Mining for Visitor Gold at California’s Eagle Mine

While visiting San Diego last fall, I was told I should take a drive to Julian, a small village nestled in the Cuyamaca Mountains. Founded in 1870 in California’s ‘third gold rush,’ its two historic main products were gold and apples. Today, the product is tourism, but both gold and apples play a part in that.

The Eagle Gold Mine is one of the two best-known attractions in the historic town of Julian, California; the other is the Julian Pie Company, widely known for its apple pie, made from local produce, along with a dozen or so other kinds of pie. Some of the 1870s settler bet on gold; others planted acres and acres of orchards.

The pie wasn’t bad, but the gold mine turned out to be great fun, and unlike others I’ve visited didn’t require any scary tunnel or lift descents. And unlike some very commercial mine attractions, it’s a low-key affair, with plenty to look at while waiting for a few more people to show up and start a tour.

I wouldn’t call this one of America’s great car museums, but… At any rate, more visitors have arrived, and it’s time for the mining story to begin.

The Eagle Mine and the dozens of others that once dotted the area were all hard-rock mines—none of the panning-in-the-creek sort of mining we mostly imagine from the first Gold Rush. The northern miners quickly turned to blasting apart hillsides with water pressure, but the rules had changed by Julian’s time.

Still, you can’t entirely escape the image, and the Eagle Mine has troughs set up so children (and adults) can learn to pan for gold, a small amount of which is ‘salted’ into the water—and returned before departing. No keepers!

For mining from rock, stamping machines like the one above, use huge heavy weights dropping down to smash the gold-bearing rock into small fragments that can then be chemically treated to remove the gold from the rest.

Eagle is a walk-in mine; there are levels below and above the entrance, but the walk-in tunnel was a working area, not just an entrance to the rest. The mine slowly added length and depth over its 60 or so years of operation; it’s estimated to have produced around $100,000 worth of gold. You better believe that’s not in ‘today’s dollars!’

Below, the image that can be seen on the wall above; it shows the area around the mine entrance sometime in its early years.

The mine and its equipment were bought by the Sprague family in the 1960s, long after it had stopped producing; they stripped the walk-in level back to what would have been seen in the 1870s and opened it to visitors. So, the Eagle Mine has been mining visitors almost as long as it mined gold.

Along the tunnels, exhibits and artifacts of the mining era are on view; guides accompany the small groups to explain and safeguard. They all seem to be easy-going good-humored older men, and some of the families on tour with me were under the impression they were former miners from the mine. I only later learned the mine closed in 1934, so no.

The hoist was used to raise and lower ore and miners from other levels of the mine, and to and from the High Peak mine, just above Eagle. While the two mines had separate owners, they connected their properties so they could share mine carts and especially the stamp mills, allowing extra equipment to be sent to World War I scrap drives.

Up the ladder in the High Peak mine’s passageways, more exhibits, and demonstrations of lighting and safety systems.

And then, the end of the tour: a walk-out into the open at the High Peak level and a walk back down to the parking lot—and, of course, the souvenir store.

NUTS AND BOLTS

  • Julian is about an hour’s drive from coastal areas of San Diego County
  • The mine is about a mile drive up C Street from Julian’s village center
  • Mine and tours available 10 am to 6 pm, but subject to change
  • Adults $15, 5-11 $10, 4 and younger $1

 

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Marilyn Jones
18 days ago

I love attractions like this–an authentic look at the past. Very interesting, Paul.

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