American River — PLACER COUNTY, CALIFORNIA County

Source: Tom Ashworth's Prospectors Cache (tomashworth.com / Mike Higbee / 49erMike). Author: Tom Ashworth. Original page: placer_ca.shtml. State index: https://web.archive.org/web/20040830075749/http://www.tomashworth.com/goldloc.shtml Area: AMERICAN RIVER. Map coordinates are an approximate county centroid — not a precise claim site. Near the town of Auburn along the American River, many rich placers existed. The Ophir district was most productive, with 1,500,000 ounces of lode gold produced. At the Green Emigrant Mine, the Crater, Bellevue, Oro Fino, and Three Stars mines, were very rich producers of lode gold. Report By: Phillip Herzog One of my favorite places to go is the Auburn State Recreation Area. It is located about 30 minutes east of Sacramento in the Mother Lode. It is easy to find on a map. It is a public area, therefore, claims cannot be filed so it is open for mining. The primary gold is placer and I suppose if you get real lucky you may find a vein, however, this area has been well prospected for 150 years. There is a lot of black sand in this system and usually plenty of fine gold as well. Up to one pennyweight nuggets are not uncommon to be found occasionally but, the norm is fine gold, flakes of all sizes and small nuggets. There are many areas where a person can get one pennyweight in one day with nothing more than a pan! A friend recently found more than a 7 pennyweight in nuggets in one afternoon! Just remember that before you set up the equipment, do your testing as there are also areas that contain little or no gold. ADD INFORMATION ON A GOLD BEARING LOCATION