I used to frequent a parcel of land that was thoroughly excavated during the CA Gold Rush. This chunk of yesteryear was my get-away lost world empire. Relatively few people roamed this piece of history in the 20th century, but I'm here to tell you that it's a wild and rugged landscape with many faces. The beauty of it is that it's bordered by the outskirts of the town of Columbia on one side, the Columbia Airport on another, and two roads. This acreage, along with the connecting acreage across Springfield road is supposed to be the location of the richest placer gold produced per acre (during the rush) of the entire motherlode. One only needs to hike this area to fully believe that claim.
My first visit to this place was in 1994, and I must have made several dozen visits there over the next 9 yrs. There was a cable stretched across a semi-overgrown road leading into the center of the area - a "field", and that's usually where I would enter. This field was made over the last century by the county hauling in fill to create a dumping place, and they covered up a lot of excavations. Here and there are piles of cobbles (tailings from the gold rush days) Nearly half of the cobbles are quartz rock with reddish or orangish hues blended with lots of white, and some sort of clearish. Most are dirty or covered with likens though. A hike to the left from the "field" winds past some holes in amongst the limestone boulders and through the brush to the "rock pile".
The rock pile is a pile of busted up limestone rock from boulders that were apparently drilled and blasted apart. About an acre of them piled up maybe 20 feet high in the center of the oblong pile. I suspect this was done during the great depression. Actually, there are several sites like this one, only smaller. The claims here were supposedly only 10 feet by 10 feet square, so there must have been a heck of a lot of miners in this area. Some of the holes are 15 to 20 feet deep with actual pathways at the bottom running around and under the boulders. Many of the boulders are as big as large houses, and water worn, as they were part of an ancient huge river bed.
The metal detecting here isn't too good, because of the amount of metal trash in the ground. The square nails are the worst. The whole area was set up with wooden water troughs during the rush, and they used tons of square nails and metal straps to hold them together. The sizes of the nails ranged from 1" to about 7", and I just happened to stumble onto where they kept their stash of nails for the area. Lucky me. Picture an area of about 10' x 20' where the ground is filled with intertwined square nails for a foot deep. Yea, I sampled the area just to see the extent of the nails and to see maybe what might be tossed in with them. Junk, and only junk.
I did turn up some old buckles, but only the old iron buckles that looked like harness buckles. I had visions of digging a few gold coins, but never did. However, while I was busy digging up square nails and junk, I had that feeling I was being watched, but nothing was in sight. An old silver tablespoon popped up, but it was silver plate and badly bent. On one occasion I stumbled onto a spot where some miner had run a sluice, and there were several mounds of black sand just laying there where they were dumped. I discovered them while kicking a clump of grass. Like a fool, I didn't take a sample, and never could find them again.
Part of the area was like a deserted and dead jungle. Spooky. Then I found an old original dump. Of course bottle hunters had torn it apart, leaving only shards of thick black glass from the old wine bottles and some old rusty punch plate used for classifying the gravels. The old tin cans the miners had were strange rectangular cans with heavily soldered seams. Found several of them with a detector, but had to search tough to get to spots to find anything. Right across from the dump was their "spa rock". A natural spa with a perfectly dished out area that would have accomodated several miners at a time. It also had an overhang making it like a grotto type spa.
Near the "spa rock" was a small boulder maybe 3 feet long and 2 feet wide that had a name and date carved into the top. The date was 1861, and I don't remember the name. I found the name and date when I pushed about a foot of rotted pine needles off the rock to sit there and eat lunch one day. There was another spot that had 2 or 3 names and dates carved into the side of a cliff-like area that had been mined from the surface on down at least 25 feet, and they had obviously carved their names in there when they began digging. I couldn't make out the names and dates from down below, but it was obvious what they were. Not far from there I found several chunks of milk white quartz that the 49ers dug up and tossed on their tailing piles. This quartz was in the form of thick sheets like it had been poured molten on flat ground. It was about 1 1/2" thick. The largest piece was about a foot wide by nearly 2 feet long.
I stumbled onto a hole in some boulders that ultimately leads down into a corridor running both directions from the bottom. It's about 20 feet down at a steep angle to the corridor, and the floor of the corridor had obviously been well used. I never did get the nerve up to slither down into the bottom and check it out. It was definitely excavated by the miners, but who knows what might dwell down there now? It would be slow going climbing back out, so I just didn't feel it was worth the risk. And then there is the monster boulder field. Must be 20 acres of nothing but rounded top boulders with deep excavations between them. These boulders must weigh like 50 to 100 tons each. It's fun to hop from one to the other if you're up to it, and by picking and choosing you can actually make it all the way across the lot with only a few crawl down and up spots.
Near the road going into the airport, there's a large boulder that you can walk down under (if you duck your head), and look up underneath it to see the actual white pick marks which appear to have been made very recently, but were actually made by the 49ers when they excavated the area. You see, this whole area was under 6 or more feet of reddish dirt that had to excavated or rather hydraulicked away. I did find an old water pail with a spout on one visit. It was up under a boulder in a spot that never got wet. It would have been a perfect spot for a sleeping bag.There was soft sand there, so I dug 2 or more feet of the soft dry sand out, and there was the water pail that had been made very crudely and soldered together right down the middle. The bottom was blacksmithed together. Strange.
On my last visit I decided to try the trail nearest Parrot's Ferry road, and all went well on the hike in except for some little ankle biter dog barking at me from down in the brush somewhere nearby. The dog sounded like it had a cold or maybe a sore throat with a cough. It followed along as I hiked back to a huge couple of boulders, and the trail then makes a 90 degree left and drops off into a strange swampy like area. The rest of the day went fine with very little to show for my efforts except for an old key and some fine gold gleaned from using a small pan carried in my backpack. I felt like I was being watched again several times during my trek, but again, nothing in sight. On the way out however, I was in for a treat.
As I made the turn after the 2 boulders to head straight on out the trail to Springfield road, I had company. At first, it was just an eerie feeling like I was being followed. Then the hackles on the back of my neck kicked into gear, and I turned around just in time to see a long tail disappear behind a bush. Oh no, not another lion! I turned back around and started walking again, and chills went up and down my spine along with the hackles bit. I turned around again, and there it was, quickly leaping behind some brush along the trail, but it was closing on me fast! I really wanted to see my jimmy wagon bad, but I wasn't sure just how much farther to the road. Now I was getting scared, 'cause I knew the Lobo S/T wouln't even scare it.
I turned around and started walking backwards, and that must have puzzled the big cat, which bought me just enough time to get to the point where I could see the road up ahead through the little openings in the vegetation when I turned back around. At that point I walked with long steps, trying not to look like I was fleeing from the beast. I was a happy camper when I reached the road safely, and lost no time getting to the 4x4 wagon and safety. That was My last excursion into that wonderful place. I just heard from My friend who still lives in Columbia that someone built a fancy new house right in the middle of the big field, and the cable gave way to a gate. Oh well, hope they keep their pets indoors.
BTW, this area was never mined all the way down to bedrock everywhere, because of the water table. However, a tunnel was run over to it from the hwy 49 area near Mormon Creek to drain it, and everyone raised heck because all of their wells went dry. That ended that idea. Those remaining huge nuggets will just have to stay put.
HH, Terry B
My first visit to this place was in 1994, and I must have made several dozen visits there over the next 9 yrs. There was a cable stretched across a semi-overgrown road leading into the center of the area - a "field", and that's usually where I would enter. This field was made over the last century by the county hauling in fill to create a dumping place, and they covered up a lot of excavations. Here and there are piles of cobbles (tailings from the gold rush days) Nearly half of the cobbles are quartz rock with reddish or orangish hues blended with lots of white, and some sort of clearish. Most are dirty or covered with likens though. A hike to the left from the "field" winds past some holes in amongst the limestone boulders and through the brush to the "rock pile".
The rock pile is a pile of busted up limestone rock from boulders that were apparently drilled and blasted apart. About an acre of them piled up maybe 20 feet high in the center of the oblong pile. I suspect this was done during the great depression. Actually, there are several sites like this one, only smaller. The claims here were supposedly only 10 feet by 10 feet square, so there must have been a heck of a lot of miners in this area. Some of the holes are 15 to 20 feet deep with actual pathways at the bottom running around and under the boulders. Many of the boulders are as big as large houses, and water worn, as they were part of an ancient huge river bed.
The metal detecting here isn't too good, because of the amount of metal trash in the ground. The square nails are the worst. The whole area was set up with wooden water troughs during the rush, and they used tons of square nails and metal straps to hold them together. The sizes of the nails ranged from 1" to about 7", and I just happened to stumble onto where they kept their stash of nails for the area. Lucky me. Picture an area of about 10' x 20' where the ground is filled with intertwined square nails for a foot deep. Yea, I sampled the area just to see the extent of the nails and to see maybe what might be tossed in with them. Junk, and only junk.
I did turn up some old buckles, but only the old iron buckles that looked like harness buckles. I had visions of digging a few gold coins, but never did. However, while I was busy digging up square nails and junk, I had that feeling I was being watched, but nothing was in sight. An old silver tablespoon popped up, but it was silver plate and badly bent. On one occasion I stumbled onto a spot where some miner had run a sluice, and there were several mounds of black sand just laying there where they were dumped. I discovered them while kicking a clump of grass. Like a fool, I didn't take a sample, and never could find them again.
Part of the area was like a deserted and dead jungle. Spooky. Then I found an old original dump. Of course bottle hunters had torn it apart, leaving only shards of thick black glass from the old wine bottles and some old rusty punch plate used for classifying the gravels. The old tin cans the miners had were strange rectangular cans with heavily soldered seams. Found several of them with a detector, but had to search tough to get to spots to find anything. Right across from the dump was their "spa rock". A natural spa with a perfectly dished out area that would have accomodated several miners at a time. It also had an overhang making it like a grotto type spa.
Near the "spa rock" was a small boulder maybe 3 feet long and 2 feet wide that had a name and date carved into the top. The date was 1861, and I don't remember the name. I found the name and date when I pushed about a foot of rotted pine needles off the rock to sit there and eat lunch one day. There was another spot that had 2 or 3 names and dates carved into the side of a cliff-like area that had been mined from the surface on down at least 25 feet, and they had obviously carved their names in there when they began digging. I couldn't make out the names and dates from down below, but it was obvious what they were. Not far from there I found several chunks of milk white quartz that the 49ers dug up and tossed on their tailing piles. This quartz was in the form of thick sheets like it had been poured molten on flat ground. It was about 1 1/2" thick. The largest piece was about a foot wide by nearly 2 feet long.
I stumbled onto a hole in some boulders that ultimately leads down into a corridor running both directions from the bottom. It's about 20 feet down at a steep angle to the corridor, and the floor of the corridor had obviously been well used. I never did get the nerve up to slither down into the bottom and check it out. It was definitely excavated by the miners, but who knows what might dwell down there now? It would be slow going climbing back out, so I just didn't feel it was worth the risk. And then there is the monster boulder field. Must be 20 acres of nothing but rounded top boulders with deep excavations between them. These boulders must weigh like 50 to 100 tons each. It's fun to hop from one to the other if you're up to it, and by picking and choosing you can actually make it all the way across the lot with only a few crawl down and up spots.
Near the road going into the airport, there's a large boulder that you can walk down under (if you duck your head), and look up underneath it to see the actual white pick marks which appear to have been made very recently, but were actually made by the 49ers when they excavated the area. You see, this whole area was under 6 or more feet of reddish dirt that had to excavated or rather hydraulicked away. I did find an old water pail with a spout on one visit. It was up under a boulder in a spot that never got wet. It would have been a perfect spot for a sleeping bag.There was soft sand there, so I dug 2 or more feet of the soft dry sand out, and there was the water pail that had been made very crudely and soldered together right down the middle. The bottom was blacksmithed together. Strange.
On my last visit I decided to try the trail nearest Parrot's Ferry road, and all went well on the hike in except for some little ankle biter dog barking at me from down in the brush somewhere nearby. The dog sounded like it had a cold or maybe a sore throat with a cough. It followed along as I hiked back to a huge couple of boulders, and the trail then makes a 90 degree left and drops off into a strange swampy like area. The rest of the day went fine with very little to show for my efforts except for an old key and some fine gold gleaned from using a small pan carried in my backpack. I felt like I was being watched again several times during my trek, but again, nothing in sight. On the way out however, I was in for a treat.
As I made the turn after the 2 boulders to head straight on out the trail to Springfield road, I had company. At first, it was just an eerie feeling like I was being followed. Then the hackles on the back of my neck kicked into gear, and I turned around just in time to see a long tail disappear behind a bush. Oh no, not another lion! I turned back around and started walking again, and chills went up and down my spine along with the hackles bit. I turned around again, and there it was, quickly leaping behind some brush along the trail, but it was closing on me fast! I really wanted to see my jimmy wagon bad, but I wasn't sure just how much farther to the road. Now I was getting scared, 'cause I knew the Lobo S/T wouln't even scare it.
I turned around and started walking backwards, and that must have puzzled the big cat, which bought me just enough time to get to the point where I could see the road up ahead through the little openings in the vegetation when I turned back around. At that point I walked with long steps, trying not to look like I was fleeing from the beast. I was a happy camper when I reached the road safely, and lost no time getting to the 4x4 wagon and safety. That was My last excursion into that wonderful place. I just heard from My friend who still lives in Columbia that someone built a fancy new house right in the middle of the big field, and the cable gave way to a gate. Oh well, hope they keep their pets indoors.
BTW, this area was never mined all the way down to bedrock everywhere, because of the water table. However, a tunnel was run over to it from the hwy 49 area near Mormon Creek to drain it, and everyone raised heck because all of their wells went dry. That ended that idea. Those remaining huge nuggets will just have to stay put.
HH, Terry B
