Rich Bar


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For those of you who have done any research on the Californina gold rush, you may have come across references to a small book called "The Dame Shirley letters."

She was the wife of a doctor who came west to seek his fortune in the gold fields at the beginning of the gold rush. They settled at the boom town of Rich Bar high up on the North Fork of the Feather River in 1850. While there she wrote many letters to her sister back east describing in great detail what life was like in a mining town. Those letters were saved and later published under that title. Historians and researchers have long marveled at her account as being the most true to life of what really happened during those early years.

Here is a picture I took a few weeks ago of that area. Rich Bar itself is just around the bend of the river up against that high mountain. If you can erase the road and railroad tracks in your mind, you will see exactly what she saw. Read the book at the same time and you can really put yourself there in that time.

Digger Bob

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Nice shot Digger. Is that the front edge of a UFO flying over? By the way, who's got the claims on Rich Bar now- still GPAA? I dredged the South Fork of the American out of Colfax in '85. That was before the new bridge was there. I remember one guy hit a real nice pocket of watermelon seed nuggets just under the bridge in the embankment. Always wanted to just hike and snipe the Feather. I heard some good stories about guys that have done that. Take care.......rf

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Hey Bob, I believe the Doctor and Shirley lived on Indian Bar (just below Peasoup). My partner, Glenn LeFevrer, and I dredged between Peasoup Bar and Missery Bar(sp?) between 81-84. Found alot of gold. Been awhile since I have been up there, but looking down from Hwy 70 at a turnout, that hole is 35' deep. We ran a Keene "custom-made" 8" sub-surface dredge. Theres a turn-off that will take you down to the river thru Peasoup and at the end, a sand bar. I lived there in my 21" travel trailer when we were dredging. I read Dame Shirleys Letters, one summer while there.

Do you detect up there? I know a spot above, that I bought the GP3K for. I tried a Goldbug2 there several years ago, but the ground drove it crazy. Want to try it maybe a weekend this summer. I found my first big nugget there. I still wear it 26 years later :D

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Guys,

The claim at Rich Bar is not GPAA. I didn't know that it ever had been. For many years it was owned by a fellow who worked it with big equipment. But he also had a set up for any rookies who wanted to come down. He set aside a section of the bar, dug it out to bedrock, and then for a fee, you could come down, dig out a bucket full of dirt, and take it over to where he had a water trough set up and you could pan it all out and keep whatever you found. I know a guy who was much more peristent and knowedgable than average. He worked the crevices exclusively and over the course of a couple of summers, found several nuggets that went over an ounce. Don't know if he told the owners though! This went on for years until the winter of '97 when the canyon flooded and washed away all his equipment. There are still bulldozers buried downstream somewhere he never could find!

But just last year he sold out because of Forest Service harassment and old age I imagine. Also, he lost a lot of money in the flood and never could recover. The new owners, I've heard, are going back in and reworking the whole bar, but with no public access. They contacted me once inquiring about gettting a Minelab to work the ground but I never heard back from them.

A friend of mine had the claim directly downstream for years also, but he too sold out for the same reasons. And another guy I know has a claim just upstream from it. I haven't gotten around to contacting him about detecting it. He and his dad just poke around with a little dredge.

I don't normally hunt in rivers or near water. Too much trash and overburden usually, not to mention claims and private property. I like to work above on the hillsides where the gold comes from.

Dame Shirley may have lived and worked for a time at Indian Bar, I dont' remember, but the main time frame for the book was at Rich Bar. Oh, and that "UFO" is my hat trying to shade out the sun. Couldn't quite get all of it out of the picture.

Digger

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Hello All,

Thanks for posting the Picture and story Bob. I could not imagine being back 100-150 years ago with a modern day metal detector. I'm sure you did not need one in the right spots, but just imagine what they could not phsically see! :shock:

Without a doubt, California was one rich State!

Eureka......

Rob Allison

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Rich Bar was the richest piece of ground on the whole Feather River system. It is patented ground.

I used to take the family to Rich Bar in the summer from 93 to 96. It was the best pay to pan place I've ever seen.

The owner at that time was Norm Grant - a really great guy. He and his son excavated to bedrock with heavy equipment and if the overburden looked good they'd wash it through a trommel type plant. I saw his son pan some of the concentrates from 40+ yards - yowza.

Once they hit bedrock they'd quit and let the recreationists get down there to crevice and whatnot for $40 for the day - keep what you find. If you found something big there was no reason not to tell Norm - it was keep what you find, period.

Our goal was always a 1 ouncer but our best from there was 1/4 ounce. I personally saw a guy recover a 4 ounce nugget eight feet from where I was working. Normally there would be half a dozen or more multiple ounce nuggets found each summer. Our best day was a little less than 1/2 ounce total.

A retired couple hit a pocket and in two days recovered 15 ounces - they showed us the gold. They got 30 ounces that summer - Norm let them camp on the place and they kind of acted as caretakers.

We moved in 96 and haven't been back but did know that Norm had sold the place. We'd also heard that the new owner is working it himself.

Our kids were small then, Norm let us camp on the place, we'd dig and pan, the kids would dig and dig, and we'd all swim in the river after knocking off. Good memories.

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More Rich Bar stories? Okay.....

The 4 ounce nugget the guy found near me was in the overburden. Digging to bedrock he filled about ten 5 gallon buckets with overburden. At the end of the day working the bedrock he had nothing. He was really beat an ALMOST dumped out the overburden buckets rather than pack them back to his camp to run through his highbanker. He did it, though, and the 4 ouncer came out of one of the buckets.

A fellow named Kelly was up there every week back in those times. He was really, really good at crevicing and just generally sniffing out the gold. He would ask people if they were done with their "claims" and if ask permission to work them - then he'd get gold from the "worked out" spot. Basically they did all the work of removing the overburden, then at the end of the day his knowledge and skills would produce the gold.

Don't think he was a bad guy - he always asked and he'd give advice and pointers to anyone. In one small area of the Rich Bar ground was a pond that filled a deep depression in the bedrock. Norm, the owner, knew it would be good, so he and Kelly arranged a 50-50 split. Kelly brought in a pump and he'd have the pond drained within an hour of showing up. He got around 40 ounces in a month at the pond. Again, he showed us the gold.

A story Norm told came from the Depression years. Rich Bar was worked again. The owner worked some of the ground and allowed unemployed men to work parts of it on shares. The owner one day uncover a small, 6' square of virgin bedrock the 49'ers had missed. He had a crowd of guys volunteering to help work it out but wanted to do it himself. One guy, assuming he didn't want anybody to highgrade on him, offered to wok the ground for free, NAKED, just so he could see what it was like to see what the 49'ers had seen.

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  • 2 years later...

Gold is now scarce in rich bar and hard to find any quanity without more work than it is worth, unless your retired and have alot of time and equiptment and money. My wife to be's father owns a claim above the raliroad tracks and we just got back from a week long trip there. I found no gold. I am sure if I had unlimited resources I might find some gold.

It is a beautiful place, as is the whole Feather River. But you have to respect that the people live there. We carry guns and don't want strangers just dropping by without notice or permission. You could be mistaken as a claim jumper. You would'nt want someone coming into your yard and digging holes, would you?

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mrmarin, is the claim owned, where the cemetery is? Back in the early eighties, my partner and I worked (dredged)the Peasoup claim and had the two claims between Peasoup and Misery Bar. Some of the gold from the hole was extremely delicate crystaline gold and quartz. Could not of traveled far. We figured it came from the hydraulic mines above Indian bar (around your in-laws propery?) Keep an eye out for white quartz outcroppings. The specimens had pure white quartz in them. We ventured around Indian Bar, found an old monitor; but never went above the tracks. Don't know if the claims around Indian Bar are still valid. It would be interesting to detect Indian Bar,but you'd need a detector w/ a very good discriminator. Pretty snakey also!

Be careful there with the guns, most everyone else does too. One point, I'm sure you are well aware of is a claim is the exclusive right and entitlement to remove minerals from said claim and that's about it. When we were working the hole, the guy that bought Peasoup,was from Navato. He paid a pretty penny for it thinking he would build a summer cabin on it and didn't want us using his road. We talked a bit and got it all striaghtened out. His share of gold found on his claim easied his losses most comfortably. Point is, can't keep anyone off who is hiking, fishing or bird watching

Good Luck

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Shep, the area just above ours (the cemetary) is all ownerd by the forestry dept. We do own the two houses just below that.

and actually one of the houses used to be section foremans house, that had to be moved back from the tracks.

By the way I am always very careful with guns. I was just making a the point that most of us have them just in case of what ever snakes ,bears and target practice, ect ect.

thanks for the reply!

:C)

mrmarin

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Hello All,

I must say I really enjoy hearing about the history of California's gold rushes. I can only imagine how rich some of those locations were at one time.

I knew an old gentleman that would come out to Arizona every Winter to metal detect. He used to own a bunch of claims on the middle fork of the Yuba River. I guess the claims were in the family for like 50 years. They worked the claims with two commercial sized dredges (8 & 10-inch). He used to tell me stories of the rich pay layers, but like anyone it sounded too good to be true. He also mentioned how deep the best gold was, sometimes 15-20 foot deep.

They were all just good stories until one year he brought out several full-sized peanut butter jars full of nugget gold! :o He told me this was just some of the biggest stuff he decided to hold onto for retirement. He said they sold all the small stuff, and it was hundreds of ounces.

Take care,

Rob Allison

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I can't believe that this old post is still around and people are still responding to it! I put this up back in Feb. of 2004, two and a half years ago!

Digger Bob

Hello All,

I must say I really enjoy hearing about the history of California's gold rushes. I can only imagine how rich some of those locations were at one time.

I knew an old gentleman that would come out to Arizona every Winter to metal detect. He used to own a bunch of claims on the middle fork of the Yuba River. I guess the claims were in the family for like 50 years. They worked the claims with two commercial sized dredges (8 & 10-inch). He used to tell me stories of the rich pay layers, but like anyone it sounded too good to be true. He also mentioned how deep the best gold was, sometimes 15-20 foot deep.

They were all just good stories until one year he brought out several full-sized peanut butter jars full of nugget gold! :o He told me this was just some of the biggest stuff he decided to hold onto for retirement. He said they sold all the small stuff, and it was hundreds of ounces.

Take care,

Rob Allison

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Digger Bob: Interesting stories that have a ring of truth to them seem to have a way of hanging around for a long time..just look at the " Dame Shirley Letters" Thanks for the post , it has brought forth some interest follow up--picture is now missing though :(:angry: Hammer

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