El Dorado County Gold Districts

El Dorado County is famous for beginning the whole gold rush in the first place. This is where Marshall found his world known nugget in Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. This place is now a State Park and if you are passing by you should consider visiting it.

There are a few different locations where gold can be found in El Dorado County; some of these places include the middle fork of the American River from the Rubacon River upwards, the south fork of the American River on top of the power station at Chilil Bar, the north fork of the Consumnes River around the Martinez Creek, the Grizzly Flat district, the Indian Diggings district, Clear Creek close to the Blue Gauge Mine, and the area around Volcanoville.

Gold Districts

Coloma
The district of Coloma was not a very big place and the placers in this area soon ran out of gold making the miners move to other places very quickly. Coloma was the first gold district in the Mother Lode though. Not a lot of lode mind has been done in this area and most of the gold that was discovered was taken from the stream and bank gravels. The location of Coloma is on Highway 49.

Deer Creek
The Deer Creek mining district can be found by taking the Latrobe Road south off of Highway 50, just before getting to Sacramento, El Dorado County line. During the 1930’s and the 1940’s a great amount of dredging went on here and a good amount of gold was recovered.

Deer Valley
The district of Deer Valley is a small lode mining district that can be located by going north on Ponderosa Road right off of Highway 50 west of Placerville, to the Green Valley Road.

El Dorado
El Dorado was at first known as Mud Springs and this district is located a few miles south of Placerville on Highway 49. Placer mining started early in this area and lode mining started up soon afterwards.

Fairplay
Fairplay is a placer mining district that was first worked on at the beginning of the 1850’s. Gold in this area can be found in the Tertiary gravels that started in Slug Gulch and go into Fairplay. The gravels of quartz are the richest in this area and the gold is known to be very coarse.

In order to get to Fairplay you will need to take Highway 50 east going out of Placerville to Snows Road, this will then become Aukin Road if you continue going south. Continue going until you reach Fairplay Road.

Georgetown
The district of Georgetown was originally known as Growlerburg due to the nuggets that could be found in the streams. Supposedly the nuggets that were found in the streams were so big that they “growled” inside the gold pans.

Some miners from Oregon that were headed by a man named Phillips were the first men that worked the placers in 1849. This camp however burned down in 1852 and the miners moved to the actual site after the fire occurred.

Lode and placer gold can be found in this area and in the past there were some rich seam deposits that were found and that were placer mined. Georgetown can be reached by taking Highway 193 north off of Highway 49 right above Placerville.