Plumas Eureka State Park: A Beautiful Family Oriented Wilderness Destination

The Plumas Eureka State Park is one of the hidden gems of the California state park system. Few people seem to know about this beautiful family oriented destination, but it has much to offer to kids and adults alike. It is situated in a forested valley at the foot of Eureka Peak, site of the famous old Plumas Eureka gold mine. Wildlife and nature trails thread through the park, exploring the history of the locality, and fishing is available in the streams and lakes. About a mile above the Eureka mine and the park offices, there is a beautiful campground called upper Jamison Creek. It has 67 camp spots available most of which are both shady and beautiful. It is a fantastic place to experience the history of the California gold rush and a great base camp for exploring the Plumas County area in general. There is a fine, top quality restaurant located in the adjoining town of Johnsville, and several golf courses in the area. The California Parks Department has rebuilt many of the old buildings at the Eureka mine. The old miner’s boarding house has been converted into a museum and park offices. Both the natural history of the area as well as the past mining operations are displayed at a small museum located in the old boarding house. The blacksmith and old assay office have also been restored. The old Eureka mill is in the process of being restored and put back in the condition it was when the mine shut down. It is a very educational place to visit. The park allows panning for gold in Jamison Creek, although more significant operations like dredging, sluicing or high banking are not permitted. I have panned there myself and found some small gold flakes in the gravels of Jamison Creek, but nothing of any great size or richness. The story of the discovery of the mines in the area is an interesting one. During any great gold rush, tales of fantastic finds abound -- some are real and some are not. In the mother lode country of California in the fall of 1850, there were a lot of fantastic finds but probably the wildest tale of that time was the story of a lake surrounded with gold nuggets â€" the “Gold Lake”. A prospector named Tom Stoddart, supposedly discovered a lake paved round with gold nuggets in the high Sierra country between the Sierra Valley and Downieville. These lake gravels were supposed to yield an ounce to the pan full. He and his partner were lost at the time and the partner died in the struggle to get back to civilization. His story spread like wild fire. It was late in the year when he first straggled into town, and so the whole winter folks throughout the area waited and prepared to begin a spring time search for this great new discovery. When the winter snows melted, hundreds of prospectors took off in the hunt. No lake of gold was ever found, but many important new discoveries were made by the prospectors who set out into the high Sierra backcountry searching for that fabled gold lake. In that fateful spring of 1851, a few prospectors found some gold in a small stream that is now known as Jamison Creek. The placers were not especially rich, but still they paid wages and the prospectors kept looking for better deposits. They decided to send a few members of their party up a steep hillside they called Gold Mountain to see if they could get the lay of the land and figure out the best spots for gold deposits. As they climbed up the mountain, they found a huge quartz vein exposed on its slopes. The vein had an average width of 20 feet and cropped out for over 400 feet along it s length. It consisted of rose colored quartz with plenty of decomposed sulfide pockets and was rich in gold. It was called the Eureka Lode by the original nine discoverers. Several nearby gold veins were also staked by other prospectors. The early miners of the 1850s had a difficult time with hard rock mining even with those rich bonanza type ores, they had so little experience that they had a difficult time making the operations pay. In 1855, the company which owned the rich Eureka vein decided to invest some money and erected a 12 stamp mill, with each stamp weighing 800 pounds. The mill was driven by water power. For a number of years, the mines provided good ores and the little towns that grew up around the mines prospered. Between 1851 and 1865, the local mines yielded nearly $2 million in gold (67 million at today’s prices). During this time, the Eureka mine paid its shareholders over $250,000 in dividends. Although a rich new chimney of ore was discovered in 1868, by 1871, the rich ores had begun to become scarce, and the mines were not paying as well as they once did. Although the mines continued to produce into the 1890’s the town and area slowly declined as residents left the area. After World War II the region and all its mines were acquired by the state of California who made them into a state park. - A full description of the Plumas Eureka State park including photos of the area can be viewed at: nevada-outback-gems.com/prospect/Plumas_eureka/RichgoldatPlumasEureka.htm Basic information on Prospecting for gold, including how to get started, can be found at: nevada-outback-gems.com/basic_prospecting/Basic_placer.htm Chris Ralph writes on small scale mining and prospecting for the ICMJ Mining Journal. He has a degree in Mining Engineering from the Mackay School of Mines in Reno, and has worked for precious metal mining companies conducting both surface and underground operations. After working in the mining industry, he has continued his interest in mining as an individual prospector. He can be reached at P.O. Box 3104 Reno, Nevada 89505. His information page on prospecting for gold can be viewed at: nevada-outback-gems.com/prospect/chris_prospect.htm