The Engels Copper Mine was located in

Plumas County, California Plumas County () is a county in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,790. The county seat is Quincy, and the only incorporated city is Portola. The largest community in the county is ...

at the north end of the Plumas Copper Belt. The Engels mine was named after Henry A. Engels, who settled the area in the 1880s and began to mine copper. In 1901 the Engels Copper Mining Company was founded. In 1911 the company built a

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including Silver mining#Ore processing, silver, iron-making, iron, copper extracti ...

at China Gulch but was soon prohibited by the

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

which had stewardship over the land that was within the Plumas National Forest. Copper ore was hauled over road to Keddie where the ore was loaded into Western Pacific Railroad freight cars and transported to the ASARCO smelter at

Garfield, Utah Salt Lake County is located in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 1,185,238, making it the most populous county in Utah. Its county seat and largest city is Salt Lake City, the state capital. The ...

. Road transport was replaced by rail in 1917 when the Indian Valley Railroad opened.

Townsite

In 1918 the townsite of Engelmine, or Engel, was laid out and gridded near Lower Camp. The townsite peaked in the 1920s when it reached a population of 1,200 people. In 1930 the Engels mine was closed due to the declining value of copper. However, the Indian Valley Railroad continued to operate to serve the town and residents until 1938, when the railroad and town were dismantled. The houses were moved to Greenville, Quincy and

Portola Portola may refer to: * ''Portola'' (album), a 1998 album by Rose Melberg * Portola, California * Portola, San Francisco, California People with the surname * Gaspar de Portolá (ca. 1717-aft.1784), Spanish soldier, first governor of the Californi ...

and the last cabin was removed in the 1960s.

References

External links

California Engels Mining Company
{{coord, 40.2027, -120.7741, type:landmark_region:US-CA, display=title Copper mines in California History of Plumas County, California