Known around the world for its gold and rich history, from the 72 pound nugget found in the 1800’s to the 200 plus pounds of crystalline gold found across from our claim at the Harvard Mine. Part of this gold history can be seen at Ironstone Heritage Museum/ Vineyard in Murphys. There on display is a 43 pound chunk of the gold that was found in 1989.
Woods Creek is marked in the history books for its gold and its famous characters. Grizzly Adams was known to have a saloon just down the creek where he and his bear lived. Until they were run out of town. The famous P.T. Barnum stopped over for a visit when his brother needed a little help. Others such as Mark Twain, James Woods, Benjamin Woods, Charles Bassett and James Savage are just a few of the other famous explorers and miner’s names of mention.
Gold was found here by the Woods group in or around 1847. Led by James Woods. These men encountered grizzly bears, mountain lions, rattle snakes and severe weather. Back then there were no roads to travel or stores to buy your goods. Upon finding Woods Creek, these men would find this creek the richest and most abundant in gold out of the other creeks for size in the Mother lode. A man could walk the creek and pry gold flakes and nuggets out of the bedrock on his way back to camp.
On our claim we have recent found a few nice pockets of gold, some containing hundreds of dollars worth of gold, although rare to find such pockets, we still get lucky now and again. The 20198 storms have brought down a good amount of flood gold, and opened areas to work that were covered by brush, trees, and rock in prior years. We have found veins containing lode gold in the past. These are typically under water and hard to work. As we work more of the land, we hope to find a few more of theses above water.
4 years ago there was a young girl of 16 years old. She was working one of our dig holes with a shovel and pulled out a 1/2 ounce nugget. Last fall a group of men were highbanking with us, and washed off a piece of quartz containing three chunks of gold. In the last 2 months, we have pulled over 3 ounces of gold from new areas that the floods opened up within the creek bed.
Last spring we found a few 1/2 to 1 pennyweight pieces of gold embedded in quartz. The gold here is sometimes rough with sharp edges or smooth and rounded. Some of the gold comes from the hard rock mine, just up the creek. This is also a great claim to find gems and semiprecious gems such as: jasper, agate, petrified wood, chalcedony, chert quartz crystals and more.
Across from our claim is the historic Harvard Mine, where millions of dollars of gold had been pu lied from the mother lode vein. Just behind the mind is Tuolumne Table Mountain. This mountain was created millions of years ago during the Tertiary Period when the local volcanoes erupted and filled an ancient river with lava. Many have burrowed under the mountain in search of its ancient deposits. Some got rich while some just made enough to eat. Many interesting artifacts have been found under this mountain, a man’s skull, arrowheads, leaf fossils, and animal bones are just a few of the interesting things deposited u under this mountain.
Woods Creek is marked in the history books for its gold and its famous characters. Grizzly Adams was known to have a saloon just down the creek where he and his bear lived. Until they were run out of town. The famous P.T. Barnum stopped over for a visit when his brother needed a little help. Others such as Mark Twain, James Woods, Benjamin Woods, Charles Bassett and James Savage are just a few of the other famous explorers and miner’s names of mention.
Gold was found here by the Woods group in or around 1847. Led by James Woods. These men encountered grizzly bears, mountain lions, rattle snakes and severe weather. Back then there were no roads to travel or stores to buy your goods. Upon finding Woods Creek, these men would find this creek the richest and most abundant in gold out of the other creeks for size in the Mother lode. A man could walk the creek and pry gold flakes and nuggets out of the bedrock on his way back to camp.
On our claim we have recent found a few nice pockets of gold, some containing hundreds of dollars worth of gold, although rare to find such pockets, we still get lucky now and again. The 20198 storms have brought down a good amount of flood gold, and opened areas to work that were covered by brush, trees, and rock in prior years. We have found veins containing lode gold in the past. These are typically under water and hard to work. As we work more of the land, we hope to find a few more of theses above water.
4 years ago there was a young girl of 16 years old. She was working one of our dig holes with a shovel and pulled out a 1/2 ounce nugget. Last fall a group of men were highbanking with us, and washed off a piece of quartz containing three chunks of gold. In the last 2 months, we have pulled over 3 ounces of gold from new areas that the floods opened up within the creek bed.
Last spring we found a few 1/2 to 1 pennyweight pieces of gold embedded in quartz. The gold here is sometimes rough with sharp edges or smooth and rounded. Some of the gold comes from the hard rock mine, just up the creek. This is also a great claim to find gems and semiprecious gems such as: jasper, agate, petrified wood, chalcedony, chert quartz crystals and more.
Across from our claim is the historic Harvard Mine, where millions of dollars of gold had been pu lied from the mother lode vein. Just behind the mind is Tuolumne Table Mountain. This mountain was created millions of years ago during the Tertiary Period when the local volcanoes erupted and filled an ancient river with lava. Many have burrowed under the mountain in search of its ancient deposits. Some got rich while some just made enough to eat. Many interesting artifacts have been found under this mountain, a man’s skull, arrowheads, leaf fossils, and animal bones are just a few of the interesting things deposited u under this mountain.