Volume 5, Chapter 4
Volume Overview: I always lay out a proposed route for each journey before leaving my home base in Billings, Montana. Part of the fun is the months of research and planning prior to departure. This spring’s trip is a bit abbreviated, but the plan is to dash west from Billings to Portland, Oregon, for some business; head down the west side of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada to Yosemite National Park in California; cross the mountains heading east to Reno/Sparks, Nevada; trek through the northern deserts of Nevada up to Twin Falls, Idaho; explore the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming; and then head back to Billings through Yellowstone National Park and Cody, Wyoming. Let’s get rolling!
Marysville, CA to Grass Valley, CA (Hwy 20)
The journal resumes with the Lunch Box heading east on Hwy 20 from Marysville to Grass Valley, where we will stay for a couple of days. Only about 35 miles, this stretch of road is a quick lesson in the change in topography and vegetation as the elevation of the land leading to the peaks of the sierra Nevada rises. Marysville is on the valley floor, surrounded by rolling grasslands with trees clustered along rivers and creeks. Heading east the land quickly changes, becoming much more heavily forested (primarily with oak trees) and the hills taller and more frequent. The view to the eastern horizon catches the tops of countless ridges, hiding the narrow valleys and glens beneath a blanket of green. Closer to Grass Valley the country becomes much more rugged and forested, not because the hills are that much higher, but because the foothills of the Sierra Nevada are 90% hills and 10% flat land. The highway takes on the characteristics of a roller coaster, up, down, around as we enter Grass Valley, nestled in a narrow valley in the hills (narrow as in maybe a mile across!) Five miles further up the highway is Nevada City, widely advertised as the best preserved gold town in California, and our destination.
Nevada City
Gold was found in the narrow canyon formed by Deer Creek in 1849 and the town of Nevada City quickly grew up the hillside to the north overlooking the diggings, and became the most important mining town in the state by 1851. The floor of the canyon today is virtually covered by four lane Hwy 20, everything else is up! As with many of the first gold towns, the gold petered out and by the late 1850’s the miners had moved on. Being off the beaten path, the old buildings of Nevada City were, for the most part, continually occupied for the next 100 years and in 1985 the entire downtown area was named a National Historic District. The streets of the town are VERY narrow (not built for motorhomes, even one as nimble as the Lunch Box) but fortunately there was a public parking lot across the highway where I parked and then walked the downtown area. This, too, was not without misfortune, as I backed into a tree in the process. Luckily all that was damaged was a dent to the ladder on the back of the Lunch Box (and my pride, of course. I pouted for some time…) Just across the highway the downtown area immediately starts up the hill with the striking National Hotel on the corner. Consisting of four buildings originally built in the period from 1854-1857, this is California’s oldest continuing operating hotel.
Here are views looking up and down the main street.
The oldest business buildings in Nevada City are the South Yuba Canal Company (1855) and Ott’s Assay Office (1857). The Transcript Printing Office was built in 1862.
The Nevada Theatre building, built in 1865, is the oldest original theater building in California. Mark Twain and Jack London are two of the many historical figures to have graced its’ stage.
Fire House 1 and Fire House 2 were both built in 1861, Fire House 1 (in white on the left picture) at the bottom of the hill and Fire House 2 (in red brick in the right picture) farther up the slope.
The residential areas really were too difficult to drive around in, but I did catch a couple pictures of houses (many are now bed &breakfast inns) close to the downtown area.
Given that Nevada City is about an hour and a half from the Sacramento area, tourism is now the basis of the local economy, with the downtown area of shops, restaurants and galleries surrounded by hillsides of small inns and bed and breakfast inns. Grass Valley, itself a remnant of gold rush days, is the closest center of business for the locals, with all or the necessary businesses for day to day living (gas stations, grocery stores, etc.) At first glance, it’s a bit surprising that two cities should be established so close to each other (barely 5 miles apart), but remember the lay of the land. To get from Grass Valley to Nevada City one has to climb up out of one narrow canyon and down into another. In the days of oxen and wagons, it would easily have taken a day of rough travelling…
Grass Valley
Given my troubles in driving around Nevada City, I really didn’t attempt to get into the small are of downtown Grass Valley. A shiny new Safeway was my destination on the outskirts of town, otherwise the main attraction (and truly historically the MAIN attraction) is Empire Mine Historic State Park, nestled on a hill just above the downtown canyon.
There are two types of gold mines in the California story: placer mining, where the gold is found close to the surface in creek beds and sifted out from the mud; and hard rock mining, where the gold is encased in quartz and other rocks deep within the earth and is found by tunneling underground. The amount of gold retrieved by hard rock mining vastly outweighed the more easily found placer deposits, and were also much longer lasting. In 1850, while prospecting in the rugged foothills just east of John Sutter’s settlement at what is now Sacramento, George Roberts discovered gold in a quartz outcropping sticking out of the ground on a hillside. The claim was sold to a succession of owners during the next couple of years and the quartz vein was worked down to a depth of about 1200 feet before it started to become too difficult to mine. The constant seepage of ground water into the mine shaft hampered development. George Bourne assumed ownership in 1869 and began to import workers from Cornwall in western England to work the mines. Utilizing skills developed in working the tin mines of Cornwall, these experts in hard rock mining also brought with them the technology of the Cornish Engine, a steam engine that could pump out up to 18,000 gallons of water a day. The mine was worked until its’ closing in 1956. Over the 106 years that the mine was in operation it produced over six million troy ounces of gold, making it the single richest mine in California history.
The first thing that struck me was the relatively small size of the surface of the mine operations area. While the state park containing the mine is about 867 acres, the actual operations area is barely two acres. Set in the middle of a lush forest on a hillside barely a mile from the center of Grass Valley, the owner of the mine, George Bourne, actually lived right next to the mine, yet it seems miles away. However, when the mine was actually operating it must have been incredibly noisy. Mr. Bourne not only built a home for himself, but also a clubhouse for management. The clubhouse is still used by locals as an event site. After entering through the visitor center to the right is the lush greenery surrounding the Bourne house and the clubhouse. The Bourne cottage was built as a retreat and place for him to stay when visiting the mine. His main residence was a mansion in the Napa Valley.
The clubhouse, located near the cottage, contained a bowling alley, tennis courts, restaurant and dance floor, all for the benefit of mine management.
About 500 feet east of the clubhouse is the work yard and stamping mill. The two pictures below encompass the entire work yard, taken from opposite corners of the yard. The first picture shows the south and east sides of the yard. The foundation of the stamping mill is to the right, the large building in the center housed the entrance to the mine shaft.
The opposite view from standing outside the mine shaft building looking north and west shows the administration buildings across the yard.
A closer view of the east end of the mine shaft building shows the miners’ “Highway to Work” reaching to the sky, a skid system that they rode down into the shaft. The deck at the top of the system has been removed for safety reasons.
Directly to the right of the outside part of the skid system, inside the building, is the mine shaft. Here’s the view looking down into the bowels of the mine. At its’ peak in 1956 the mine reached more than 11,000 feet down into the ground. Remember, this view is looking DOWN…
The remains of the large stamping mill lie just to the right of the mine shaft building. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 80 stamps pounded the rock that came out of the mine to crush it and prepare the crushed rock for a chemical process that extracted the actual gold. The sound of the stamping machines crushing rock could be heard all over the valley and on the rare occasion when the sound stopped, residents were instantly concerned that something had happened up at the mine.
The company maintained a top secret model of the mine, utilizing colored wire to indicate mineshafts and the relative richness of each shaft. It is very impressive in person and hard to photograph. The gray metal structure is just the support for the model, the colored wires are the actual mine shafts.
Here’s a close-up of one corner of the model. Remember. the colored wires represent the actual mine shafts.
Really an impressive feat of engineering. When the mine closed in 1956, the pumps were turned off and now the mine has filled with water all the way up to the normal water level for the area. The same architect who designed the cottage designed the outbuildings for the offices and shops. As you drive up to the mine, this is the view from the parking lot. These are the same administrative buildings that you’ve seen in the previous picture from inside the mine yard.
