Early Gold Discoveries in Washington Territory (ca. 1853 – ca. 1868) Jamie M. Litzkow Bureau of Land Management (Spokane District) 71st Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference Boise, Idaho (March 28 - 31, 2018) Abstract Beginning in 1853, Washington Territory witnessed numerous gold discoveries that, over the course of the next decade, propelled immigration, commerce, and transportation in the region. Placer gold miners formed unique landscapes, social networks, and sociotechnical systems in response to global interactions, transnational migrations, and rapid change. Archaeological data can enlighten the record regarding local and regional manifestations of these themes. In order to identify areas of high probability to yield such data, an investigation of early placer gold discoveries was undertaken. Study results clarify when and where the first strikes were made and illustrate the transitory nature of placer camps during this frenetic period of the region’s development. Table 3. Placer gold discoveries in Washington Territory (1864-1868) Table 2. Placer gold discoveries in Washington Territory (1859-1863) Map # 1b. Date 1859 Location Metaline Falls, Washington Discoverer(s) Unknown discoverers. Located between Sullivan Lake and the Pend Oreille River, and in the Pend Oreille from Metaline Falls to Z Canyon Related Rush(es) and Settlements Chinese miners stayed around Metaline Falls working the placer gravels along the Pend Oreille through the 1870's. 2b. 1859 Kettle River, Washington Unknown discoverers. Located all along the Kettle River in the U.S. just south of Midway B.C. A camp called "American Town" sprung up in the area (south of the Border) and was occupied through the mid-1860's. Associated with the Rock Creek gold rush which drew 5,000 men, mostly Americans and Chinese miners, into the "Boundary Country" of B.C. and Washington state. Resulted in hostilities between the Americans and the Chinese for a short time, known as the "Rock Creek War". 3b. 1859 Table 1. Placer gold discoveries in Washington Territory (1853-1858) Map # 1a. 2a. 3a. 4a. Date 1852 1853 1854 1855 Location Gold Creek, Montana Yakima River, Washington Boundary, Washington Sheep Creek, Washington Discoverer(s) A Métis trapper, Francois Finaly ("Benetsee"), discovered gold in Benetsee Creek (Phillips 1925) Related Rush(es) and Settlements In 1858, James and Granville Stuart and Reece Anderson discovered gold in Gold Creek. The prospectors left due to Native pressure, eventually returning in 1862 and setting off the Gold Creek gold rush. Members of the Pacific Railroad surveys, Recorded in the survey reports of McClellan. Publicly reported under command of Capt. George in the Oregonian newspaper on April 22, 1854. Encroachment McClellan, discovered gold on the Yakima into the area successfully halted by Native Americans until River in the vicinity of present-day after 1855 (Swan 1857) Kennewick Joseph Morel an HBC company servant Sparked off the Fort Colvile gold rush of 1855. Prospectors reported as recovering $5-$8/day using rockers all along the ("amusing himself in his leisure time") found gold just south of the U.S./Canada Pend Oreille River. border in a tributary of the Pend Oreille while the company was moving Fort Colvile to Fort Sheppard, British Columbia in the fall (Swanky 2012) Unknown discoverers. Located in the Result of the Colvile gold rush, returns were considered too vicinity of Sheppard Bar near Boundary, low to keep miners around for long. Reported as worked by WA. Chinese miners as well as Americans. 5a. 1856 China Bend, Washington 6a. 1857 Chehalis River, Washington Recorded by crewmembers of the ship Old California miners began working in the Olympic Peninsula Leonidas and reported by Swan in 1859 from the 1860's and onward. Similkameen River, Discovered by Boundary line surveyors in the vicinity of Rich Soldiers reported taking out $20/day with pans. Resulted in the Rich Bar Bar (Compton Bar) (downstream from Shanker's Bend) Washington gold rush. Okanogan City rush ballooned to 3,000 residents. White men worked one side of the river, while Chinese miners worked the other. Chinese miners are said to have worked the Similkameen River placers until 1900 (Evenson 2016, Moen 1982) 4b. 1859 Priest Rapids, Washington Discovered by Captain Archer on his march to the Similkameen River (Bancroft 1890) 5b. 1860 Clearwater River, Idaho Discovered by Capt. E.D. Pierce (who had previoulsy mined First major gold discovery in what would become Idaho. About 60 men at the Similkameen rush) along the north fork of the overwintered near the strike and a rush ensued in the spring of 1861. Clearwater River near Orofino Creek in Canal Gulch Gave rise to the town of Pierce, with a peak popultion of 5,000. In 1863, 800 Chinese miners moved in to work claims abandoned in during the rush to Idaho City (Elk City) (ISHS 1985, Trimble 1918) 6b. 7b. 8b. 1860 1861 1861 Peshastin Creek, Washington Elk City, Idaho Florence, Idaho Unknown discoverers. Located south of Result of the Colvile gold rush. Worked by Chinese miners Northport, WA on the Columbia River. from the 1860's to the 1890's. 9b. 10b. 11b. 12b. 13b. Figure 1. Left: 1865 GLO map showing active mines in the Similkameen River and Rock Creek diggings north of present-day Chesaw, Washington (U.S. GLO 1866); Right: 1865 GLO map showing active mines near Boundary, Washington (U.S. GLO 1866) 14b. 1862 1862 1862 1862 1863 1863 First noted by the McClellan survey in 1853. Prospectors returning from the Caribou, Frazer, and Similkameen gold rushes discovered gold on Peshastin Creek in August of 1860. One of these prospectors was an African American man, who took out $1,100 in gold from Negro Creek (Weaver 1911:66) Fifty two prospectors from Pierce set out to examine the surrounding country and (re)discovered gold on the south fork of the Clearwater River near what would become Elk City (ISHS 1985) Location Hawk Creek, Washington 2c. 1865 Methow River, Washington 3c. 1865 Port Discovery Bay, Washington 4c. 1865 Vancouver, Washington 5c. 1867 Swauk Creek, Washington Discoveries in Peshastin Creek, and nearby Cle Elum and Swauk Creeks gave led to the discovery of early quartz mines, mining districts (Blewett or "Culver Camp"), and several towns beginning in around 1870. Also see legend of Ingalls' gold near Ingalls Creek. (U.S. GLO 1866, Valenta 2012 Discoverer(s) Unknown discoverer(s). Chinese placer miners made their way to this area around 1864, south of the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia Rivers (Evenson 2016) Related Rush(es) and Settlements Little information is known about this settlement, but it was considered a winter encampment for Chinese placer miners. A Chinese presence was noted in this area until the early 1880's when the camp reached its height of about 500 miners (Evenson 2016) Unknown discoverer(s). Chinese Chinese operations along this stretch of the placer miners constructed "China Methow ran for about five miles to the China Gold Bar placer operations near Cooper Ranch below the Ditch" near the confluence of the Methow and Columbia Rivers before rapids. These miners had a store in the area and 1865 (Evenson 2016, USGLO 1866) had constructed a dam used by Euroamerican settlers to irrigate their orchards. Some Chinese miners will still working in the area in 1897 (Evenson 2016) Unknown discoverer(s). Gold was Gold was known to occur in the Olympic Peninsula discovered in the Olympic Peninsula as early as 1859, but was not beign extensively and by 1859 traces of gold were worked at that time. An 1865 GLO map (U.S. GLO reported around the Olympic Mts. 1866) map shows gold in the vicinity of the Dungeness River and downstream from Port Discovery Bay. Unknown discoverer(s). Numerous "Vancouver Area Chronology 1784-1958" gold mines noted by GLO surveyors in document from the Clark County Historical Society 1865 in the vicinity of the Washougal (reference 170 [V. R., various issues]) notes: "1866 mining district (U.S. GLO 1866) Great gold mining activity in the Cascade foothills; Silver Star and other areas in Clarke County." Little else in known about placer activity in the area at that time. Newton and Benton Goodwin and The Goodwin brothers passed through the area of Edward Towner discovered gold their original discovery again in 1873 and found a while camping for their mid-day meal nugget (Jordan 1964). near Swauk Creek, naming the place "Discovery Bar" References Cited Gold was first noted here in 1856 by a white man travelling the Nez Perce trail. A mining district was organized on June 14 of 1861. Yields by the end of the summer were an ounce/day worth $16/oz. Up to 1,000 miners swarmed Elk City, but by September were off to strikes in Florence. After 1872 Chinese miners dominated the drainage. Bridgeport Bar, Washington An "old man" was directed to the bar between Old Ives Landing (Pateros) and Bridgeport on the Columbia River The area of the strike was called "Rich Bar" (not to be confused with the Similkameen River strike of the same name). A.J. Splawn noted around 500 Chinese miners working the area in 1863 (Evenson 2016) Chelan Falls, Washington A Chinese merchant store and settlement was established near Chelan Falls to serve miners along this stretch of the Columbia River The area served as a winter encampment for Chinese miners working in the Big Bend country in the 1860's and their presence in the area continued, intermittently, until 1882 (Evenson 2016) Warren, Idaho Date 1864 By 1865, numerous gold mines are displayed on the northside of the Columbia River in the vicinity of White Bluffs (U.S. GLO 1866) Prospectors scouring the Boise basin discovered gold in the Some miners reported taking out hundreds of dollars a day in the fall of area in the fall (ISHS 1985) 1861. By the spring up to 10,000 miners were in an area, but only 3,000 could find work in the diggings. Production reached around $50,000/day in 1862. The camp declined after 1863 and Chinese miners dominated the scene afterwards. Grimes Creek, Idaho George Gibbs, Moses Splawn and a small party of prospectors discovered gold at present-day Grimes Creek on August 2 (ISHS 1980) Map # 1c. Kicked off the Boise Basin gold rush. Despite Native American opposition, Walla Walla miners established Idaho City and Pioneerville in October 1862. Discoveries at Placerville in the winter of 1862 helped solidify Euroamerican settlement in the region. James Warren and 17 other prospectors discovered gold in Organized as a district on July 22 and had a steady development and was a creek near present-day Warren in July the leading camp in the region in 1863. Chinese miners took over the district from 1874-1876 also working some of the quartz (lode) mines in the area during this time (ISHS 1985) Jordan Creek, Idaho Michael Jordan and 29 prospectors coming from Placerville Set off the Owyhee gold rush a few weeks later discovered gold on Jordan Creek on May 18 (ISHS 1964, 1980) Rock Island, Unknown discoverer(s). Euroamericans were noted working 100 Chinese miners had bought the bar, previously worked by the whites, a large bar near Rock Island this year (Splawn 1917) Washington in 1864 their camp being located on the eastern banks of the Columbia River and operated by Mr. Wing (Splawn 1917) Atherley, Louanne 1997 Historic Mining Context Statement and Property Evaluation Guide for Northeast and North Central Washington [DRAFT]. Heritage Enterprise Program, Colville National Forest, prepared in partnership with the Spokane District Bureau of Land Management. Unpublished manuscript on file at the Spokane District BLM, Spokane, Washington. Bancroft, Hubert Howe 1890 History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The History Company: San Francisco, CA. Evenson, Lindsey M. 2016 Pre-1900s Chinese Placer Mining in Northeastern Washington State: An Archaeological Investigation. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Departments of History and Anthropology, Eastern Washington University. Idaho 1964 1980 1985 State Historical Society (ISHS) “The Owyhee Country”. ISHS Reference Series Number 200. Idaho State Archives: Boise, ID “Placer Mining in Southern Idaho (1862-1864)”. ISHS Reference Series Number 166. Idaho State Archives: Boise, ID “Mining in Idaho (1860-1969)”. ISHS Reference Series Number 9. Idaho State Archives: Boise, ID Jordan, Josee Ann 1964 Mines and Miners of the Swauk. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Central Washington State College, Ellensburg, Washington. Moen, Wayne S. 1982 The Mineral Industry of Washington – Highlights of its Development, 1853-1980. Information Circular 74, State of Washington Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geology and Earth Resources, U.S. Bureau of Mines. Phillips, Paul C. (Ed.) 1925 Forty Years on the Frontier as Seen in the Journals and Reminiscences of Granville Stuart, Gold-Miner, Trader, Merchant, Rancher, and Politician. University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln and London. Swan, James C. 1857 The Northwest Coast, OR Three Years’ Residence in Washington. Harper and Brother Publishers. Franklin Square: New York. Swanky, Tom 2012 The True Story of Canada’s War of Extermination plus The Tsilhqot’in and Other First Nations Resistance. Dragonheart, Enterprises: Barnaby, B.C. Trimble, William J. 1914 The Mining Advance into the Inland Empire. Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin No. 638, History Series 3(2): 137-392. 1918 “A Reconsideration of Gold Discoveries in the Northwest”. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Volume 5(1): 70-77. U.S. General Land Office 1866 “Washington Territory”. Map of Public Surveys in the Territory of Washington. To Accompany Report of Surveyor General. 1865. Department of the Interior, General Land Office, October 2nd 1866. Jo. S. Wilson, Commissioner. Surveyor General's Office, Olympia, W.T., July 15th, 1865. E. Giddings. Act. Survr. Genl. W.T. No. 22. Bowen & Co. lith. Philada Valenta, Jared 2012 The Identification and Historic Context of Mining Archaeology of the Wenatchee Mountains within the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Unpublished Masters Thesis, Departments of Anthropology and Resource Management, Central Washington University. Weaver, Charles E. 1911 Geology and Ore Deposits of the Blewett Mining District. Washington Geological Survey, Bulletin No. 6. Olympia, WA.