Our final area for exploring this summer is Nevada City, California, a historic mining town. Paul has wanted to visit here, so it was a good chance to knock it off our bucket list.
We spent one day visiting Empire Mine State Historic Park. The Empire mine was one of the richest gold mines in California, and was in operation for over 100 years, shutting down in 1956. In 1975 the mine property was bought by the state of California, and turned into a state park.
During it’s heyday, a special room was constructed, called the “Secret Room”. Appropriately, not many people knew about the room while the mine was in operation. In it was a 3D model of the underground workings of the mine, which covered more than 5 square miles.
It’s very difficult to get a picture that captures the intricacies of the model, but it was very interesting to learn that visitors who tour the mine nowadays only descend one inch down on the model, and each inch represents 80 ft. Everything below the 2 inch mark is under water now.
This area favored hydraulic mining, where a high pressure cannon essentially spewed water at huge banks of gravel, breaking it apart so the gold could be more easily separated from the rock. Unfortunately this created a huge debris field that traveled downstream, clogging rivers and streams and changing the path of the water. Farms suffered to the point that lawsuits were filed, and essentially a cease and desist order was given by the courts, mostly ending hydraulic mining.
The other park we explored while in the area was Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park. Like many mining towns, during the gold rush, there were many buildings here, including 8 saloons, two churches, a school, and daily stage coach service. Like the Empire mine, the debris created by mining in this area caused the shut down of hydraulic mining.
Once we left Nevada City, we worked our way south through California, stopping several times along the way. One of the stops was Sacramento, where we attended Paul’s 50th high school reunion, and met up with his friend Robin and his partner Kim, and had a great time celebrating.
Robin and Paul were Eagle Scouts together back when they were teens. (More on Kim and Robin in a future post).
Leaving Sacramento we headed through the Fresno area, meeting up with Paul’s fraternity brothers, as usual.
Our final stop for visiting was Los Angeles, where we spent a day or so with our daughter before moving on. She is getting married in March of 2025 so, I have been shopping for “outfits” all along the western coast.
Once we got back to Lake Havasu, we had very little time to relax before preparing for our next adventure.
