The Travelers Two: Gold 'n Ghost Towns

Traveling down U.S. Highway 12 we pass within a few miles of Pierce, Idaho.

In 1860, a man by the name of Pierce snuck onto Nez Perce land (given to them by treaty - well, it was theirs to begin with - but you know what I mean...) in what is now northern Idaho and discovered GOLD on Orofino Creek! He hustled on down here to Walla Walla, rounded up his buddies and went back onto the Reservation to establish the town of -- what else? -- Pierce.

This started the largest gold rush in the northwest. If you look at a map of what is now Idaho, and you locate all the gold mining interests, you'll see that they are literally spotted over the entire state. Fun sounding places like the Lost Ranger Mine and Rabbit's Foot Mine and the Lost Turtle Mine are out there. But, really now, how "fun" could those places be if, as I said in my last blog post, that Idaho is such a rugged place, even in the 21st century, that there are no paved roads through to many (most?) of these places.

There are, as a result of the "boom and bust" nature of gold rushes of the 1800's, as many ghost towns as there were mining locales: Bay Horse, Birch Creek, Cinnibar, Three Creek, Silver City... Now, a mountain biker may find these places on a dream vacation - but ain't no way Granpa and I are gonna get a bicycle and pedal our way around Idaho. (Tho' I DID dream the other night - for the second time since coming to Walla Walla - that we did rent bicycles... and the second time, well, I bought a lottery ticket!! Our family will fall out of their chairs when they read that! It was just a dream, kids.)

So, anyway, placer mining around Boise Basin began in 1862 and produced over 90 tons of gold making it the leading district, followed by the French Creek district at 31 tons. Lode deposit mining around Silver City comes in at 31 tons, too. I was surprised (I'm often surprised :-) to find that there has even been over 14 tons of gold produced as a byproduct of silver mining! Must be a bummer to discover gold and silver!! That was in Coeur d'Alene in Shoshone County, Idaho.

Let's see. 31 tons @ 2,000 # per ton = 62,000 pounds x 16 ounces to the pound. That's 992,000 ounces. At today's price for gold ($1,614.70 an ounce) that's only $1,601,782,400 or just over 1 1/2 billion dollars since 1862-ish. Over 150 years that averages out to about $10,678,550 a year. I'd like to make $10 million a year... That'd work!

Probably the only Idaho gold mines still producing are the Silver Strand and the Bond.

You might remember from our earlier blog in November of last year, that the first gold that caused a stir in the U.S. was back in 1799 on the Reed Farm in North Carolina. Gold was discovered earlier than that (in 1782 in Virginia), but it wasn't "produced" from that find. (I'm thinking the Native American Indians must have known about what we call gold, but they must not have been very impressed with it because we don't find references to it as we do with the Aztec. Wonder shy?)

Since they began recording gold production in the U.S., you can see how production has sky-rocketed in the last few years. (Mining Engineer, May 2007) That has to do with the increasing value of gold and the mechanics of getting at it nowadays.