California’s Calaveras County—made famous by Mark Twain and his celebrated Jumping Frog—is the focus of this comprehensive study of Mother Lode mining. Most histories of the California Mother Lode have focused on the mines around the American and Yuba Rivers. However, the “Southern Mines”—those centered around Calaveras County in the central Sierra—were also important in the development of California’s mineral wealth. Calaveras Gold offers a detailed and meticulously researched history of mining and its economic impact in this region from the first discoveries in the 1840s until the present. Mining in Calaveras County covered the full spectrum of technology from the earliest placer efforts through drift and hydraulic mining to advanced hard-rock industrial mining. Subsidiary industries such as agriculture, transportation, lumbering, and water supply, as well as a complex social and political structure, developed around the mines. The authors examine the roles of race, gender, and class in this frontier society; the generation and distribution of capital; and the impact of the mines on the development of political and cultural institutions. They also look at the impact of mining on the Native American population, the realities of day-to-day life in the mining camps, the development of agriculture and commerce, the occurrence of crime and violence, and the cosmopolitan nature of the population. Calaveras County mining continued well into the twentieth century, and the authors examine the ways that mining practices changed as the ores were depleted and how the communities evolved from mining camps into permanent towns with new economic foundations and directions. Mining is no longer the basis of Calaveras’s economy, but memories of the great days of the Mother Lode still attract tourists who bring a new form of wealth to the region.

Northern Calaveras County stretches eastward from the valley towns of Wallace and Jenny Lind, through the Campo Seco and Mokelumne Hill gold country, to the county seat in San Andreas and finally extends to the upcountry mining camps and logging settlements of West Point and Railroad Flat. Historically water and trails connected these diverse regions. The Mokelumne River and its tributariesdiverted into flumes and ditchesbrought water to the river bars, mines, ranches, settlements, and towns and provided their lifeblood. Trails first followed Native American paths and then developed into stage roads, railroads, and state highways. These routes connected the valley to the mountains and carried pioneers seeking gold, water, timber, fertile land, and recreation to new lands and new lives.

The Angels Camp and Copperopolis regions offer a fascinating chapter in the history of the Mother Lode. Calaveras County's southwest corner has many tales to tell. An important Gold Rush town, Angels Camp gained even greater fame through Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which inspired the world-famous Jumping Frog Jubilee. At the same time, Copperopolis became a critical supplier of copper to the Union during the Civil War and legendary outlaw Black Bart made his first and his last stagecoach holdup here.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1867.