Mining along Greenhorn Creek south of Yreka, Calif., was very rich from the 1850’s into the early 1900’s. It has been estimated that a five-mile stretch produced $11 million worth of gold during that time.
Three men operated the important mine of Blue Gravel. They were Allen Lee, the property owner; Time Austin, the mine superintendent; and A.E. Raynes, secretary and treasurer of the mining company.
The Blue Gravel was one of the last drift mines. It was located where Yreka’s Grange Hall and old Greenhorn School are situated, not far from the junction of Greenhorn Road and the old Hwy 99 and the nearby Greenhorn Buttes.
The partners hired men to work the drift mine, running three 8-hour shifts to dig hundreds of feet of underground drifts in every direction. The excavated property later became the underground water storage for Yreka for many years.
To preserve water, a system of reservoirs and dams along the creek allowed use and reuse of the water. Settling ponds also ran the length of the creek because as the water traveled to the last mines, the ponds helped trap some of the sediment in the water.
Source: Herzog, Frank. "Greenhorn Creek Gold Mining." The Siskiyou Pioneer and Yearbook, Vol. Two, No. 10 , 1957, pp. 66-67.
