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Paying for your breakfast...the easy way
MilkmanDan
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Deer Creek, just below the the historic town of Nevada City, California. The day after Thanksgiving our family took a nice hike across the new suspension bridge and the fall colors were superb. We don't always get the New England treatment of fall colors but this year was especially warm and beautiful in Northern California.
As the story goes, during the early gold rush days there was so much gold in this creek that a miner could walk down to the water, scoop up a mugful of mud and pick out enough gold to pay for his breakfast. Imagine that!
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I think I would have to jump down there and take a peek to see if my breakfast money was hiding around some of those rocks! Couldn't think of a better place to spend a nice morning.
I think I see a nugget ,bottom right corner
Beautiful! I would have thought you were in the Northeast.
Alternative would be to grab a salmon.
So... Did you try your luck at panning?
Looks like a fun walk!
Yes I live up here in northern Calif in the mountains and I must agree with you 100% that the fall colors were a knockout this year. But, today I woke up to heavy rain that knocked down most of the beautiful leaves. I do love it up here.
Now I’m talking way northern Calif. away from the crazies
Not this time although I’ve heard the heavy rains last year stirred up some new stuff. Looking forward to some panning with the kids as they get a little older.
Gorgeous
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Yeah Nevada City is a really odd mix of historical mining town (The National Hotel is pretty cool) mixed with some anti-government/capitalist anarchist types. I have to imagine those gold miners back in the day would have had quite a laugh at this new generation of residents.
@OriginalDan.... That is a beautiful picture. When I lived in CA, I often panned gold around Grass Valley... lots of alluvial gold in that area.... Cheers, RickO
I'd love to pan it today.
BHNC #203
I wonder how many of us own coins from gold that came from that very creek.
I've had this same thought many times. Odds are that many of the SF gold coins came from nearby, or possibly over near Placerville. I've had friends dig up old pouches or wallets containing an S.F. double eagle or two. Great history in this area for coin geeks.
Pretty picture indeed.
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Great picture!
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I keep looking and my mouth drools at the prospect of panning that stream.
I wanna go there!
BHNC #203
I recently spent a day and half mining in the SoCal desert and got about $10 worth of gold. You can buy a breakfast for around 5 bucks so I got two days worth of free breakfasts.
Now how to pay for the gas money, lunch, dinner, and beer.
If anyone is ever around the Grass Valley/Nevada City area, be sure to check out the Empire Mine. It's a really wonderful little state park with tours, or you can just walk the grounds yourself. The main house is pretty cool, the grounds are nice and people even get married at the site.
Between 1850 and its closure in 1956, the Empire Mine produced 5.8 million ounces of gold, extracted from 367 miles (591 km) of underground passages. If you visit the mine, you can go down a little ways into the main entrance to these tunnels.
It is said that when the mine finally closed, people in the town went insane because they were so used to the sound of the machinery, and couldn't stand the silence.
God’s country. Beautiful!
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
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That model of the empire mine that have that shows the length is just amazing. I was thinking today I need to take my daughter to Nevada City for the victorian Christmas this year.
Agreed, if one were to visit Empire Mine, they should definitely pause in the visitors center first to see the model of the underground tunnels. It's incredible.
Victorian Christmas in Nevada City and Cornish Christmas in Grass Valley are both fun memories from my childhood. The victorian houses up above Deer Creek are pretty special, such old houses that were built so well they are still in quite good shape and very attractive.
Neat !!!
I can understand the 'panning for your breakfast' part, but I would have to disagree with it being 'the easy way.....JMHO.....
Not saying gold panning is easy, the point was that there was so much gold in the creek that it WAS easy. Miners would roll out of bed, walk over to the creek and scoop up enough gold in their mug to pay for breakfast.
Now there may have been an exaggeration or two peddled during the Gold Rush days, so who can say how true this actually was.
With basically no infrastructure to meet demand in CA gold fields at the time, prices soared.
And with gold being $20.00 an oz...this would have to been one heck of a great morning scoop of gold.
LOL, the Shovel went from $36 to $1007
I recently bought a very high end shovel for around $20
It is amazing how many things are cheeper than 100 years ago. So much for inflation
If adjusted for inflation, a shovel in CA durring the gold rush would have felt like a 1000 dollar purchase today. Roughly almost 2 Oz of gold at the time
From the photo, I half expected you went foraging for berries and nuts.
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Lol you guys crack me up. It wouldn't be the U.S. coin forum without some lively debate and controversy.