Over the last few blogs I have mentioned several times our 14 years of living in the wilderness southeast of Julian, California, USA. It was such an interesting time in our lives that I think you might be interested in some of our adventures.
My father-in-law was a gold miner, since the 1920's, in the mountains of the Chariot Canyon Truck Trail in the outback-mountains of Julian. He had over 20 active mines that he had extracted enough gold from to raise a family of five boys. During our time-frame, 1986-2000, dad (George Herrington, Sr.) was still actively mining. He had built a millhouse that hung over the edge of the canyon and was refining enough gold to have financial backers putting up hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment and new outbuildings, workmen and salesmen.
Only one of dad's sons was interested in the gold mine, and that was my husband, Bruce Sr. Bruce had been raised on the gold mines-dad had a huge house on one of the mining claims-and gone to school in Julian. He loved the San Diego back-country and had always dreamed of working in the mines one day, but he had four children to raise and thought he would never have that opportunity.
When Bruce and I had been together for about four years, dad asked us to come up to the mine and have a talk with him. He offered to teach us how to stake-out and set up a mining claim and a millsite. You dug for gold ore on the mining claim; it was hard-rock mining, and you used a millsite to put up your cabin and outbuildings for refining the ore. Once you have gone to the trouble and expense of setting up your claims and brought in equipment to do the mining, etc. you need to stay at the mine 24/7 so that claim jumpers don't try to take over your claim and so that the general public doesn't walk away with the "old" mining equipment.
To stake out a mining claim is a fairly straight-forward job. You first go to the County Recorders to see who has mining claims and where they are located; and if they are up-to-date on their paperwork. You can also get this information from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). You will be looking for a claim on BLM land as that is the only land that is freely available for mining operations. You then go out scouting a likely area, that is you walk hundreds of miles poring down at the ground and looking at the sides of mountains for outcroppings of quartz. Gold is found in quartz; but not in all quartz-you are looking for "lucky quartz", if you get my meaning. Walking the mountain-sides and canyons of the Julian back-country is treacherous. There are rattlesnakes-lots of them-bobcats, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and tarantulas. Every insect imaginable-all biting it seems-bats and moths at night, skunks, racoons, deer, squirrels-rabies wide spread. The ground under your feet is either going straight up, or you are sliding downhill on tiny loose rocks. There is poison ivy, stinging nettles, and cat's claw, and to top everything off, the weather is either over 100 degrees or 7 degrees below zero.
But dad had pointed out to us places that he had prospected out before and had found gold-bearing quartz. He had the maps of all of the claims in the Chariot Canyon and so he showed us-on the maps-just where we needed to stake out our claims. So taking a compass, and a 100 foot tape measure, tools, wood to built the monuments for the claims, and water, we started our ascent of the steep mountain's side. Every step we made up, we slid back two. The chaparral was over six feet high in places and we had to hack our way through it as there were no paths. Finally, in desperation, we got down on our stomachs and hands and knees and wormed our way up the side of the mountain. Scratch city! All I could think about was meeting a rattlesnake face to face.
Finally at the top, we found where dad had been talking about and after finding one of his current monuments, we stepped out our own claim; a rectangle 600 feet wide and 1200 feet long. We placed monuments containing copies of our paperwork and stating the name and which corner it was of our claim in a glass mason jar, covered it over with a mountain of rocks, and erected a six foot high pole in the center of the monument for easy spotting in the future with red, white, and blue ribbons on the top of the pole (also a requirement from the BLM). This we did for six points, NE, NorthCenter End, NW; SE, SouthCenter End, and SW. Then we took pictures of the claim and prospected it out until we knew where we were going to make the first cut on the claim, and placed an even larger monument there.
The paperwork on the mining claims is filed with the County Recorder and then with the BLM in Sacramento. You must check and date your monument papers every year, do "X" amount of work on your claim each year, and pay fees to both the County and the BLM each year in order to keep your mining claims valid.
Tomorrow...the decision to live permanently on the millsite claim, and building a cabin out of reused scrap lumber and supplies.
My father-in-law was a gold miner, since the 1920's, in the mountains of the Chariot Canyon Truck Trail in the outback-mountains of Julian. He had over 20 active mines that he had extracted enough gold from to raise a family of five boys. During our time-frame, 1986-2000, dad (George Herrington, Sr.) was still actively mining. He had built a millhouse that hung over the edge of the canyon and was refining enough gold to have financial backers putting up hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment and new outbuildings, workmen and salesmen.
Only one of dad's sons was interested in the gold mine, and that was my husband, Bruce Sr. Bruce had been raised on the gold mines-dad had a huge house on one of the mining claims-and gone to school in Julian. He loved the San Diego back-country and had always dreamed of working in the mines one day, but he had four children to raise and thought he would never have that opportunity.
When Bruce and I had been together for about four years, dad asked us to come up to the mine and have a talk with him. He offered to teach us how to stake-out and set up a mining claim and a millsite. You dug for gold ore on the mining claim; it was hard-rock mining, and you used a millsite to put up your cabin and outbuildings for refining the ore. Once you have gone to the trouble and expense of setting up your claims and brought in equipment to do the mining, etc. you need to stay at the mine 24/7 so that claim jumpers don't try to take over your claim and so that the general public doesn't walk away with the "old" mining equipment.
To stake out a mining claim is a fairly straight-forward job. You first go to the County Recorders to see who has mining claims and where they are located; and if they are up-to-date on their paperwork. You can also get this information from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). You will be looking for a claim on BLM land as that is the only land that is freely available for mining operations. You then go out scouting a likely area, that is you walk hundreds of miles poring down at the ground and looking at the sides of mountains for outcroppings of quartz. Gold is found in quartz; but not in all quartz-you are looking for "lucky quartz", if you get my meaning. Walking the mountain-sides and canyons of the Julian back-country is treacherous. There are rattlesnakes-lots of them-bobcats, wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and tarantulas. Every insect imaginable-all biting it seems-bats and moths at night, skunks, racoons, deer, squirrels-rabies wide spread. The ground under your feet is either going straight up, or you are sliding downhill on tiny loose rocks. There is poison ivy, stinging nettles, and cat's claw, and to top everything off, the weather is either over 100 degrees or 7 degrees below zero.
But dad had pointed out to us places that he had prospected out before and had found gold-bearing quartz. He had the maps of all of the claims in the Chariot Canyon and so he showed us-on the maps-just where we needed to stake out our claims. So taking a compass, and a 100 foot tape measure, tools, wood to built the monuments for the claims, and water, we started our ascent of the steep mountain's side. Every step we made up, we slid back two. The chaparral was over six feet high in places and we had to hack our way through it as there were no paths. Finally, in desperation, we got down on our stomachs and hands and knees and wormed our way up the side of the mountain. Scratch city! All I could think about was meeting a rattlesnake face to face.
Finally at the top, we found where dad had been talking about and after finding one of his current monuments, we stepped out our own claim; a rectangle 600 feet wide and 1200 feet long. We placed monuments containing copies of our paperwork and stating the name and which corner it was of our claim in a glass mason jar, covered it over with a mountain of rocks, and erected a six foot high pole in the center of the monument for easy spotting in the future with red, white, and blue ribbons on the top of the pole (also a requirement from the BLM). This we did for six points, NE, NorthCenter End, NW; SE, SouthCenter End, and SW. Then we took pictures of the claim and prospected it out until we knew where we were going to make the first cut on the claim, and placed an even larger monument there.
The paperwork on the mining claims is filed with the County Recorder and then with the BLM in Sacramento. You must check and date your monument papers every year, do "X" amount of work on your claim each year, and pay fees to both the County and the BLM each year in order to keep your mining claims valid.
Tomorrow...the decision to live permanently on the millsite claim, and building a cabin out of reused scrap lumber and supplies.
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