Plumas Eureka State Park: A Beautiful, Family-Oriented Nature Destination

Plumas Eureka State Park is one of the hidden gems of the California state park system. Few people seem to know about this beautiful family destination, but it has a lot to offer children and adults alike. It is situated in a forested valley at the foot of Eureka Peak, site of the famous Plumas Eureka gold mine. Wildlife and nature trails run through the park, exploring the town’s history, and fishing is available in the streams and lakes. About a mile above the Eureka mine and park offices is a beautiful campground called Upper Jamison Creek. It has 67 camping spots available, most of which are shady and beautiful. It’s a fantastic place to experience the history of the California Gold Rush and a great base camp for exploring the Plumas County area in general. There is an excellent upscale restaurant located in the adjoining town of Johnsville and several golf courses in the area.

The California Department of Parks has rebuilt many of the old buildings at the Eureka mine. The old miners’ pension has been converted into a museum and park offices. Both the natural history of the area and past mining operations are on display in a small museum housed in the old boarding house. The blacksmith shop and the old assayer’s office have also been restored. The old Eureka mill is in the process of being restored and brought back to the condition it was in when the mine closed. It is a very educational place to visit. The park allows gold mining on Jamison Creek, although larger operations such as dredging, channeling, or high benching are not permitted. I’ve panned there myself and found some small gold flakes in the Jamison Creek gravels, but nothing of great size or richness.

The history of the discovery of the mines in the area is interesting. During any major gold rush, stories of fantastic finds abound, some real and some not. In the mother country of California, in the fall of 1850, there were many fantastic finds, but probably the wildest story of that time was the story of a lake surrounded by gold nuggets: the “Golden Lake”. A prospector named Tom Stoddart reportedly discovered a lake paved with gold nuggets in the High Sierra country between Sierra Valley and Downieville. These lake gravels were supposed to yield an ounce for each full container. He and his partner were lost at that time and the partner died in the struggle to get back to civilization. His story spread like wildfire. It was late in the year when he first came to town, so all the winter folk throughout the area waited and prepared to begin a springtime search for this great new discovery. When the winter snows melted, hundreds of prospectors went on the hunt. A lake of gold was never found, but many important new discoveries were made by explorers who went deep into the interior of the high Sierra in search of that legendary lake of gold. In that fateful spring of 1851, some prospectors found some gold in a small creek now known as Jamison Creek. The placers were not particularly rich, but they still paid wages, and prospectors kept looking for better deposits. They decided to send some of their group up a steep hillside they called Gold Mountain to see if they could learn the lay of the land and discover the best places for gold deposits.

As they climbed the mountain, they found a huge vein of quartz exposed on its slopes. The vein averaged 20 feet wide and protruded over 400 feet along its length. It consisted of rose-colored quartz with many decomposed sulfide pockets and was rich in gold. It was called the Eureka Lode by the original nine discoverers. Other prospectors also bet on several nearby gold veins. Early miners in the 1850s had a hard time mining hard rock, even with those rich bonanza minerals, they were so inexperienced that it was difficult for them to make operations pay off. In 1855, the company that owned the rich Eureka vein decided to invest some money and erected a mill of 12 stamps, each weighing 800 pounds. The mill was powered by hydraulic power. For several years the mines provided good minerals and the small towns that grew up around the mines prospered. Between 1851 and 1865, local mines produced nearly $2 million in gold ($67 million at today’s prices). During this time, the Eureka mine paid its shareholders more than $250,000 in dividends. Although a rich new ore chimney was discovered in 1868, by 1871, rich ores had become scarce and the mines were not paying as well as before. Although the mines continued to produce into the 1890s, the town and area slowly declined as residents left the area. After World War II, the region and all of its mines were purchased by the state of California, who made it a state park. –