Browns Valley (also, Brown's Valley) is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Yuba County, California Yuba County (; Maidu: ''Yubu'') is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 81,575. The county seat is Marysville. Yuba County is included in the Yuba City, California Metropolitan Statistical Ar ...

. Browns Valley is located northeast of Marysville and is near Collins Lake.

History

Before the establishment of the Browns Valley community, the land was the home to the Concow Maidu and the

Nisenan The Nisenan are a group of Native Americans and an Indigenous people of California from the Yuba River and American River watersheds in Northern California and the California Central Valley. The Nisenan people are classified as part of the large ...

people. In the fall of 1849, gold was found in the township of Long Bar and along the Yuba River, only three miles away from Browns Valley. The name of the community was in honor of a settler who arrived in 1850 and discovered gold here. In the early days of mining in this area, gold was extracted in many different ways including

hydraulic mining Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.Paul W. Thrush, ''A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms'', US Bureau of Mines, 1968, p.560. In the placer mining of ...

. The mines had to be continuous monitored because competition was high, and people would try to steal mining claims. Initially the area mined for gold, and when that ran out they mined

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

(which sometimes would encase the gold). The Chinese and Irish immigrants that came to the area for mining work, and also worked to build rock walls across many areas of Browns Valley. Browns Valley was the home of the

Sweet Vengeance Mine The Sweet Vengeance Mine was a gold mine in Browns Valley, California, discovered by African American miners during the Gold Rush. The mine was later owned and operated by a French company, which used one of the first stamp mills in California the ...

, founded by six African American men. Other African American mining operations in the community included the Rare Ripe Gold and Silver Mining Company (also known as the Rare Ripe Company); and the Horncut Mine. In 1868, the Rare Ripe Gold and Silver Mining Company incorporated, and had an office in Maryville. In 1863, Tensions grew over the land in this area between miners, ranchers, and Native Americans; and there was a forced removal of Native Americans to a reservation in Mendocino County. A post office was established at Browns Valley in 1864.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in California Populated places established in 1850 1850 establishments in California Unincorporated communities in Yuba County, California

History

See also

References