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Stories of ordinary people finding a bit of gold. These stories are either ones that I have read in newspapers, been told by reliable people (by reliable
I mean someone that can show me the gold), or other well documented accounts. Finding gold can take hard work or sometimes you just get lucky. Read on.
I was taking a class in mineral identification for geology at the Antelope Valley college several years ago when the teacher asked that anyone who had found gold
to please bring in the sample and tell approximately where and how they had found it. On the appropriate day, a woman pulled out a gold nugget that she had found. It was
about the size of your thumb and definitely a placer nugget. She said she had been walking her dog one evening in the Soledad river bed in Acton, California. She always looked
at the rocks while she walked, and low and behold at her feet she spotted this nugget just sitting there. Note: Acton had several gold mines during the 1800's and 1900's and is
known to produce a nugget or two every so often. See the next story.
Still in the Acton area, a story appeared in a local newspaper several years ago about a man who had bought a metal detector and had been detecting for gold around the
old gold mines located in Acton. While searching a hillside below a mine, he got a loud signal and dug up a large gold nugget. The nugget was said to be worth about $50,000.00 at that
time. A quick note: He apparently spent the money on more prospecting equipment. I do not know if he found anything else.
In the early 1980's I lived in Sacramento, California which was one of the first cities founded as a supply town during the gold rush of 1849. I spent a lot of time exploring the old gold rush mining towns and
mining areas and generally taking in the local history. I owned a small electronic repair business and one of my customers lived in the Gold rush town of Grass Valley. One day while we were
talking, I mentioned my hobby of gold mining and the gold rush. We were at his business and he invited me over to his house to check out his gold. Well, I took the bait and we were off. At his
place, he poured some concentrates from a small gold dredge he owned, into a pan and told me to pan for a bit. As I swirled the pan around I started seeing small rice grain size nuggets appear in
the bottom of the pan. One last swirl and the bottom of the pan was littered with gold! I was flabbergasted but he just called me over to a piece of plywood to help him with something else. He pulled
the bottom "carpet" out of the sluice box and we shook it out over the plywood. It literally rained gold down onto that wood. He then walked into the house and in a moment returned carrying several vile's.
He set them down in front of me and once again, I couldn't believe it. They were filled with gold nuggets of all sizes. I was now on the verge of a heart attack. Where had this much gold come from and
just how much work was required. He sat down and started his story. For years he had been fishing and camping in his RV on a small stream above the town of Oroville in northern California. A neighbor of his
told him he had a small 2" gold dredge he wanted to sell and my friend said ok, he'd buy it. On his next trip up to the stream, he brought out the dredge just for fun and to see how the thing worked. Two
days later, he had enough gold to pay for the trip. Like many of the original gold miners, he knew he had something but he also had a business to run in Grass Valley so he treated his "claim" like the hobby it was
and only mined it on his vacations. He didn't get greedy but he told me he was always able to pay for the trip in the RV and then some. He also told me a story that showed the lure gold can have on anyone. He said
he had some friends that were a husband and wife lawyer team that lived and worked in San Francisco. He invited them up for a vacation and while they were camping at the stream, he showed them how to find gold.
The wife was so amazed on finding gold that she was ready to quit her law practice and become a gold miner. I think they convinced her to keep her day job but I can understand the impact the trip must have had on her.
An eye loupe can give you the edge to identify rich ore from false hopes. I always carry one when I'm prospecting. Click on the image to see them at the store.
Lots of books on prospecting at our new Mercantile Bookstore.
