We have lived here almost six years and finally made our way down to Gold Bug Mine Park. It is located a little less than a mile off of highway 50, and if you find yourselves in our neck of the woods, I highly recommend taking the time to visit this bit of history!
The Gold Bug Museum
It was amazing to discover that this area, once known as Poverty Ridge Mining District, had one of the richest deposits of gold in the Mother Lode. In a period of one week three men walked out with $17,000 worth of gold when the price of gold was between $16-$19 an ounce. This equates to 56 to 66 pounds of gold!
A creek runs through the area called Big Canyon Creek and the pickings there were easy. Once the gold here was depleted, hardrock mining began in the late 1800’s and continued until World War II, when it was determined by the government that gold mining was not an essential for the country.
The entrance to the mine begins with the museum. So let’s head on in shall we?
Inside the museum
There are a lot of interesting artifacts here in the museum, and I suggest you take your time wandering through it!
We head upstairs in the museum where we paid a $5 fee, and we were given the necessary equipment to take the tour. This included a hard hat that adjusts to fit, and a device that we discover is our tour guide. It looks like a remote control and a telephone combined into one. After receiving instructions on how to use the device we head to the entrance to the mine.
The mine entrance
One of the things that I really liked about this tour was that the areas were marked where one needs to stop to learn about the history. Entering the mine, I take a look back at the entrance.
Just inside the mine
I simply cannot do justice explaining what I learned on this tour, so I will just take you through with my photos! I suggest that you click on the photos to enlarge them so that you really get the flavor of what being inside this mine is like!
Looking up
A band of quartz running through the shale
Can you imagine working in this narrow space?
My husband inside the mine
Another view inside the mine
Water from above ground seeps into the mine
See the cords hanging down in the back?
This is what a wall in the mine would look like ready for blasting. Those cords would be the fuses from the sticks of dynamite.
The tracks for the carts
A cart sitting under the air shaft
This is as far as you can go in the mine, and we head back to the entrance. Again, this is one of the best tours of a mine that I have ever experienced! I highly recommend this tour! Kudos go out to the docents at the park! They were very pleasant and helpful! For more information on this historical spot, take a visit to their website:
From here we take a hike around the area to see some of the sights and then we head to the Stamp Mill. But that is a topic for another post! Come back to learn about how they got the gold out of the rock taken from the mine!
Life in the Foothills 
Thanks for such an interesting view and explanation. Now others will share your enthusiam when visiting the park.
Thank you Patricia! Every docent should be as delightful as you!
This is something I could have never done, back in the day. It looks like an interesting tour!
It was really worth it!
Nice tour you gave us, look forward to the Stamp Mill write up.
This is very cool, we have to take our kids. Thanks for posting.
You are welcome! I will be posting about another area of the park called the Stamp Mill. The docent there was amazing and full of interesting facts!