lawlessness in California, 'w ith several locations cited as examples, cQntrasted with the
lawfulness of Califomia, using the same IQcatiQns as examples. Conunon thrQughout all is the
idea that lawlessness was ignQred when one was only bringing injury upon him/herseU. Should
one injure an irmQcent party, either physically or financially, punislunent ensued.
Some histQrians have assumed there was no pressure to establish gQvemment in Gold
Rush Califomia as national attention at the time was focused elsewhere. Other historians have
disagreed and shQwn that miners and settlers were interested in establishing a goverrunent
from the start Qf settlement. William A. Bullough (1991), in the California History article
"Entrepreneurs and Urbanism Qn the CalifQrnia Mining Frontier: Frederick Walter and
Weaverville, 1852-1868," agrees with the latter view and offers Weaverville in Trinity County as
an example. He recotmts the rise of Frederick Walter from a child in Trinity CQunty to the head
of a thriving business and a civic leader. Bullough sets this story in the framework of the
"settling dO'wn" of Weaverville and its transition to a more civilized tQwn.
Richard o. Zerbe Jr. and C. Leigh Anderson (2001) take a wide-ranging vtew of the
develQpment of govenunent instihttions and culhtral nomlS in their Journal of Economic History
article, "Culhtre and Fairness in the DevelQpment Qf Instihttions in the California Gold Fields."
TIley note, "earlier aCCQunts Qf the creation Qf property rights in the CalifQmia gold fields
ignQred culhtre and are incQmplete. We argue that culhtre matters in SQlving collective-action
problems. SUcll problems in the California gold fields were sQlved though reliance on culhtral
fQcal PQints." Zerbe and Anderson add, "fQcal PQints included individualism, equality, respect
for property, and rewards conunensurate to work. Culhtral concepts of faimess served to create
nonns and instihttions that miners were willing to' defend, which included majority rule,
election of officials, trial by jury, allQcatiQn Qf a first- come, first-served basis and rules for
working claims" (Zerbe and Anderson 2001:114).
In a sQmewhat more fQcused article, western historian DQnald J. Pisani (1991) describes
hQW water law concepts adQpted in western states were influenced by the mining experience.
His article "TIle Origins of Western Water Law: Case Shtdies from Two CalifQrnia Mining
Districts" in California History points out that westem water law is conunonly examined from
the perspective of state legislation. He sought to examine water law from tlle experience of
miners, and examined the Qrigins Qf water law from the perspective of miners, tlleir views,
values, and ideals. Pisani suggests the dQctrine Qf "prior appropriatiQn," the policy that those
with the earlier claims to the water SQurce have priQrity of use, emerged slQwly and in response
to the rise of private corporations and new mining tedmiques. PriQr appropriation meshed well
with the American ideal Qf limited govenunent and had tlle added benefit of requiring no
bureaucracy to' manage it.

Tordoff and SeIdner (1987:13) hit on this topic inadvertently in their archeological
investigations of mining sites in the Cottonwood Creek drainage, southwest of Redding. when
they asked "how were the miners organized, and what was their source of capital? What types
of claims to water and mining land were taken? To non-mining land?" However, they fotmd the
archaeological record poorly suited to address these questions.
Federal-State relations were the subject of Robert J. Chandler's (2003) "An Uncertain
Influence: The Role of the Federal Goverrunent in California, 1846--1880," in Califonl ia History.
Chandler reported that the popular m yth of the origins of Califomia is one based on rugged
individualism. He fotmd, however, that Califomia was heavily dependent on federal aid during
the period he studied, demonstrating that the federal goverrunent played a large role in the
establislunent of a California govemment. From the beginning of U.S. control of Califomia, the
federal goverrunent provided leadership in the foml of military officers, a daily mail service,
and crucial aid in building the transcontinental railroad. TIle federal goverrunent also promoted
conservation and civil rights in California. The article covers policy setting. federal patronage,
the establislunent of federal agencies in California, and the prevention of a secessionist
movement in California during the Civil War.
The effects of mining on the California environment-particularly the relationship
between destructive flooding. agriculture, and h ydraulic mining-have been widely discussed
in the historic literature. Among the first to address this issue was pioneering public historian
and University of Califomia, Santa Barbara, history professor Robert L. Kelley. His seminal
book on the subject, Gold Versus Gra in, was written in 1959. In 1956 he wrote "TIle Mining
Debris Controversy in the Sacramento Valley," for the Pacific Historical Review. Kelley reported
that as farmers began to outnumber miners and ranchers, legal controversies emerged focusing
on the deleterious effects of h ydraulic mining debris on agricultural lands downstream of the
mines. His article is a conunentary on the struggle, in court, between the miners and the fanners
of the northern Sierra and Sacramento Valley. Kelley blamed the atUlUal flooding of the valley
on tailings from hydraulic mines that washed downriver: rainfall pushed the debris and mud
down from the mines atld caused the rivers and streams to flood, ruining thousands of acres of
once ricll famuatld. In response local fanners fonned the Anti-Debris Association of the
Sacramento Valley to fight for protection. The miners orgatlized the H ydraulic Miners
Association to fight back. The controversy led to a long atld expensive legal battle that resulted,
for all practical purposes, in the end of hydraulic mining by 1884. A somewhat different view
was offered four years later by KelUleth TIlompson (1960), in "Historic Flooding in the
Sacramento Valley," published in Pacific Historical Review. Thompson believed historiatlS
mistmderstood the clash between hydraulic miners atld fanners in the late-19th century,
arguing that the extent that h ydraulic mining caused flooding in the Sacratnento Valley has
been poorly understood . In the article he describes pre-Gold Rush flooding in the Central
Valley, and provides first-hatld accotmts of flooding from inhabitatlts and visitors in the area as
well as atl extensive analysis of geography and weather pattems. TIlompson, however, was
hesitant to relieve miners of the burden of flooding the valley, atld acknowledged they were
part of the problem.

Other writers have taken a more global view . Waverly B. Lowell's (1989) article, ''Where
Have All the Flowers Gone? Early Environmental Litigation" in Prologue asks: "Is a civilization
worthwhile if its material needs destroy the natural world?" Lowell provides examples of early
envirornnental litigation and a brief legal history of early envirorunental law in California,
focusing primarily on cases that dealt with water pollution from mining operations. Another
wider-ranging examination of envirorunental problems caused by mining can be found in
Martin D. Mitchell' s (1994) Geographical Review essay "Land and Water Policies in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," which addresses the questions of how and why water policies
in the Sacramento-San Joaquin area emerged. Mitchell examined the role of wetlands, policy
conflicts, and the mining debris controversy: the use of waterways to convey mining debris and
its effect on agriculture and navigation. He identifies the federal Caminetti Act of 1893 as crucial
legislation that helped establish later state-federal cooperation in flood control and other areas.
Similarly broad is David Beesley's (1996) "TIle Opening of the Sierra Nevada and the
Beginnings of Conservation, 1821-1900," in Califom ia History. Today, environmentalists believe
that the main cause of envirorunental damage to the Sierra Nevada is civilization's constant
encroaclunent. Beesley states that the need for envirorunental protection and preservation
began when gold was discovered, a historical element lacking in many modem envirornnental
studies. He notes three phases that led to development of a preservation movement in the
Sierra. In the first phase starting in the 1820s, the motultain range was seen as a dangerous
obstacle to cross as quickly as possible. As a result, there was little or no lasting damage done to
the region. In the second, beginning in 1848, the motultains were seen as a source of valuable
resources. Finally, in the third phase, after the early 1900s, preservationists looked upon the
ravages of mining, ranching and logging with concern. TIlese activities damaged the motultain
lands and threatened the valley below. TIlls threat led to pressure to protect and preserve the
Sierra Nevada, and in the decades Beesely studied, the federal and state governments acted to
manage and protect the area. Beesely describes the U.S. Forest Service, with its management
plan, both created in 1871, as one of the first steps, followed by the Forest Reserve Act of 1891,
which replaced the State Board of Forestry created in 1885. Finally, the National Park Service
was created in 1916 to manage and patrol California national parks.
Raymond F. Dasmatm (1998), in "Environmental Chatlges before atld after the Gold
Rush," written for Califomia History, notes that the early envirornnental damage of California
was usually blatned on miners. His study fotuld that there were other factors contributing to
this damage - fur trappers, cattle ranchers, atld fishemu~n catne to Califomia along 'w ith, atld
sometimes before, the miners. These activities did their share of damage. According to
Dasmarll1, much of the datnage was already done when gold was discovered. The "cattle rush,"
"fur rush," and introduction of foreign grasses began the work of depleting the resources of
California, which the Gold Rush later sped along. Similarly wide-ratlging is John W. Caughey's
(1992 ) Califom ia Historical Quarterly piece 'The Califomian and His Environment," which
broadly addresses the relationship of matl to the environment in California, begirll1ing with pre-
history and following through to the early 1970s.
Questions

• What type of social order is evident at the site? Does the site exhibit a sense of
organized conununity (e.g., a large population of permanent settlers, primarily
families)? Or, was it predominantly an etlmically diverse transient male population?
Was one type of conununity more violent than the other? Does one type have a larger
density of munitions than the other?
• Was anything done at the local level to prevent crime? How do sites 'w ith variable
crune rates compare archaeologically?
• Were social bOlllldaries established or enforced based on etlmicity, class, or other social
or political factors?
• Is the site within a known mining district? Are the mining codes for the district
known? How do sites witllin and outside of fonnal mining districts differ?
• What was the size of the mining claim? Can the size of the claim be determined from
eitller field or archival sources (e.g., bOlllldary markers, extent of mine activity, legal
descriptions)? How does it compare to mining code standards?
• How many nliners worked the mine and how were they organized? Is tllere evidence
for social inequality?
• How did the organization (variety, distribution, density) of nliners change through
time? Did increasing State and federal legislation (e.g., general mining law) result in
any change?
• Did company policy result in changes of tedmology or social behavior at the site?

CHAPTER 5. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR SITE
IDENTIFICATION AND EVALUATION
The preceding historic context and review of sch olarly research them es are intention ally
broad in scope. TIley provide the essential fotmdation that is impractical for m ost archaeological
investigation s to develop. This ch a pter offers guidance on h ow to imp lement the foregoing in
order to identify and record mining sites, and evaluate a particular property's research potential
tmder N RHP criterion D. TIle reader sh ould keep in mind, h owever, that mining sites may also
be d etennined significant tmder other N RHP criteria.
A five-step p rocess for identifying an arch aeological property's eligibility tmder Criterion
D w as presented in Chap ter 1 (Little and Siebert 2000:14) . For mining sites, this process is
divid ed into two p hases:
Phas e 1: Identification and Recording of Mining Sites
1. Determine the property's stntcture, content, and the classes of data it may contain.
2. Identify the a ppropriate historic context by w hicll to evaluate the property .
Phas e 2: Evaluation of Mining Sites under Criterion D
3. Identify important research th em es and question s that might be addressed by the site
data.
4. Con sidering the p roperty' s integrity, stntcture, an d content, assess w hether the data it
contains are of sufficient quality to address these important research issu es.
5. Identify the important infon nation that the property is likely to contain.
The num bered step s w ithin each phase generally occur as p art of an integrated process,
and not n ecessarily sequentially . Particular aspects of these ste ps are d iscussed below, followed
by a step-by-step a pproacll that illustrates their application.
TIlls implem entation plan is focused on the remains of the mining activities themselves.
While this research d esign addresses the importance of d omestic deposits for ad vancing the
research themes d iscussed herein, it d oes not detail their evaluation. For assistance in
determining the data p otential of these d omestic resources the researcher sh ould con sult the
Town Sites an d Work Camps research design s (HARD Town Sites Team 2007; HARD Work
Camps Team 2007).

PHASE 1: IDENTIFICATION AND RECORDING OF MINING SITES
Step 1. Determine the property's structure, content, and classes of data.

Step 2. Identify the appropriate historic context.
The initial identification and assessment of a m111111g site is dependent on accurately

identifying the remains present on the grotmd, associating these with the correct historic period,
and identifying the mining process represented.
Remains of mining teclm ologies are generally visible on the surface and excavation is
rarely necessary to identify and record them. Exceptions are fOlllld in locally-made features
such as arrastras that m ay warrant exploration. It is typical of mining sites that evidence of
earlier operations will be covered over or destroyed by la ter workings. These buried remains,
however, are not recommended as subjects of excavations as the infonnation recovered rarely
justifies the efforts expended .
The historic context presented in Chapter II provides a basic fotmdation for the
identification of mining sites statewide. Each site, however, will require site-specific
documentary research. Prior to archaeological survey and recording of a site, backgrotmd
documentary research is needed to identify the general mining practices comm on in the region
for different time periods. Historic maps and other base-line sources should be consulted prior
to fieldwork so that archaeologists can anticipate the types of resources they w ill find. For
sim p le mining sites, this is often all the research that w ill be needed. It should be noted that at
this point, potential eligibility tmder other NRHP criteria may be revealed.
The researcher must learn w hich activities identified in Chapte r III (placer mining,
beneficiation, habitation, etc.) were carried out at the site. Research should focus on addressing
basic qu estions su ch as who, what, when, where, and how. One of the goals of historical
research is to help establish the property's period of significance, defined in National Register
Bulletin 36 as "the time range during which the property was occupied or u sed and for w hich
the property is likely to yield important infonnation" (Little and Siebert 2000:34). Defining the
period of significance gives temporal focus to the context in which the site will be evaluated.
Conunon sources of historical infonnation are listed in each site type discussion; however, these
lists are not to be considered exhau stive nor are they to be used as simple check lists.
To evaluate a more com p lex industrial mining site or a site with associated dom estic features,
however, site-specific archival research must be conducted. Primary docwnents, secondary
sources, and oral accotmts may all contribute to providing details of site history. The p lan for
historical research sh ould specify cost-effective sources of the inform a tion. A complete title
search, for example, m ay not be necessary if adequate data can be obtained m ore readily from
maps. Secondary sources are often most u seful for general backgrowld inform a tion while
primary sources speak to specific times and places.
It should also be noted that due to the prevalence of mining systems, complex sites a re
often recorded as districts. As Noble and Spude (1997:Ch.V,p.l) observed:

Most potentially eligible mining properties do not consist only of a single resource,
but rather will include a discrete historical area containing a grouping of functionally
related resources that all played a part in the extraction, refinement, and production
of minerals.
Whether mining resources are recorded as a series of feahtres within a site or a number of
sites w ithin a district depends on the complexity and size of the enterprise. Discontiguous
districts m ay also be appropriate where elem ents of a site are spatially separated and discrete,
and where the space between them does not contribute to the significance of the district (Noble
and Spude 1997:ChV,p.l). Sites may be contributing elem ents of an important district, where
individually they might not meet eligibility criteria .
PHASE 2: EVALUATION OF MINING SITES UNDER CRITERION D
Step 3. Identify important research themes and questions.

Step 4. Considering the property's integrity, struchtre, and content, assess whether
the data it contains are of sufficient quality to address these important
research issues.
Step 5. Identify the important infomlation that the property is likely to contain.
At this point the researcher has identified the property types that exist, or are likely to
exist, on the site through a combination of archaeological fieldwork and historical research, and
has related these to both statewide (this document) and local historical contexts. The next step is
to detennine appropriate research themes and questions that the properties m ay be able to
address. Chapter IV contains reviews of scholarly research themes in history and archaeology,
concluding with a list of some of the important research questions. These lists-which are not
exhaustive-may be used to derive other researcll themes and questions relevant to sites under
evaluation. Researchers are encouraged to use these questions as sparks for the imagination and
not as fixed canon.
Key to identification of appropriate themes is an appreciation for the data that is available
from each site to answer these questions. TIle data comes from both the archaeological and
archival/documentary records and is the base on which all interpretations are made. Sim p le
sites with limited data - such as an isolated prospect shaft ·w ith a waste rock pile-will have
little to contribute to com p lex them es. Large industrial sites, with extant fotmdations and
surface workings, along with corresponding mining records, photographs, and maps, have the
potential to provide much more information and address m ore com p lex them es.
This is arguably the trickiest part of the evaluation process, for it requires the researcher to
assess the relationship between a site's physical cllaracteristics and a more abstract dimension -
its contribution to substantive researcll . TIle NRHP uses the concept of integrity to bridge this
concephtal divide.

Integrity
National Register Bulletin 15 defines integrity as the "ability of a property to convey its
significance." A site must have integrity to be eligible for listing on the NRHP. The NRHP
Criteria for Evaluation recognize seven aspects of integrity -location, design, setting, materials,
workmanship, feeling, and association -and a resource must maintain several of these aspects
to maintain integrity. Every evaluation of NRHP eligibility must discuss the aspects of integrity
that are relevant to the important qualities of the site being assessed.
Archaeological sites are usually evaluated tmder Criterion D. Here, a mining property's
significance depends on its ability to provide important data, measured by its potential to
contribute toward research themes in a significant way. hl general, archaeological properties
should retain integrity of location, design, materials, and association to be important tmder
Criterion D. TIlere is usually no need to address setting and feeling as these characteristics
rarely affect a site's information value; however, these aspects are important for assessment of
integrity under other criteria. It is also common for a site such as a small prospect to have
excellent integrity and yet lack sufficient information to satisfy Criterion D and therefore be
evaluated as not eligible. National Register Bulletins 15 and 36 as well as the book by H ardesty
and Little (2000) provide detailed, practical guidance on how each of these aspects of integrity
should be applied. National Register Bulletin 42 also specifically addresses integrity of mining
sites. TIle following discussion addresses aspects of integrity that generally apply to mining
sites:
Location
While the location of a mine cmUlot be altered, the equipment used to mine and process
the ore was frequently relocated as ores were depleted. The integrity of historic mining
equipment relocated to another contemporary historic mine would not be diminished even
though the equipment had been moved from its original location of operation. If the same
equipment was relocated to a modem mine (less than 50 years old), its integrity would be
diminished.
Design
The second aspect of integrity is design, which refers to the layout of the site. As discussed
before, new developments in mining and milling teclmology introduced new equipment to
mining sites as well as changing the methods that mines were worked. hnproved methods often
led to revisiting old sites w here tailings could be processed a second time. Just as the surface
plmlt might change, so too could the size and scope of the excavations. Becau se of the evolving
nature of mining operations, a mine does not have to maintain its original site plan to have
integrity. TIle changes should demonstrate the mine's evolution, and should have taken place at
least 50 years ago. Changes within the last 50 years, or the modem period, would reduce the
integrity.
Another aspect of design is the completeness of the site. Does the site have all of the
surface plant or stages of ore processing? Few mines possess a complete surface plmlt, but if
there are enough artifacts remaining to understand the process of reducing ore to the target
mineral, then the mine could retain a measure of this aspect of integrity. Similarly, if a placer

mine conveys the actual process that was used to nrine, whether a single event or many over
time, it retains integrity of design. A conunon mining site might consist of a shaft and a
collapsed adit, scattered artifacts, and a large waste rock pile. Even if archival information
indicated that the shaft ran deep and that considerable time was spent developing the nrine, it
can be argued that the remaining objects do not convey a sense of the nrine's operation. Lacking
structure remains or artifacts that provide evidence of the mine's operation, it does not retain
integrity of design.
Setting
Settin~ the third aspect of integrity, reflects both the grounds of the nune and its
surrounding envirornnent. Mines in the desert areas of the state often have been relatively
tmtouched, and their surrotmding environment has been left largely undeveloped. Mines in the
Sierra foothills, or in Shasta and Siskiyou counties, have more frequently been surrotmded by
modem buildings and structures that may adversely affect their setting. TIus aspect of integrity
needs to be carefully evaluated in assessing a mining site's significance tmder criteria other than
D.
Materials
Integrity of materials requires that the resource be constructed with materials that date to
any period of significance. Research potential depends on materials having not been altered
beyond interpretability .
Workmanship
Workmanship pertains to the physical evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or
people during any given time period in history. It would apply to a mining site where mining
methods or construction teduuques employed by various culture groups contribute to the site's
significance.
feeling
Regarding the aspect of "feeling," Bulletin 42 states,
As abandoned industrial properties are generally located in isolated areas, the sites of
historic mining activity often evoke a strong sense of feeling when viewed by
contemporary observers ... The feeling of a deserted historic mine can help reflect the
character of the boom and bust cycles of mining regions. The loss of this feeling of
isolation and abandomnent due to encroaching modem development can diminish
the integrity of a mining property [Noble and Spude 1997:21].
Generally speaking, feeling has little bearing on an archaeological property's research
potential.
Association
The final aspect of integrity is that of association, which as Bulletin 42 notes, "will exist in
cases where mine structures, machinery, and other visible features remain to convey a strong
sense of connectedness between mining properties and a contemporary observer's ability to
discern the lustorical activity wluch occurred at the location" (Noble and Spude 1997:21). A

mining resource which lacks buildings or has extensively altered buildings, but does feahtre
other elements such as building fotmdations, shaft, headframes, tramway s, tailings, trash
dumps, cemeteries, privies, equipment, and other artifacts might be considered eligible. On the
other hand, a site could retain the buildings and not have enough evidence of the mining
operation to illustrate a working mine. Such a mine would not have integrity of association
because it is not the state of the buildings that holds integrity but the "degree to which the
overall mining system remains intact and visible."
Archaeologists also frequently use the concept of association to refer to the degree to
which the occupants - or labor force - of the site is known. A good historical "association"
enhances the potential significance of the site's data potential. James Deetz (1996:128) used the
concept of archaeological "focus" to address integrity and assess the research potential of
archaeological sites. By focus, Deetz refers to the level of clarity 'w ith which remains at a site can
be detemlined to represent a particular historical phenomenon such as an activity or building
renmant. Remains that represent a number of activities or consist of components that Calmot be
separated from one another are said to lack focus. A site that has poor focus effectively lacks
integrity.
Significance EvaluaHons
Criterion D: Research Potential
At this point the history of the mining site has been established, its data sources identified,
integrity evaluated, and applicable research themes and questions noted. The fonnal evaluation
tmder Criterion D makes clear what important infonnation the property is likely to contain that
can address one or more questions related to research themes. Two conclusions are possible:
1. The site may be deemed not significant. because it lacks integrity; or because it
has no important data to be recovered.
2. The site may be deemed significant for its potential to contain important
infonnation.
For most simple and smaller industrial mining sites, the appropriate docwnentary
research and site recording necessary to identify and record the site "exhausts the research
potential" of the resource. TIus phrase acknowledges that there is useful historic information
inherent in knowing that this mining resource was present and active at a specific time using
specific processes. TIle important point here is that once tlus is known, tllere is no more
important infonnation to be obtained from shtdying the site further. For mallY simple mining
sites, tlus threshold may be reached witll basic docwnentary researcll alld a careful initial
recording of the site. For more complex sites, more detailed documentary research and field
shtdies may be necessary to recover importallt site information.
Mining sites with domestic deposits require an additional level of analysis. MallY of the
research themes and questions presented in Chapter IV focus on the site' s residents, and
information on these people may be found in their household refuse. TIle association of the site
with specific population groups (etlmicity, gender, social class) may be detemlined by an
analysis of these remains. Particularly for sites that are poorly documented, the domestic
deposits may be the primary source of tlus infomlation. Also, as mining technologies are

generally not easily datable, data on when poorly documented sites were active m ay come
solely from the refuse of its inhabitants. TIle integrity/value of these domestic com ponents will
need to be evaluated in conjunction w ith Work Camps and/or Town Sites research designs,
depending on the nature of the dom estic com ponent (HARD Town Sites Team 2007; H ARD
Work Camps Team 2007). Similarly, these com panion volumes present methods for recovering
and interpreting significant data .
Other Criteria
As noted above, numng properties may be determined eligible under other National
Register criteria, and these should be kept in mind when studying and evaluating a property.
Criterion A. Criterion A is associated with events that have made a significant
contribution to the broad patterns of history. TIlls is the criterion most com monly applied to
mining sites. Fifteen them es are suggested in Bulletin 42, any of which may apply to mining
sites. Particularly appropriate is the them e of engineering, especially - but not exclusively -for
late 19th and early 20th century sites. The bulletin states,
After 1890, many mining complexes feahtred components designed by muung
engineers. lbis would include water and transportation systems built to serve mining
operations. Noteworthy examples of mining engineering would fall tmder this area of
significance. The ascendance of the mining engineer over the skilled craftsperson was
a gradual process. Many mining properties can demonstrate the nahtre of the change
and provide evidence of the intermediate steps in the process of change [Noble and
Spude 1997:15].
Criterion B. Criterion B is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. A
mining property would not only have to be directly associated with an important historical
person to m eet Criterion B, but also be a resource that best exem p lifies his/her significan ce. So,
for example, although George Hearst, a famous mining engineer and 19th-century tycoon, may
have owned a particular mine, research would need to indicate that it was the very mine that
earned H earst his fame or forhme, or represented a turning point in his career. In general, a
mine would be highly tmlikely to meet Criterion B.
Criterion C. Criterion C embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or
method of constntction, or represents the work of a master, possess high artistic values, or
represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual
distinction. TIlose mining properties fOlllld eligible under Criterion C are often assessed under
the categories of architecture and engineering.
Architecture. Mining complexes occasionally contain cabins, storehouses, and workshops,
as well as other, more mining-specific structures as m.ills, hoists, and processing sites. Such
mining stntctures are often in nUns. Architecture fOlllld in these com p lexes can reflect conunon
building trends or demonstrate innovative use of materials. While the vestiges of surface p lants
on mining sites m ay yield infomlation regarding the engineering and working aspects of
mining, they would need to represent the work of m aster arcllitects or builders, or have lligh
artistic value.

Engineering. TIle methods and technology of nurun& like most teclmical industries,
continues to evolve. Mining properties can illustrate these cllanges through the remnants of
machinery and struchtres. Such structures as the head frame, tower and wire rope for an aerial
tramway, mill fotmdation and other equipment provide an tmderstanding of how a mille
operated during the period of its activity, and can give the visitor a strong sense of time and
place. Other mine sites may contain equipment. Generally there are few mining properties that
have enough remaining feahtres to fuUill Criterion C tmder the theme of engineering, largely
because the majority of sites either had the equipment removed after operations ceased or the
rema:in:ing equipment was scavenged for scrap during the First or Second World Wars. The
removal of equipment for reuse elsewhere or for scrap value was a conunon practice that raises
the value of what littIe does remain at mining sites. Sites that retain equipment related to
mining, or for mills, processing or moving ore provide information regarding the operation of
the mine and processing methods.
Sites may also be detennined eligible under Criterion C for engineering feahtres that are
entirely manifested on the landscape, devoid of any machinery or structures, exampled by the
Natomas Grotmd Sluice Diggings (Lindstrom 1988), the acres of dredge piles at Prairie City
(Lindstrom 1989; Tordoff 2004), and the Malakoff mine' s cliffs and tailings piles produced by
large-scale hydraulic mining near North Bloomfield (Felton et al. 1979; Lindstrom 1990).
STEPS FOR ASSESSING TH E RESEARCH POTENTIAL OF MINING SITES

The following outline presents the steps used to assess the research potential of mining
sites (Criterion D). Sites are categorized by complexity:
• Simple Mining Sites
• Simple Mining Sites witIl Domestic Deposits
• Industrial Mining Sites
• Industrial Mining Sites with Domestic Deposits
The steps for each category of site include:

1. procedures for identifying and recording;
2. identification of data required for significance (data requirements); and
3. categories for assessment and evaluation of significance.
SIMPLE MINING SITE

These sites display evidence of simple milling teclmologies. They contain no domestic
remains and no evidence of Industrial Mining. Particularly excluded from evaluation are those
Simple Mining sites exempt by Exhibit 1.1, Attadunent 4 of tile Caltrans Environmental
Handbook, Volume 2 (Caltrans 2004). These exempt sites are not, however, excluded from
recordation and "may be docwnented, if documentation is warranted, at a level conunensurate

with the nahtre of the property (e .g. Primary Record fonn, Location Map, Memo to File, or GIS
cultural database)" (ibid ).
• isolated mining prospect pits,
• placer mining features with no associated structural remains or archaeological [artifact]
deposits
Examples of such simple nurung sites abotmd in California's desert regions and are
conunon in the Mother Lode. Among the most typical mining site is a simple adit and tailing!
waste rock pile, or a few placer tailing piles in a ravine, ·w ith a minor (or absent) artifact/debris
scatter. Many of these sites were never recorded as claims or developed in any substantive
fashion.
Procedures for Identifying and Recording Simple Mining Sites

1. Conduct Basic D ocumentary Research
• Review COtmty mining claims and map files
• Review COtmty histories
• Review state mining reports for the area under stud y
• Review GLO maps and MTPs
• Review applicable secondary materials
Such materials are conunonly and readily available at the BLM, COtmty libraries and
historical societies, and in county govemm ent records.
2. Conduct Basic Archaeological Recording
• Construct a map of mining remains, showing all features
• W rite a physical description of the mining remains
• Take overview and feahtre photographs
• Complete at least a DPR 523 Primary Record and file with map at Information
Center; an Arcllaeological Site Record is always beneficial and may be necessary for
more complex sites
3. Identify History of the Site
TIu s involves reconstruction of mining site processes u sing a com bination of
documentary and archaeological data and addressing appropriate Themes identified
above in Chapter IV.
Data Required for Significance of Simple Mining Sites

Basic Docwnentary Data on the site is usually sufficient when it provides information
necessary to address arcllaeological research questions. 1his infonnation can be derived from
some of the following sources:

• Govemm ent Land Office (GLO) Maps
• County maps / mining claims files and m aps
• reports from the State Bureau of Mines, SUcll as those by the State Mineralogist.
• Bureau of Land Management Master Title Plats (MTP)
• County histories
Secondary material Basic Archaeological Data is sufficient when:
• TIle site retains sufficient integrity to dem onstrate the tedmiques used, or
• TIle site retains attributes that indicate a tim e period or association w ith an identifiable
group
Assessment and Evaluation of Simple Mining Sites

Not Significant
If either Basic Documentary Data or Basic Archaeological Data is insufficient.
Data Potential Exhausted

There is no significant in form ation contained w ithin a Simple Min ing Site and therefore no
additional effort is needed to mitigate project effects on the site' s data potential.
Potential Significance
The site has evidenced data potential-bey ond that recovered by its identification and
recordation described above -to address questions under the Research Them es presented in
Chapter IV above.
SIMPLE MINING SITES WITH DOMESTIC REMAINS

In addition to displaying only non-indu strial m ining tedmiques, these sites will be
distinguished by one or more deposits of dom estic artifacts and/or elem ents of clearly domestic
architechtral remain s (dwellings, hearth, stone baking ovens, etc.) . P rocedures are the same as
for "Simple Min ing Site" w ith some additions.
Procedures for Identifying and Recording

Simple Mining Sites with Domestic Remains
(For Nos. 1 and 2, see "Procedures for Identifying and Recording Simple M ining Sites " aboue)
1. Conduct Basic D ocum entary Researcll
2. Conduct Basic A rchaeological Recording
Including completion of a DPR 523 Primary Record and Archaeological Site Record
and file at Infon nation Center
3. Ev aluate Potential of Domestic Deposit
Ev aluate the data potential of the domestic component following guidelines in Town
Sites and Work Camps research designs (HARD Town Sites Team 2007; HARD Work
Camps Team 2007)

TIus involves reconstruction of mining site processes u sing a com bination of
above in Chapter IV
Data Required for Significance of Simple Mining Sites with DomesHc Remains
Basic Docum entary Data is sufficient when infomlation on the site is supplied by at least
som e of the following sources, allowing Research Themes to be addressed.
• County mining claims and map files
• Reports from the State Bureau of Mines, such as those by the State Mineralogist.
• GLOMaps
• County maps
• MITs
• County lustories
Secondary material Basic Arcllaeological Data is sufficient when:

• TIle site retains sufficient integrity to demonstrate the teduuques used
• TIle site retains attributes that indicate a time period or association w ith identifiable
group
• TIle site contains sufficient archaeological remains of domestic component to answer
research questions (see Town Sites and Work Camps research designs [HARD Town
Sites Team 2007; H ARD Work Camps Team 2007]).
Assessment and Evaluation of Simple Mining Sites with Domestic Remains

Not Significant
If either Basic Documentary Data or Basic Archaeological Data is insufficient.

And therefore it is concluded that no additional effort is needed to mitigate project effects
on the stie's data potential.
Mining Component. The research potential of the nurung component will likely be
exhausted by procedures for identifying and recording listed above
Domestic Component: TIle research potential of the domestic deposit should be
evaluated according to procedures identified in the Town Sites and Work Camps research
designs (HARD Town Sites Team 2007; HARD Work Camps Team 2007).
PotenHal Significance
The site has evidenced data potential-beyond that recovered by its identification and
recordation described above - to address questions tmder the Researcll TIlemes presented

above, or as identified for domestic deposits by the Town Sites afl d Work Camps research desig ns
(HARD Town Sites Team 2007; HARD Work Camps Team 2007).
INDUSTRIAL MINING SITES

These sites d isplay evidence of substantial capital investment in industrial processes of
extraction and/or beneficiation as evidenced by large or numerous facilities. These sites will be
most conunon after ca. 1890 with the boom in h ard-rock mining, and until modem times.
Earlier industrial sites are present, however, and may be significant for their relative rarity as
well as the teclm ologies evidenced. N o domestic remains are associated with this type. The level
of both documentary research and archaeological recording will be guided by the size and
complexity of the site.
Procedures for Identifying and Recording Industrial Mining Sites

(For Nos . 1 alld 2, see "Procedures fo r Iden tifyillg afl d Recording Simple Mi lling Sites " above)
1. Conduct Basic and Detailed Documentary Research
2. Conduct Basic A rcllaeological Recording
Including completion of a DPR 523 Primary Record and Arcllaeological Site Record
and file at Infonnation Center
TIu s involves reconstruction of mining site processes u sing a com bination of
above in Chapter IV
Data Required for Significance of Industrial Mining Sites

Because these sites are usually fOlllld in the later years of the mining industry, and because
they conunonly generated a substantial volume of both public (i.e., tax and assessment, patents,
etc.) and unpublished records, Basic Documentary Data (see above) must be present, as well as
Detailed Documentary data found in at least some of the following:
• Claim records
• Business records
• Governm ents reports (S tate Bureau of Mines reports, etc.)
• Mining trade journals (M ining alld Scie fltific Press, Ellgilleerillg News Record, etc.)
• Local Maps, mining claim maps
• Assessment Records
• Census Reports
• Photographs
• Other resources as available and warranted such as probate records, diaries, and
surveyors' notes

Detailed Docum entary data is sufficient w h en it p rovides enough infonnation to answer
archaeological research question s.
Basic Archaeological Data is sufficient w hen:
• TIle site retains su fficient integrity to dem onstrate the tedmiques u sed
• TIle site retains attribu tes that ind icate a time period or association w ith group
• Mining features can be identified by function
• Mining features can be identified by systems, reflecting their role in extraction an d
beneficiation p rocesses.
Asse ss ment and Evaluatio n of Indu strial Mining Sites

Not Signific ant
If either Basic Documentary Data or Basic Archaeological Data is insufficient
Data Potential Exhau sted

There is no remaining significant infom lation held by the Industrial Mining Site and
therefore it is concluded that no addition al effort is needed to mitigate p roject effects on the
site's data potential.
Potential Significanc e
The site h as eviden ced data potential - beyon d that recovered by this study - to address
question s under the Research TIlem es presented above.
INDUSTRIAL MINING SITES WITH DOMESTIC DEPOSIT

In addition to eviden ce of ind u strial mining, th ese sites 'will be d istinguished by dep osits
of d omestic artifacts and/or clearly dom estic architectural remains (hearth, stone baking ovens,
etc.) . Procedures are the sam e as for "Ind u strial Mining Site" with som e addition s.
Procedures for Identifying and Recording

Industrial Mining Sites with Domestic Deposits
(For N os. 1 alld 2, see "Procedures fo r Idelltifyillg and Recording Simple Mi llillg Sites" above)
1. Con du ct Basic an d Detailed Docum entary Research

2. Con du ct Basic A rchaeological Recording
a. m ap of mining rem ains,
b. phy sical description of mining rem ains,
c. ph otographs
d. DPR 523 Archaeological Site Record filed at Inform ation Center
e. Mapping an d identification of specific feature systems within site
f. Description s an d m aps of ind ividual features, as warranted

3. Conduct Testing
Evaluate the data potential of the domestic component following guidelines in Town
Sites and Work Camps research designs (HARD Town Sites Team 2007; HARD Work
Camps Team 2007).
4. Identify H istory of the Site
Reconstruction of mining site processes and associated activities using documentary
and archaeological data and addressing appropriate TIlemes identified in Chapter IV.
Data Required for Significance of Industrial Mining Sites with Domestic Deposit
Basic Documentary Data (see above) must be present, as well as Detailed Documentary
Data found in at least som e of the following:
• Claim records
• Business records
• Govemment reports (S tate Bureau of Milles reports, etc.)
• Mining trade joumals (M in illg alld Sciell tific Press, Engineering Ne-UJS Record, etc.)
• Local Maps, mining claim m aps
• Assessment Records
• Census Reports
• Photographs
• Other resources as available and warranted such as probate records, diaries, surveyors'
notes
Detailed documentary data is sufficient when it provides enough infonnation to answer

archaeological researcll questions.
Basic Archaeological Data is sufficient when:
• TIle site retains sufficient integrity to demonstrate the tedmiques used
• TIle site retains attributes that indicate a time period or association with group
• Mining features can be identified by function
• Mining features can be identified by systems, reflecting their role in extraction and
beneficiation processes.
• Contain sufficient archaeological remains of domestic com ponent to answer research
questions (see Town Sites and Work Cam p s research design [HARD Town Sites Team
2007; HARD Work Camps Team 2007]).
Assessment and Evaluation of Industrial Mining Sites with DomesHc Deposit

Not Significant
If either Basic Documentary Data or Basic Archaeological Data is insufficient

Mining component. No additional important information is present in the numng
component and it is therefore concluded that no additional effort is needed to mitigate project
effects on the site's data potential ..
Domestic Component. The research potential of the domestic deposit should be
evaluated according to procedures identified in the TO""I1Jn Sites alld Work Camps research designs
(HARD Town Sites Team 2007; HARD Work Camps Team 2007).
Potential Significance
The site has evidenced data potential - beyond that recovered by this smdy - to address
questions tmder the Research Themes presented above, or as identified for domestic deposits by
the research designs.
CONCLUSIONS
TIlls chapter has presented practical methods for identifying and evaluating nunmg
resources. Phase 1 involves two interlinked processes: identification and recording of the
physical attributes of a site (property types, discussed in Chapter 3); and placement of the site in
its statewide historic context (provided in Olapter 2) and local setting using historical
documentary sources. During Phase 2 the site is evaluated for its research potential tmder
themes and questions presented in Chapter 4. Key to this second phase is identification of the
site as a Simple Mining Site, where its recording generally exhausts its research potential, or an
Industrial Site where additional documentary and archaeological research is often required . If
there is a domestic component to the mining site - remains of dwellings or a workforce's camp
- relevant researcll themes and questions can be fotmd in the Town Sites and Work Camps
Research Designs (Caltrans 2007a, 2007b).
SAFETY CONCERNS
Mining sites can be dangerous places, and field crews should be cautious while working
around them. It is important to follow strict safety procedures in order to investigate them
safely. Among the basic rules are:
• Never enter adits or shafts.
• Stay away from collars of shafts, as they may be unstable.
• Do not go into depressions on the ground, as these may be thinly covered shafts.
• Keep in mind that there may be dangerous chemicals present, such as mercury or
arsenic, and appropriate precautions should be taken when excavating or handling soil
or artifacts.
Field crews should also become familiar with the appearance of explosives SUcll as fuses,
blasting caps, and dynamite. Unfamiliar artifacts should be examined with caution.

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MINING SITES : HISTORIC CONTEXT AND

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH DESIGN

In partial fulfillment of Agreement 43A0191

Jlllle 2007 Draft

Mining Sites: Historic Context and HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and II HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and ill HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and IV HARD

MINING RESEARCH DESIGN : SUMMARY

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 1 HARD

RESEARCH DESIGN SERIES

How this Document was Created

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 2 HARD

The National Register Evaluation Process under Criterion 0

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 3 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 4 HARD

The California Register of Historical Resources

Using this Document for Section 106 Consultation

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 5 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 6 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 7 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 8 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 9 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 10 HARD

LODE/ DEEP MINING

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 11 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 12 HARD

LAWS RELATED TO MINING AND WATER CLAIMS

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 13 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 14 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 15 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 16 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 17 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 18 HARD

Year Fine Ounces Value in Constant Dollars

Gold and Silver

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 19 HARD

Type of Mine 1910 1920 1930 1935 1940

Placer dredging (shown mines/ 41 / 72 25 / 41 21 / 31 99 / 114 363 / 259

Small surface placers (dry) 1 1 6 21 17

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 20 HARD

Table 3. Important GoldlPrecious Metals Mining Counties

Sacramento COWlty 10% of the total, largely from gold dredging

YubaCoWlty 7% of the total, largely from gold dredging

Butte COWlty 5%, production was largely from placer gravels

Siskiyou COlUlty 4%, production was largely from placer gravels

Industrial Metals of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 21 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 22 HARD

Other Industrial Metals

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 23 HARD

Table 4. Important Copper Mines in California.

Major Mine County

Other Sigllificallt Milles

Copper World San Bernardino

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 24 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 25 HARD

Mining Sites: Historic Context and 26 HARD

INTRODUCTION TO PROPERTY TYPE CATEGORIES