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The Empire Mine was the largest and longest-operating gold mine in
California. Established in 1850 at the beginning of the California gold
rush, it closed in 1956. During that time, miners dug over 590
kilometers of underground tunnels up to 1,500 meters below the surface
to extract some 219 tonnes of gold stubbornly embedded in quartz. The
State of California bought the land in 1975 and developed it into a
state historic park. It’s in Grass Valley, an easy drive from Sacramento
along Highway 49, the road that links many of the historic towns and
ruins from the gold rush era.
You can only visit a small part of the underground complex near the mine
entrance. While the mine was open, a network of pumps kept groundwater
out of the tunnels. The tunnels flooded when the mine closed. A project
is currently underway to build a new tunnel and a railway for
underground tours. Until that’s finished, you can wander the mine yard.
The office buildings are made of waste rock from the mine, and resemble
houses in Cornwall, England. William Bourn, Jr., the most illustrious of
the mine’s owners, recruited his workforce from Cornwall. A long history
of hard rock tin and copper mining gave Cornish miners extensive
experience uniquely suited to digging gold from quartz. Today their
influence remains most visible in the Cornish pasty (“pass-tee”),
a meat pie that miners traditionally packed for lunch. The pies feature
prominently on restaurant menus in Grass Valley.
Depending on your perspective and preference, the mine yard is either a
treasure trove or a junkyard of derelict hardware left over from the
mine’s century-long history. There are colorfully-painted trucks, along
with equally colorful compressors, motors, parts, and sheds in various
stages of decay.
I’m definitely in the “treasure trove” camp, since I find these items
irresistible as photographic subjects. Unfortunately (or fortunately,
again depending on your perspective) in the decade since I took these
pictures the park has undergone various “historical restoration and
visitor enhancement projects.” So by now some or all of this clutter may
have been cleaned up and carted away.
At the end of the 19th century, William Bourn, Jr. paid his miners $3
per day. A foreman earned $4 per day. That was probably a decent wage at
that time, about $72 and $96 respectively in 2006 dollars. But mining
was dirty and grueling work, and labor and environmental regulations
were essentially nonexistent. I can’t find any information about what
Bourn paid himself. But it must have been substantial, judging by the
park’s other major attraction.
Bourn spent $35,000 in 1897 to build a “cottage” on land next to the
mine. That’s about $837,000 in 2006 dollars. Although it imitates an
aristocratic English country lodge— complete with 5.25 hectares of
the obligatory gardens, fountains, and lawns, plus a “clubhouse” for
entertaining— it’s built from the same waste rock as the mine
offices.
Bourn may have intended the “cottage” to show off his wealth and status
for other members of local High Society rather than as a residence fit
for the lord of a mining manor. He and his wife found the continuous
noise from the adjacent stamp mill that crushed the quartz so
distressing that they only stayed there for a few weeks each year. They
spent the rest of their time at their much quieter estate in the
mountains south of San Francisco.
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