Mining Districts of Nevada

NEVADA BUREAU OF MINES AND GEOLOGY REPORT 47 Second Edition MINING DISTRICTS OF NEVADA Joseph V. Tingley MACKAY SCHOOL OF MINES 1998 UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO CONTENTS Historical background Development of mining districts in Nevada Previous work Organization of report Acknowledgments District descriptions References Appendix A List of Nevada mining district names Appendix B Nevada mining districts listed by county Appendix C Nevada mining districts listed by commodity Figure 1. Record of proceedings of miners’ meeting at Gold Hill, 1859 Figure 2. Mining laws of the Reese River mining district Figure 3. DeGroot’s map of Nevada Territory, 1863 Figure 4. Menardi’s map of Nevada, 1908 Plate 1 Mining districts of Nevada Note: Hyperlinks are denoted by underlined blue text. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Most of the major changes included in the second edition of Mining Districts of Nevada resulted from mineral assessment work carried out in south central Nevada between 1992 and 1996 (Tingley and others, 1993, 1997). Six new mining districts, Cedar Spring, Gold Range, Jamestown, Pocopah, Rainstorm, and Trappmans, have been added in Nye County and two districts, Joe May Canyon and White Caps, have been added in Clark County. Six Nye County districts, Antelope Springs, Cactus Springs, Clarkdale, Kawich, Wellington, and Wilsons, and three districts in Lincoln County, Don Dale, Groom, and Papoose, have boundary modifications and new material has been added to their descriptions in the text. In the northern part of the state, the boundary of the Argenta district, Lander County, has been modified to reflect the development of a major gold mine; gold has now surpassed barite as the major commodity produced from this district. Gold has also become the major commodity in the Robinson Mountain district, Elko County, replacing barite. Minor changes made in some 45 other districts across the state consist mainly of the addition of alternate district names and references. Six districts have been deleted from this edition. One of these, Goldrange, Nye County (location unknown), has been replaced by the Gold Range district with a known location, and another, Calico Hills, Nye County, as been renamed Pocopah. The other four are historic districts that have now been identified as alternate names for known districts. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Ricketts (1931, p. 28) defined a mining district as: . a section of country usually designated by name, having described or understood boundaries within which mineral is found and which is worked under rules and regulations prescribed by the miners therein. There is no limit to its territorial extent and its boundaries may be changed. The organization of mining districts is entirely optional with the miners, as there is no law requiring such organization. The term mining district was coined in the gold camps of California’s Mother Lode in the early 1850s. California, along with Nevada, Utah, and large parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, had been acquired by Mexican cession in 1848. A military government set up in California quickly abolished Mexican laws but no attempt was made by the U.S. Congress to extend federal laws over California until September 1850 when the state was admitted to the Union (Lindley, 1897, p. 44-50). Therefore, when gold was discovered in California in 1848 and a rush to the area developed, thousands of miners found themselves outside the boundaries of effective government with no legal means of taking and holding mineral claims (Elliott, 1973, p. 65). In an attempt to bring order to this situation, California miners, by 1850, had begun to organize local government for the mines (Hershiser, 1913, p. 142). At mass meetings held in the scattered camps of the gold diggings, local rules and regulations were voluntarily adopted covering mainly mining matters but sometimes extending to civil rights and criminal punishment as well. Mining was the primary interest however, and the main object of the regulations was to fix the boundaries of the district, the size of claims, the manner in which claims should be marked and recorded, and the amount of work that should be done to hold claims (Lindley, 1897, p. 47). Within a few years, the mining district meeting had become a necessary part of each new mining rush, and the codes therein developed, known as “the rules and regulations of mining districts,” were accepted as legal by the California courts (Elliott, 1973, p. 65). Local rules and regulations bridged the time from 1850 to 1866 when the first national policy regarding mining lands became a statute (Hershiser, 1913, p. 143). This law, known as the General Mining Act of 1866, contained a provision that stated local rules should be recognized and confirmed (Lindley, 1897, p. 62). According to Lindley (1897, p. 80), the Mining Act of 1872, which, with additions and amendments, is the law under which federal mining rights are now acquired, contained a similar provision concerning mining-district regulations by miners that stated: Subject to the limitations enumerated in the act the miners of each mining district may make regulations not in conflict with the laws of the United States, or with the laws of the state or territory in which the district is situated . Thus the mining district concept, which grew from need in the absence of legislation, became legitimate through legislation. This same legislation, however, essentially eliminated any further need for organized mining districts. Lindley in 1897 (p. 80) stated: . generally in California the district organizations are a thing of the past . They have performed in the scheme of evolution, and have, for the most part, disappeared, to be replaced by higher forms of legislation. Regardless of fallen stature, however, miners continued to organize mining districts until well after the turn of the century, and the term is still used, although it is now applied very loosely and then only as a geographic reference. DEVELOPMENT OF MINING DISTRICTS IN NEVADA By the time the Comstock was discovered north of the Carson River in the western part of what was to become Nevada, the district-type of organization had been used enough in California to prove its worth in protecting and legalizing mining claims and transfers. Nevada, then part of Utah territory and, like California, recently ceded to the United States by Mexico, had neither national nor territorial laws governing mineral claims. Following examples set on the Mother Lode, Comstock miners proceeded with the organization of a California-style district and, in January 1858, established the Columbia quartz district, taking in all of the Comstock lode, as the first mining district in Carson County, Utah Territory (Elliott, 1973, p. 66). The Columbia district quickly passed from the scene, however, as mining became focused around the small towns of Gold Hill, Virginia [City], and Silver City and the local miners broke away and formed their own districts. Figure 1 is the record of proceedings of the miners’ meeting held at Gold Hill on June 11, 1859 when the Gold Hill district’s rules and regulations were formulated. Several articles clearly show California’s influence on the new Nevada industry, and also demonstrate the custom of intertwining of civil and mining matters in mining district regulations. The Comstock is credited with the first official “mining district” formed in Nevada, but the first organization for mining, probably similar to a mining district in all but name, was formed in southern Nevada in 1856. On July 29 of that year, a group of 15 Mormon missionaries formed an association to work the Potosi lead mine in the Potosi (Goodsprings) district (Hewett, 1931, p. 69). Although the venture failed and the southern Nevada discovery was eclipsed by Comstock excitement, Potosi may well have been the first mining district in Nevada. Mining may have taken place as early as 1849 at the Desert Queen mine, west of the Forty Mile Desert section of the emigrant trail (Vanderburg, 1940, p. 19). There is, however, no record of a mining district being formed at that early date. The spread of mining districts outward from the Comstock after 1859 is commonly compared with “ripples spreading from the drop of a stone in a pool of water.” Numerous districts were formed in the mountains of western Nevada, first flanking the Comstock then skipping to discoveries to the southeast along the California border, then spreading as well from other discoveries made at points such as Reese River and Buena Vista in the central part of the state. Following the now common practice, miners in each of the new districts called meetings and set down the rules they would thereafter follow within their local area. Figure 2 shows the format devised by miners in the Reese River mining district of Lander County in 1862. In contrast to the earlier Comstock rules (fig. 1) these now addressed only mining matters. In 1866, the Nevada State Legislature enacted legislation setting up a statutory procedure for establishing a mining district and electing a mining district recorder. The act, in addition to the provision relating to mining districts, covered rules for the location of mining claims, for performing assessment work, and for establishing recorder’s fees (Laws of Nevada, Second Session, Chapter LXL, approved February 27, 1866). This act, however, contained provisions in direct conflict with mining legislation enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1866, and the Nevada statute was repealed the following year (Shamberger, 1974, p. 63). Although subsequent acts of the Nevada State Legislature mentioned mining districts and mining district recorders (for example, Laws of Nevada, Ninth Session, 1879, Chapter LXXII, Twelfth Session, 1885, Chapter XXI, and Twenty-Third Session, 1907, Chapter XCI), no provision for the creation of a mining district was ever again enacted (Shamberger, 1974, p.

Load more