2.  Location: Coloma, California,  Date in Use: 18480-  Technique: Panning  Success: Small amount of gold was found at the mill, but it sparked the gold rush  Sparked the California Gold Rush  Caused 80,000 immigrants poured into California during 1849  The original flake of gold discovered at the mill is currently at the Smithsonian Institution.  Sutter's sawmill, in present day Coloma California, is one of the most significant historic sites in the nation

3.  Location: desert canyon of the Cargo Muchacho Mountains in the southeast corner of the Colorado Desert (edge of San Diego County.)  Date in Use: 1775-1941  Technique: Mexicans: shallow pits, surface mining, Americans: placer  Success: small-scale mining  Mexican miners worked the area for decades before Americans entered the district in the late nineteenth century.  Development was hindered by the high cost of shipping equipment, the limited labor supply, and Apache raids  Mining became firmly established in 1877 with the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Yuma  Large-scale mining continued from around 1890 until 1916 and again from 1932 until 1941

4.  Location: Grant County, New Mexico  Date in Use: 1800-current  Technique: Placer; open pit  Success: largest porphyry copper deposit in New Mexico  "The Santa Rita is, perhaps, the most famous mine in Western America, for it was here that the techniques of copper mining were first developed in the Southwest." So wrote Carey McWilliams in his 1949 book, North From Mexico.  By 1805, 600 men were employed at Santa Rita  Apache raids were common  One of the oldest mines still being used today in the Southwest  AKA Chino mine

5.  Location: Southeastern Riverside County, CA  Date in Use: 1880’s-1900s  Technique: lode  Success: Red Cloud produced over $1 million in lead and silver  There is a considerable number of gold mines and gold prospects in this area.  Gold was "very coarse and orangish or reddish yellow" in color due to the gold's natural alloy with copper  Some silver was also recovered

6.  Location: San Bernardino County, CA  Date in Use: 1869-1930’s (gold mining began in 1882)  Technique:  Success: Short lived  Silver, copper, tungsten, tin, barite, fluorspar, and rare earths were also mined  Know more for its small but well-established trading center  Produced a considerable amount of silver between 1869 and 1880,  Started to see a decline by 1883

7.  Location: Calaveras County, California.  Date in Use: 1848-1926  Technique: surface mining, placer mining  Success: $26 million in gold and quartz  It was one of the most productive mining camps in the state  The gold production from the district declined in the late 1850s  Named after James H. Carson, a Second Lieutenant in Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson’s Regiment of New York Volunteers  Within the first ten days Carson and a small company had each taken out 180 ounces of gold

8.  Location: Nevada City  Date in Use: 1950-1956  Technique: Placer  Success: 5.8 million ounces of gold.  In its prime, mills were working 24 hours a day.  Now a historic state park  Most famous: Empire Mine  Consisted of 367 miles of underground passages

9.  Location: Pikes Peak Region  Date in Use: 1890-today!  Technique: Placer (open pit today)  Success: 22,400,000 ounces of gold were extracted from 500 mines in the Cripple Creek Mining District from 1890-1910  1900 was a pivotal year from the Cripple Creek Mining District. (made $18 million)  Miners made $3 a day  Cresson Mine-still active today  Molly Kathleen Gold Mine- located1,000 feet under Cripple Creek.

10.  Location: Idaho  Date in Use:1864  Technique: sluicing (in the beginning) then hydraulic  Success: $250,000,000 (greater than the California 49er and of the Klondike in Alaska)  Population at its prime: 25,000  Idaho City: the best mining camp in the Basin and attracted rendezvous of miners, speculators, and gamblers  Quartz mining prospered in the 1870s  Discovered by George Grimes  Gold from the Boise Basin helped to strengthen the Union treasury during the most crucial days of the Civil War,

11.  Location: Leadville, Co  Date in Use: 1860-1999  Technique: sluice and pan (placer)  Success: $4 million in gold  By 1880, Leadville had more than 30,000 residents  "Unsinkable" Molly Brown  In 1889, Congress established a National Fish Hatchery (now the oldest fish hatchery west of the Mississippi River)  Climax Molybdenum Mine supplied half of the world's molybdenum  the most productive silver-mining district  After 100 years as a major US mining district, the last active mine, the Black Cloud mine closed in 1999

12.  Location: 20 miles southwest of Buena Vista (Colorado)  Date in Use: 1880-1922  Technique: Placer  Success: Mary Murphy Mine recovered over $60,000,000 worth of gold  Originally named Forest City  One of Colorado's best preserved ghost towns  The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad line ran through St. Elmo  50 patented mine claims within the area

13.  Location: Silver City, New Mexico  Date in Use: 1860- Early 1900’s  Technique: Placer  Success: $8 million in ore  Originally named Birchville, after prospector and former outlaw, Robert H. Birch  miners were harassed by Apache Indians  The Battle of Pinos Altos (Arizona Guards vs Apache) 1861  located along the Continental Divide at an elevation of 7,000 feet  Popular ghost town today