Mercuryville, California is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

in the

Mayacamas Mountains The Mayacamas Mountains are located in northwestern California in the United States. The mountain range is part of the Northern Inner Coast Ranges, of the California Coast Ranges System. Geography The Mayacamas Mountains are located south of the ...

of Sonoma County, California along

The Geysers The Geysers is the world's largest geothermal field, containing a complex of 18 geothermal power plants, drawing steam from more than 350 wells, located in the Mayacamas Mountains approximately north of San Francisco, California. Geysers produce ...

road.

History

Mercuryville was founded in 1874, after

cinnabar Cinnabar (), or cinnabarite (), from the grc, κιννάβαρι (), is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the bri ...

, a mercury-bearing ore, was discovered in eastern Sonoma County around 1870. Mercury is a dense liquid metal that can be used to separate gold from other less dense materials. The California Gold Rush, which had begun only 20 years earlier, increased the demand and price of mercury to $1 a pound—approximately $20 in 2018 dollars—making extracting the ore profitable, and prompting a short-lived mercury rush in the 1870s. When the price of ore dropped within a few years, most mines were quickly abandoned. In its heyday, the town had eight bars that were notorious for fights, and a single church. Mercury was also mined in other areas of Sonoma County at the time, including mines near Guerneville. As per the name of the town, mercury was its primary economic engine and there were several mines in the area. The nearby Socrates Mine, about 5 miles west of Mercuryville, produced mercury-bearing ores including:

, montroydite, edgarbaileyite, magnesite, and tiemannite. The mine also bore other minerals including

chalcedony Chalcedony ( , or ) is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, composed of very fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite. These are both silica minerals, but they differ in that quartz has a trigonal crystal structure, while moganite is monocli ...

opal Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silica (SiO2·''n''H2O); its water content may range from 3 to 21% by weight, but is usually between 6 and 10%. Due to its amorphous property, it is classified as a mineraloid, unlike crystalline form ...

, and

pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue giv ...

. The area has considerable geothermal resources, with active

fumaroles A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or other rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...

and hot springs. Located nearby is

the Geysers The Geysers is the world's largest geothermal field, containing a complex of 18 geothermal power plants, drawing steam from more than 350 wells, located in the Mayacamas Mountains approximately north of San Francisco, California. Geysers produce ...

, the world's largest geothermal energy generation facility that provides 725 megawatts of electricity; it produces enough electricity to power the city of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. By 1963 the settlement of Mercuryville had diminished in population to a population of two, and the town then consisted of a gas station/store that doubled as a home for an elderly couple. By this time the nearby Geysers resort was rundown with a main pool and a few smaller gender-segregated pools. By the mid-1960s the gas station had closed and Mercuryville had become a ghost town. One of the last remaining large mine buildings was burned in wildfires in the mid-1970s, although some concrete structures and metalwork from the mines remain.

References

{{commons category Ghost towns in California Sonoma County, California