Gold Hill in

Grass Valley, California Grass Valley is a city in Nevada County, California, United States. Situated at roughly in elevation in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, this northern Gold Country city is by car from Sacramento, from Sacramento I ...

, was the site of one of the first discoveries of quartz gold in California. While quartz gold was also found in other areas of

Nevada County, California Nevada County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California, in the Sierra Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 102,241. The county seat is Nevada City. Nevada County comprises the Truckee-Grass Valley, CA Micropolitan ...

during the same time, it is this find near Wolf Creek that led to quartz-mining frenzy and subsequent creation of the

Gold Country The Gold Country (also known as Mother Lode Country) is a historic region in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, that is primarily on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines ...

quartz-

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

industry. The location is honored as a

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meeting at least one of ...

History

George Knight (sometimes known as McKnight) was a

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

miner. In October 1850, he was on a Grass Valley hillside when he came across an outcropping of white

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 ...

rock laced with yellow. He pounded the rock with a

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

skillet and hammer, then washed out the gold. Searching for more gold in the same spot, he dug down into the outcropping and found a gold vein. His find was announced by another miner, George Crandall (1825–1908), who ran down to Boston Ravine, a small settlement nearby, with the news. Knight named the location Gold Hill and his claim became the Gold Hill Mine. He and friends constructed a crude

stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operatio ...

made out of the local forest's pine tree logs and equipped it with metal boots. The contraption was propelled by Wolf Creek's rushing water. Gold-130327

By March 1851, there were 150 buildings in the area, including hotels, saloons, stores, and even the first school. Before the end of the year, thousands of people had moved to Grass Valley and neighboring

Nevada City, California Nevada City (originally, ''Ustumah'', a Nisenan village; later, Nevada, Deer Creek Dry Diggins, and Caldwell's Upper Store) is the county seat of Nevada County, California, United States, northeast of Sacramento, southwest of Reno and northea ...

. A fire struck Grass Valley on September 13, 1855, destroying the entire town of over 300 wooden buildings, but it was soon rebuilt with safer materials. While Gold Hill Mine produced $4,000,000 between 1850–1857, it "pinched out" by 1864 and closed. A 1940 geological survey of the Gold Hill Quartz Mine reported the host rock to be

Diabase Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-graine ...

and

Granodiorite Granodiorite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar. The term banatite is sometimes used informally for various rocks ranging from gra ...

and the mineral list showed gold,

pyrite The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Iron, FeSulfur, S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic Luster (mineralogy), lust ...

, and quartz.

Historical landmark

The site is honored as

number 297. The plaque, located on the southwest corner of Jenkins Street and Hocking Avenue in Grass Valley reads:

References

External links

Photo of landmark

Pencil drawing of the mine's entrance, ca. 1852
{{California history California Gold Rush Geography of Nevada County, California History of gold mining 1850 in the United States Grass Valley, California History of Nevada County, California 1850 in California

History

Historical landmark

See also

References

External links