Calaveras Gold

Contents

Download PDF (32.0 KB)
pp. v-

List of Illustrations

Download PDF (37.8 KB)
pp. vii-ix

Acknowledgments

Download PDF (33.8 KB)
pp. xi-

Many people were involved in helping the authors select materials for this manuscript and complete its preparation.The staffs of the Calaveras Heritage Council and the Calaveras Museum supported the project in its beginning stages back in the 1970s, and have continued to be helpful over the years. ...

Introduction

Download PDF (735.8 KB)
pp. 1-10

Sam Casoose slung a burlap bag over his shoulder and headed for town. At fifty cents each, his burden of eviscerated salmon commanded a ready market in Murphys, a mile due south of his cabin on the rancheria above the Oro y Platamine. Caught and dried at Clark’s Flat on the Stanislaus a few weeks...

1 Early Placer Era

Download PDF (172.4 KB)
pp. 11-39

The Gold Rush, in a technical sense, did not begin with James Marshall’s discovery at Coloma on January 24, 1848. That was only the spark. The fire did not break out until May, when Sam Brannan rode through the streets of San Francisco with a pouch full of nuggets, shouting, ‘‘Gold, gold, from the American River!’’ ...

2 Beginnings of Lode Mining, 1850-1885

Download PDF (546.2 KB)
pp. 40-85

For the first couple of years after Marshall’s discovery at Sutter’s Mill, the argonauts centered their attention on placer gold and where to find it. Apparently, no one bothered to investigate Marshall’s alleged observation before discovery day that he knew there was gold in the hills because he saw the ‘‘blossom of gold’’ in the white quartz outcrops. ...

3 Mining Society in the Early Years

Download PDF (310.9 KB)
pp. 86-138

In 1948 California celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the Gold Rush. It was a gala affair, with parades, speeches, dances, and fireworks up and down the state.With the melting pot myth still intact; with environmental concerns still in abeyance; and with leadership positions in solid, white, Anglo-Saxon hands, the yearlong event was unmarred by controversy. ...

4 Ancillary Industries

Download PDF (1.1 MB)
pp. 149-171

The transition from pioneer to industrial mining affected both the scope and the direction of economic development in the Mother Lode.Mining remained the primary engine of growth for more than a half century after the Gold Rush, but intensive lode mining and milling needed a more complex and more integrated economic system than was available in an earlier era of...

5 Preparing for Modern Mining

Download PDF (627.9 KB)
pp. 172-204

Almost every fourth grader in California schools today knows that the Gold Rush opened with Marshall’s discovery at Sutter’s Mill on January 24, 1848. But when did it end? Even the ‘‘experts’’ cannot agree, and statistics are not much help, since the first signs of diminishing immigration rates in 1851 do not match the first downturn in production rates two years later. ...

6 Lode Mining in the Golden Years

Download PDF (442.6 KB)
pp. 205-250

The golden years of lode mining in Calaveras began with the Utica consolidation in the mid-1880s. It ended more than three decades later, when most of the big mines either had exhausted their payable ore or were forced to shut down because of rising costs and labor shortages duringWorldWar I. ...

7 Unstable Twenties and Thirties

Download PDF (190.1 KB)
pp. 251-284

In the half century after World War I, Calaveras County witnessed economic changes that radically altered its prewar status. Before the war the mining industry dominated the county economy and provided the major impetus to urban growth and development. In 1912, for example, Angels Camp’s five thousand inhabitants...

8 A Half Century of Change

Download PDF (206.8 KB)
pp. 285-317

Gold mining is a fickle business that often defies mainstream economic trends. In peacetime, hard times on Main Street usually mean good times in the gold districts. That was the case in both the 1890s and during the Great Depression, as we have seen. But wartime is a different matter. ...

Appendix

Download PDF (60.2 KB)
pp. 319-321

Notes

Download PDF (324.5 KB)
pp. 323-367

Glossary

Download PDF (61.1 KB)
pp. 369-372

Suggested Reading

Download PDF (105.1 KB)
pp. 373-382

Index

Download PDF (143.0 KB)
pp. 383-404