Mines of El Dorado County: “G” (Part 2)

The Golden Trace (Bullard) mine was a lode gold mine located two and one-half miles north of Grizzly Flat by the North Fork of the Cosumnes River. Active prior to 1896, it consisted of a two to three foot vein of gold bearing quartz in granite that was developed by a 250-foot drift adit.

The Golden West lode gold claim was located near the South Fork of the American River, about four miles west of Gold Hill.

The Good Hope (New Virginia, Tiger) lode gold mine was located on 18.25 acres just north of the Cosumnes River, two miles southeast of Latrobe.

Two miles east of Diamond Springs on the Mother Lode was the Good Luck mine. Active only 1909-10, the deposit consisted of a 18-inch vein of gold bearing quartz that was developed by a 250-foot shaft along with 200 and 300-foot adits. The ore was treated on-site in a five-stamp mill.

The Gopher-Boulder mine was on the Mother Lode, one mile northwest of Kelsey. From the several claims consolidated in this mine, the Gopher, Boulder, Dalmatia and several others, $15,600 in gold was produced in 1858 and $40,000 in the 1880s. The mine was later prospected in 1931 and again in 1934-36. The gold was in two veins in slate and greenstone, named the Gopher and Boulder, that were as wide as 50 feet. The ore ranged in value from $2.50 to $6 per ton and occasionally up to $16 per ton. The mine was developed by a 260-foot inclined shaft with levels at 50-foot intervals, a 200-foot drift adit, 850-foot crosscut adit and open cuts. The ore was treated in a huge 20-stamp mill, powered by a mine owned electric power plant on Rock Creek and water brought in from the South Fork of the American River through 1000 feet of 11 inch steel pipe.

The Gordon mine was a chromite mine four miles north of Shingle Springs. In 1918, 31 tons of chromite was produced from this mine.

The Gouge Eye placer mine was located on 20 acres of land two miles west and slightly north of Pollock Pines. There are no other mining claims shown within a mile of this one.

The Graham placer mine was located about one mile west of Grizzly Flat. There are a number of placer mines in this area strung along what appears to be an ancient riverbed.

The Grand Victory mine was on Squaw Creek, four miles southeast of Diamond Springs. First worked in 1857 it was one of El Dorado County’s larger lode gold mines. In 1879 the ore was being treated in a five-stamp mill and, nine years later, because extensive open cuts and underground workings had been developed, the mill had been expanded to 40 and then 50-stamps. In 1894 a cyanidization (a process of extracting gold by the use of a cyanide compound) plant was added and operated until 1901, when the mine was shut down. In the 1930s considerable prospecting and sampling was done at the mine and a number of drifts and crosscuts were driven. The gold was contained in quartz ore bodies as wide as 100 feet that were developed by a 500-foot drift adit and open cuts as wide as 135 feet and 500 feet in length. About 450 feet in from the adit portal (opening) was a winze with levels at 100, 200 and 300 feet. In addition, there were several thousand feet of drifts and crosscuts.

The Graner placer mine was located on 60 acres one and one-half miles south of Coloma in the Gold Hill area.

The Gravel Hill placer mine was located on or near the Middle Fork of the American River, three miles east of Spanish Dry Diggings.

The Gray and Bosquit placer mine was located on 34 acres about one-half mile east of Rescue.

Three miles northwest of Shingle Springs was the Gray (Old Gray) Mine. A lode gold mine active about 1894, it consisted of a vein of gold bearing quartz one to three feet wide that was developed by a 100-foot shaft and drift.

Near Volcanoville was the Gray Eagle Cliff Mine that was active about 1894. At this location an ancient river channel was worked through an adit. The gold containing gravel was well cemented together. Another Gray Eagle mine and mill site, this time a lode gold mine, was located on 13.2 acres of the Mother Lode, just south of Kelsey.

In 1931, the Great Bend Corporation, based in Lotus, mined gold-bearing gravels along the South Fork of the American River, north of Lotus with a gasoline powered shovel.

The Great Crevis placer mine was located on 57.60 acres of land on the Middle Fork of the American River, two miles north of Cool. It later became the site of the Pacific Portland Cement Company’s Mountain Quarry. The site was acquired by the government as a part of the Auburn Dam land.

The Great Eastern and Folsom placer mine was located on 228.14 acres one and one-half miles south of Placerville, on the north side of Weber Creek.

The Green claim was a chromite mine two miles southeast of Georgetown. It was active in 1918 when 17 tons of 51 percent chromite ore was produced. The chromite pods were developed by a 15-foot shaft and drifts.

One and one-half miles south of Volcanoville, near Otter Creek (east of Georgetown) was the Green mine. A chromite mine originally worked for gold, it was active in 1917-18 when more than 110 tons of chromite was produced and again in 1942 when 64 tons was produced. The deposit consisted of a chromite lens up to 7 feet wide and was developed by a 350-foot adit, 40-foot shaft, along with many raises and crosscuts.

The Greenhorn Dredging Company, from Auburn, operated a two cubic yard dragline dredge on the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River near Youngs (on Mt. Aukum Road, between Pleasant Valley and Somerset) from 1940-42. In 1947 they would move the dredge to the Barkley property.

The Green Mountain mine was a placer gold drift mine on the south side of Texas Hill, two and one-half miles southeast of Placerville. The Green Mountain channel, a tributary of the Tertiary South Fork of the American River was mined through a 1700-foot adit.

The Green Valley lode gold mine was located on 16.08 acres two miles west of Rescue.

At the town of Greenwood was a lode gold mine appropriately known as the Greenwood Mine. Intermittently active from 1937 – 40, it was a deposit of gold in quartz veins over an area some 200-feet in width. The ore was mined by the open pit method and then run through a ball mill (a rotating cylindrical mill containing large steel balls) and then processed by cyanidization. Other lode gold mines also with the name Greenwood were to the west and northwest of this one.

The Grey’s Flat placer and lode gold mine was located one mile south of Rescue.

One of the larger lode gold mines on the Mother Lode was the Griffith Consolidated, composed of eight claims (41.31 acres) located one-half mile south of Diamond Springs. Originally worked in the 1850s, it was actively worked from 1888-90 and in 1896 and 1903. The deposit was a five to 12-foot vein of gold bearing quartz nearly a mile in length that yielded from $4.25 to $8 per ton, although in a few areas it yielded as much as $65 per ton. It was developed by three shafts, 700, 253 and 150-feet in depth and numerous drifts. The ore, once removed, was treated in a five-stamp mill.

The Grit (Liddicoat, Spanish Dry Diggings) mine was located at Spanish Dry Diggings, four miles north of Greenwood, on the north end of the west branch of the Mother Lode. This mine was highly productive around 1852 and between 1860 and 1867, yielding $100,000 in gold. In August of 1865 a mass of crystallized gold weighing 101.4 Troy ounces was found on the property. It is called the Fricot “nugget” and was sent to France for the Paris Exposition in 1878. It is presently on display at the California State Mining and Mineral Museum at the county fairgrounds in Mariposa, CA. It is the largest remaining intact mass of crystalline gold from 19th century California.
From 1919 – 1922 the mine was active again, increasing the total value of gold recovered to $300,000. From 1945 – 52 an additional $34,000 was produced. In the early days of mining, the upper 125 – 150 feet of the deposit, which consists of three seams of gold bearing quartz, up to 20 feet wide, was decomposed enough to be mined by hydraulicking. The yield from this operation was from $2 to $3 per cubic yard of worked material. All of the mining since 1945 took place on the west vein which was developed by an 800-foot southeast drift adit. About 400 feet in from the adit portal, crosscuts were driven 70-feet west and 40-feet east. About 275 feet in from the adit portal the mine was stoped (mined upward, using gravity to drop the ore downward) for a distance of about 125 feet until the hydraulicked pit was reached. At the mill, the ore was crushed and milled and then concentrated. Concentrates were sold to the Empire-Star gold mine at Grass Valley.

The Griggs Ranch placer mine was located one-half mile southeast of Placerville.

The Grizzly Flat Deposit was a tungsten mine on Sturdevant Ridge three miles northwest of Grizzly Flat. The deposit, which was in three separate ownerships, was discovered about 1950 and consisted of discontinuous bodies of scheelite (a tungsten ore) in a zone about one mile long and up to 600 feet wide. There is no record of production from this deposit although in the mid-1950s one of the owners, the Sciaroni brothers (Americo and Columbus) were concentrating small amounts of ore a small pilot mill and stockpiling the concentrates.

The Grizzly Flat mine was a drift and hydraulic mine at Grizzly Flat, It was active in the 1880s, 1896 and 1914-20, when a ancient river channel on bedrock was first worked by hydraulicking and later by a 550-foot drift.

The Grizzly Gulch placer mine was located in Grizzly Gulch, a small tributary of Spanish Creek, about two miles northeast of Mt. Aukum.

The Gross Consolidated and Van Hooker and Gross lode gold mine was located on the Mother Lode, one mile north of Placerville. It consisted of mining operations at three locations: No. 1, No. 2 and Van Hooker.

The Grouse Gulch mine was a lode gold mine one and one-half miles west of Grizzly Flat. The deposit was a vein of gold bearing quartz in granite that ranged from one-half to five feet in width. It was developed by 100, 80 and 50-foot shafts, many drifts, and a 200-foot drain tunnel to remove groundwater.

The Grover placer mine was located on 40 acres on or near Spanish Creek, one mile south of Fair Play.

The Guildford (Poverty Point) mine was on the Mother Lode two miles north of Placerville. Another large mine, it was active from 1912-17, when more than $200,000 in gold was produced; intermittently active from 1920-25 and again from 1931-32. Mined were two parallel veins in slate, 200 and 400 feet long, averaging five feet in width. The ore averaged $4 to $5 per ton while the auriferous pyrite concentrate ranged from $40 to $88 per ton. The mine was developed by four drift adits, 500, 600, 700 and 1500 feet long. The mined ore was treated in a 15-stamp mill with Wilfley tables and Frue vanners (concentrators).

The Guadalupe lode gold mine was located on 20.61 acres of the Mother Lode, one and one-half miles north of Kelsey.

The Gutenberger Mine was an iron mine five miles east of Diamond Springs. Not much more than prospecting occurred at this mine, where the iron ore hematite was found.

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