The Many Lost Treasures of Mariposa, CA (Photos Added)

You're very welcome my friend.

Now that this part of my story is pretty well complete, perhaps I can regain some of the continuity of more recent experiences. Of course, I guess I'll have to revisit those days on occasion, if only to clarify a point.

Next post, I'll need to go back in time for a short while so that I can tell you of a very findable treasure between L.A. and Lancaster.

See ya then!! :laughing7:

Eagle
 

Eagle, you surely have a gift. Whether it's your memories in tack at your fair age and/or your ability to communicate; you're a pleasure!

Had a good friend up on the Middle Fork of the Feather River, tough ol' boy (in his late 70's then), still rode his ol skidoo over the snow till he got to the sunny side of the hill and then packed his supplies down to his cabin. He had a very interesting life and was a very interesting person. When your time comes, you'll meet Mr. Perry Jones, up there. Would like to be a mouse in the corner, and just listen.

Really enjoy your posts! Will be gone for a week or so, but will look at your posts first when I get back.

Take care sir,

Shep
 

Thanks Shep!!

Yes, I agree. I have been very fortunate. Almost 75, in excellent health, a full head of hair. Some of it's still dark. (If you look closely.) :laughing9: :laughing9:
Unfortunately, my eye sight isn't what it use to be, but I can still spot a 1 grain nugget in a pan of black sand concentrates. :laughing7:

As far as memory is concerned, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, but I can remember jumping off of a garage roof, holding the 4 corners of a sheet when I was almost 5 years of age. I also learned (and remember) that a bed sheet isn't a good substitute for a good parachute. :laughing7: (Actually, I had a peanutbutter sandwich for breakfast. :laughing7: :laughing7:

I've lived a wide and varied life. I've never been so attached to one spot that I couldn't pull up stakes and set off on another adventure. Though, lately, it's not quite as easy as it once was. MONEY! As a matter of fact, the longest I've worked one job, working for someone else, was the years I spent as a police officer. I eventually I had to leave though. After I became a detective, I found out that the "higher ups" were more criminal than the people I was arresting.

I went in with the desire to help people, but morals were changing too fast for me. So, my injuries just gave me an excuse to resign without lengthy explainations.

And sometimes I talk too much. :laughing9: :laughing9:

Thanks, Eagle
 

Just another one of those things! It might be several days before my next post. My computer crashed this morning. :angry4:

Right now I'm on a friends cp. Watch out, the tech tells me there has been a sudden surge of some pretty nasty viruses lately. Yep, I found one of them. Came from a friend, had her name and return address on it, but when I opened it up, I knew immediatly it wasn't from her and deleted it right away. Oops, too late. :cussing: But, I've been through worse and survived. :laughing9:

I'll be back as soon as possible.

Eagle
 

I'm on a borrowed computer right now, so my time is limited. Hopefully, I'll have my cp back by this evening. In the meanwhile, have a great day!!

‘’‘/ \’‘’

I’m not sure of the exact date, though I know it was in early 1960. I had been discharged from the Navy just 4 or 5 months.

In those days, I was really "into" the old west. I was boarding a horse for a friend who was on vacation, when I decided to put my Stetson on and go for a long ride. I started out from my place in North Rialto and up Foothill Blvd. towards Los Angeles. Then on Colorado Blvd. to the San Fernando Rd. toward Palmdale.

Now, if you can, picture a good looking young man, dressed all in black, (including his Stetson,) wearing a black gun-belt with a fully loaded, .357 magnum, Ruger-single-six, revolver in a “tied-down” holster, riding a sleek little pinto down Colorado Blvd. at about 10am.

It would tend to make you do a “double-take” would it not?

Well, back then, I don’t think anyone even gave me a second glance. And if they did, they were probably tourists trying to remember if they had ever seen me in a movie. (lol)

Of course, I wouldn’t try that today, I’d be surrounded by LA Swat and at the very least have my horse impounded and be arrested for disturbing the peace. (Until they could think up some heavier offenses to charge me with.)

By the time I was almost to Palmdale, it was getting pretty late in the afternoon, so I knew I’d have to find some place to spread my bed-roll. I checked my map and noticed a cut-off before Palmdale that went to hiway 138, back towards San Bernardino. I realized it would also save me several miles of travel. So, I took the cut-off.

It appeared that years ago, this little cut-off might have actually been part of highway 138, and kind of got lost when they straightened out 138 into Palmdale. I never saw a vehicle on it, from one end to the other, though I’m sure it was used by locals at times.

I had ridden perhaps 4 miles when noticed a draw going off to the left, up into the hills and decided this would be a pretty good place for a dry camp. So, I turned my horse into the draw and climbed down for a little look-around.

The first thing I noticed was the foundations of an old house or store. That made a good place for my bedroll since the ground was already leveled. So, I unsaddled the little mare and hobbled her for the night. I poured some water from my canteen into my hand while she slurped it up, then I gave her a measure of oats, then went to pick a spot for myself.

While she settled in to munching the new grass recent rains had brought, I spread a piece of canvas on the ground out of sight of the road, to protect my bedroll from foxtails, (dried seed pods of wild wheat.) Get those puppies in a wool blanket, and you might as well throw the blanket away, or figure to spend days pushing them on through, and pulling them out the other side. By the time I was all set up, it was fairly dark, with a moonless night. I pulled a couple of strips of jerky out of my saddle bag, and using the saddle as a back rest, I laid down to enjoy the sight of a sky full of stars.

When I woke up the following morning, I discovered something, that to this day, I sometimes wish that I had no knowledge of, but quite often, find myself returning to that morning in my mind, trying to figure out a way to take advantage of it.

Make sure you keep your eyes open for my next post. Who knows, between the two of us, we might find a way to take advantage of what I found. :headbang: :laughing7:
 

~~~\/~~~

When I woke up the next morning, I found the mare had wandered up the gulch a couple of hundred feet or so. I had to answer nature’s call, so I walked a little farther up beyond where she was, and to where I was out of sight of the road. I un-zipped and did what I had to do, and while I was zipping back up, I saw a small spot of yellow shining in the wet sand. (Yeah, I picked it up!!) I wiped it off with a handkerchief from my pocket and just stood staring at it. It actually took me a minute to get over the shock of having “washed out” a decent sized nugget.

I have one right now that I carry in my pocket for checking my MXT when I’m out in the field, this one I carry weighs 1.4 penny weight. The one that I “washed” out of the sand was a little larger, but more solid. I knew very little about gold back then, so it was much later that due to the shape of the nugget I found, I realized, it was definitely Placer Gold.

Anyway, I stuck it in my pocket, saddled up and began the last of my journey back home. We arrived back at my place, well after dark, and after I gave the filly a good rub-down and made sure she was set for food and water, I went inside and started making plans to return and see what I could get.

I spread my map out on the kitchen table and spent awhile studying it. Unfortunately, I found that the only flowing stream was in the Blue Diamond mining district, about 15 miles away from the draw. So, that meant that a sluice box was out of the question.

Keep in mind, at that time, gold prices were set by the government, and even though the official price was $35 per oz., if you sold raw gold to the gov., you would only be payed $32. The other $3.00 was theirs for refining the gold.

After much thought, I decided that the best course of action would be to drive back up in my pick-up and load a couple of buckets with materials, drive to Blue Diamond mining district, and run them through a sluice box. I figured that at least that would tell me if it was worth setting up a mining operation. Assuming of course that the area was open for claiming.

It was a couple of days later before I went back up with a shovel, buckets and a home-made sluice box. I arrived at the draw well before noon, and I didn’t waste any time in filling the buckets with dirt. I could just about see the creek at Blue Diamond from the mouth of the draw, but, the only way to get to it was drive back towards LA on the San Fernando Rd., and take the turn-off to Blue Diamond. That was a 15 mile trip, (one way.)

It was a little after noon by the time a got to the creek. I spent about an hour building a small wing dam so that I would have enough water flow to wash the materials. It took about 2 hours for me to run 3 buckets of materials through the sluice, then to pan the concentrates down and separate the gold.

Hey, not too shabby, considering the fact that I had very little experience, and that I didn’t realize that I should have dug deeper before filling my buckets. Basically, I just shoveled the top soil into the buckets, but even so, after I got home and weighed it, I found that I had recovered almost a half oz. of that beautiful stuff.

I guess it would have been a bit more if I had saved the rest of the panned materials, but due to the law at that time that said that “processed gold” could only be sold to the government, I didn’t feel it was worth messing with,.and I had only saved the pickers. The only way I knew to collect the fines at that time was with mercury. And that would put it in the realm of “processed gold”.

In any case, after figuring my time, driving distance and gasoline, I figured it wouldn’t be worth trying to make a go of, at least, until I or someone else developed a portable machine that would be cheap to operate, that I could set up in the draw and just shovel the materials in. So, I just kept it in my mind for future reference.

Afterwards, while I was back in Florida, I contacted Keene Engineering and had them send me their product catalog. When the price of gold was released on the world market, I watched while it climbed up to above $70.00 an oz. and I knew then that I would be eventually returning to California. The following year, when I got the new Keene catalog, I found a “Electrostatic Concentrator” displayed in it. At that time, the price was $150. THIS was what I had been waiting for.

It was still a couple of years before my family and I returned to CA, and the first week-end here, I took off from work and went up to LA, and Keene Engineering. By this time, the Electrostatic Concentrator had gone up in price to $250.00. Still not a bad deal, so I bought one on the spot. I didn’t mind the cost, because I knew that I’d be rich in just a few days!! Yeah, right!!

I left Keene’s with the concentrator in the trunk of my car, and headed straight up to San Fernando Valley. Uh oh, I should have checked a map. It seems that while I was in Florida, some idiot had put in a new highway, and named it Interstate 5.

I spent the next couple of hours driving up and down the interstate, looking for that draw, but every time I was sure I was near it, well, let’s just say that it no longer existed.

Evidently, when they put in the new interstate, they had built it right across my draw. It’s now buried forever beneath tons of concrete.

So, if it is truly LOST, why have I spent all this time telling you about it?

Well my Friend, the draw was created by erosion. And, a draw doesn’t necessarily end at the first roadway that it encounters. There was still a downhill slope on the other side of the roadway. I figure that if I worked with someone who had a topo map from about 1960, we could over-lay a new topo map on it, and I could pin-point exactly where the draw continues beyond Interstate 5.

Anyway, think about it, and if there is anyone out there who would be interested, pm me, perhaps we can work out a deal where we’ll both be happy.

Eagle
 

eagle, if i was'nt so far away i would love to get involved and check it out. very good read, enjoyable
and interesting. take care my friend and thanks much for sharing another great adventure.
take care. ron
 

A small apology here. Since I was on a borrowed computer, I didn't take time to re-read my last post. Since it was brought to my attention, I mistakenly said that Interstate 5 covered the draw. Actually, after (I guess,) they put in Interstate 5, they put in another "freeway" that goes from Palmdale to Interstate 5. It parallels the old San Fernando RD. at times obliterating the Rd.

This "freeway", (hiway 14) is actually the one that kept me from returning to my "draw".

Sorry if this caused any confusion.

Eagle
 

maui said:
eagle, if i was'nt so far away i would love to get involved and check it out. very good read, enjoyable
and interesting. take care my friend and thanks much for sharing another great adventure.
take care. ron
Click to expand...

Thank you!! As usual, your comments are most welcome.

I have a feeling that this particular "adventure" is not quite over. So, sometime in the near future, I might post in here that the draw has been located, and is just as rich as I remember. :laughing7:

Eagle
 

~~~\/~~~

It’s been a busy week for me, I didn’t make any money, but had numerous long distance phone calls and visitors showing up out of the blue. You could probably even call it “strange”. (lol)

I have been contacted by a “Tnetter” a partnership effort on the “Lost Draw”. He turned me on to a site for maps, and I’ve spent several hours studying old maps of the area. Unfortunately, I find that I still have a lot to learn about navigating the site. But, not to worry, I’m in no hurry and I know that I’ll eventually figure it out. (lol)

Anyway, I,ve had some time to think about my posts and come to a decision.

Since I started this thread, I’ve had the problem of writing and posting a story, then, remembering another one that you might be interested in, (that happened previously to the one I just posted.) So, what I’ll be doing from now on will be posting the stories as they occur to me. I don’t know how this will work out for you, but I think it will be easier for me. (lol)

So, with that said, let’s get on to the next one.

The year is 1978, in late summer. I have returned to the Merced river and have set-up my camp in “McCabe Flats”, down-river from Briceburg.

All of Don Brown’s equipment is gone. I found out that Don had a stroke about four years before and could no longer get around. But, his wife, (Grace ?) was still keeping the claim filings up to date. So, I posted my first ever claims.

I registered my first up-river claim so that it matched up with Don’s boundaries. Since I was pretty familiar with the area, I was sure that there would be plenty of gold in that claim. Plus, I filed 4 more contiguous claims that gave me the rights of prospecting/dredging, from Don’s claims, all the way down-river to beyond Good’s Gulch.

I knew some would think I was being greedy by filing 5 claims, but actually I filed that many claims because I was a little “ticked off”!! (lol)

When I returned from Florida, I found that a couple of men had seen the price of gold going up, and had filed about 10 or more claims further down-river. Their claims included old Pete’s home site, (Hermit Bar,) and they wouldn’t allow anyone to dredge on their claims. I figured that was “GREED”. The only thing I can say in their favor is; at least they were doing some dredging on their claims, unlike some people who file claims and never work them.
(They’re just holding them in the hopes of one day selling them for a large sum of money.)

O.K., that little “tirade” just jogged my memory a little. It brought to mind a story told to me by a miner’s daughter, back in the early 1960s.

She said she spent a good part of her childhood in one of the cabins behind Mr. Brice’s store. Her father was employed by a company that was working a hard rock mine a little below Briceburg. She went on to tell me that he had buried two 1 pound coffee cans full of gold, (that she knew of,) then could never find them again.

And, I’ll try to get back in this evening to tell you what I heard about the “Lost Coffee Can Gold”. (lol)
 

as always, thanks much my friend for continuing to share your life's adventures. will be following
your new one when you have time to tell it.
thanks much, take care. ron
 

~~~\/~~~

O.K., I finally have a few minutes to tell this story. And, it’s about time. Huh??

I was at the little store in Briceburg when Mr. Brice introduced me to an elderly lady. I can’t for the life of me remember her name. It might have been Gloria, but don’t expect me to swear to that. (lol) In any case, for this story, I’ll make it easy on myself and call her Gloria. O.K.?? O.K.!

We were sitting out in front of the store talking when Mr. Brice had to go do something, leaving Gloria and me to fend for ourselves for awhile. I mentioned how amazing it was that the old pack-mule trail was still visible after over 100 years.

Gloria said; “Yes it is, but that old trail brings back some sad memories for me”.
“Why is that”? I asked. Then, her story unfolded.

“I was born in 1882 an spent the first 12 or 13 years of my life in a cabin, right up there”, she said, while pointing to an area on the side of the mountain, about 300 ft. above the hiway. I just nodded that I understood. “Times could be hard in those days”, she continued. “My mother passed away during labor, when I was almost 9 years old”. There was a long period of silence before she went on. “Anyway, after that, all that my father could talk about was getting enough money to return to Pennsylvania so that we could start a new life”.

Her father was working at a mine down-river from Briceburg and would use the old pack-mule trail going to and from work.

She said he would get home from work around 6 in the evening, and after they ate, he would clear the table and place several pieces of gold in quartz on it. He would then take them, one at a time, over to an old anvil that stood in the corner of the cabin. There, he would gently break them with a small hand sledge, then scoop the pieces up and put them in a pie tin, and she would sit and pick out the freed gold, then drop the gold in an old coffee mug.

When they were finished separating the gold from the quartz, he would put the gold in a pocket handkerchief and tie it closed, then place the handkerchief and gold in his pocket so that he wouldn’t forget to take it with him when he returned to work the next day.

She said that this went on for several months, until, one evening while they were separating the gold from the quartz, the front door burst in and the sheriff and a deputy rushed in, with the mine owner following closely on their heels.

Her father was arrested for grand larceny and since he would not tell them where the gold was, he ultimately received 9 years in the state penitentiary.

She was taken to town, where her Aunt and Uncle picked her up and took her to live in Merced with them.

Eventually, her father was released from prison and they were reunited. It was then that she learned that while working at the mine, he had been “high-grading” and smuggling the gold out in his clothing. Then, after separating the gold from the quartz, he would take it with him the next morning.

He had a coffee can buried along the old pack-mule trail where he would stop, dig it up and drop the new gold in it, then rebury it. He eventually filled one can and had to take another one to bury with the first. She wasn’t sure if he had filled the second can yet when he was arrested.

She said that he spent the rest of his life hiking up and down the old trail, trying to find the spot where he buried the gold, but still died a poor man.

As I’ve stated previously, it’s really amazing how much things can change in a short while. Trees die or get burned down, boulders erode and roll down the hill. Even roads are moved and/or straightened out........ And it’s a whole new ball game.

From what I understood, it was not more than a mile from Briceburg to the mine where her father worked. From what I’ve seen of the old trail, if he went off of the trail to bury the gold, he didn’t have far to go. One side of the trail goes up steeply, and the other side goes down just as steeply to the river.

Frankly, if I wanted to try and hike along the old trail, I’d probably look for a pile of rocks or boulders, or at least a wide place where he wouldn’t have had to bury the cans in the middle of the trail. Forget trees, unless they are obviously very old. I know that there have been a couple of fires through this area in the last 10 years alone. No telling how many since about 1891. (lol)

In my next visit, how about going with me to the top of Hall’s gulch and checking out the old mine Pete told me about?? :headbang:

Eagle
 

After Halls Gulch, do you know anything about the top of Telegragh Hill? Been up there a couple of times on a friends property, but no luck yet.

Shep
 

shepcal said:
After Halls Gulch, do you know anything about the top of Telegragh Hill? Been up there a couple of times on a friends property, but no luck yet.

Shep
Click to expand...

Not as far as treasure goes. During my first trip up there, I stopped and pulled a claim paper out of a tobacco tin. Don't recall much of the info now, but I do remember the name of the claim holder;
The "Pacalolo Mining Co". If I'm spelling it correctly, Pacalolo is Hawaiin for: Marijauna. I wonder if they were really mining?? :laughing9: :laughing9:

Hey Shep,

I just noticed your location on your avatar. The next time I go to Mariposa, I entend to pass through Oakhurst. Maybe we will have a chance to meet.

Eagle
 

shepcal said:
After Halls Gulch, do you know anything about the top of Telegragh Hill? Been up there a couple of times on a friends property, but no luck yet.

Shep
Click to expand...

I went tl bed last night, thinking about Telegraph Hill. It's unusual with my memory, but since I've never been one to go to an "out of the way" area unless I'm scouting for something in particular, I'm sure I was up there on the ridge looking for something. But, for the life of me, I don't remember what I went up there for.

Before I got to the antennas, I came to a junction where another road "Y"ed into the main one that I drove up on. Right in the "Y", there was a chain link area, kind of a circle with large plastic planters in it. (Probably for the Pacalolo Mining Co.) :laughing9: So, instead of going any further, I made about a 160 degree turn and followed this other road back out. (That is when I spotted the tobacco tin with the claim papers in it.) I also remember that the manzaneta and small pines were so thick that I didn't bother getting out of my truck and looking around.
 

Great stories Eagle. Living 'in the neighborhood' I'm sure our foot prints have crossed. It's especially interesting to read about places one's been to. Keep 'em coming.

C-dad
 

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DONNER TREASURE Part UNEARTHED BY A PROSPECTOR May 17, 1891

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