![]() | Malakoff Diggins Park Brochure |
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Malakoff
Diggins
State Historic Park
Our Mission
The mission of California State Parks is
to provide for the health, inspiration and
education of the people of California by helping
to preserve the state’s extraordinary biological
diversity, protecting its most valued natural and
cultural resources, and creating opportunities
for high-quality outdoor recreation.
At Malakoff Diggins,
the world’s largest
hydraulic gold mine
devastated the
pristine landscape —
leading to the first
California State Parks supports equal access.
Prior to arrival, visitors with disabilities who
need assistance should contact the park at
(530) 265-2740. If you need this publication in an
alternate format, contact interp@parks.ca.gov.
CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS
P.O. Box 942896
Sacramento, CA 94296-0001
For information call: (800) 777-0369
(916) 653-6995, outside the U.S.
711, TTY relay service
www.parks.ca.gov
Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park
23579 North Bloomfield Road
Nevada City, CA 95959
(530) 265-2740
© 2010 California State Parks (Rev. 2017)
environmental law
enacted in the nation.
M
alakoff Diggins State Historic Park
preserves and interprets the 1850s -1880s
hydraulic mining era, when gold seekers
combed the Sierra foothills and washed away
entire mountains looking for the precious metal.
PARK HISTORY
Native People
The park lies within the territory of the Hill
Nisenan. Nisenan territory once extended
from the lower reaches of the Yuba, American,
and Feather Rivers to the east bank of the
Sacramento River and up to the 10,000-foot
Sierra crest.
The Hill Nisenan lived in multi-family
villages or in extended-family hamlets.
Several hamlets might be grouped together
under one leader in the largest village. Villages
were located below 3,000 feet elevation, in
small valleys and open canyons. The families
stayed in these villages during the winter,
but spread to smaller camps — often at higher
elevations in rough terrain— from spring
through fall to collect and hunt food.
The Nisenan’s first contact with the Spanish
came in 1808, when General Gabriel Moraga
passed through the Nisenan territory. The
great malaria epidemic of 1833 wiped out
many of the Nisenan. The final blow to
Nisenan culture came with the 1848 gold rush,
when miners overran their territory, bringing
new diseases and disrupting Nisenan
harvest patterns.
The surviving Nisenan in the Nevada County
region seek to have their federal recognition
restored as they strive to preserve their
ancestral heritage.
Gold miners of the area
methods to separate more gold from larger
amounts of the deposits. These methods
included long, slanted sluice boxes or
“rockers.” Miners added liquid mercury
(also called quicksilver), which created a
gold-mercury amalgam that settled to the
bottom of the devices while water, sand,
and gravel ran off. Some mercury was
inevitably lost from the sluice and flowed
downstream with the sediments, but the
miners were fairly efficient at using and
re-using the valuable mercury to aid in the
recovery and concentration of gold.
In 1852, a French-speaking Canadian
miner named Anthony Chabot bypassed
the need for ditches and flumes by hooking
up a canvas hose and directing the water
flow at the ore supply. When his partner,
Edward Mattison, increased the water
pressure by adding a nozzle to the hose,
hydraulic mining was born. Discarded dirt
and gravel ore, called debris or slickens,
was discharged into the rivers.
Miners Find Gold
Gold panning in Sierra streambeds quickly
exhausted the readily available gold.
Miners sifted through stream deposits of
sand and gravel— a process called placer
mining — looking for gold.
Placer mining began here in 1852 after
a rich gold deposit was found in Humbug
Creek, near the South Yuba River. Each placer
miner staked claim to a 30- by 40-foot section
of ground. They would scoop and sieve
gravel, dirt, and water
from a running creek or
river into flat-bottomed
pans. They agitated these
alluvial deposits, then
poured off the water. The
heavier gold, if present,
would gleam as flakes or
nuggets in the bottom of
the pans.
A town called Humbug
soon sprang up to house
the miners. They began
High-pressure monitors wash gold from ancient river beds.
devising more efficient
In 1858, the townspeople decided to
change the name from Humbug to the
more attractive North Bloomfield. The
surrounding area became the Bloomfield
Township, which also included Lake City,
the village of Malakoff, Derbec, and nearby
Relief Hill. Many Chinese immigrants
labored in the gold mines and grew
vegetables for the town’s residents.
Some miners became discouraged at the
small return in gold for the amount of effort
they had expended; they left to try their
luck at richer pickings in Nevada.
In 1866, French immigrant Julius
Poquillion and others bought and
consolidated many abandoned claims
until they had amassed 1,535 acres. The
local miners then convinced a group of San
Francisco financiers to invest in large-scale
hydraulic gold mining, forming the North
Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company.
The group
the Diggins pit to Humbug
purchased the
Creek in 1872. Eight vertical
Bowman Ranch
shafts were sunk at 1,000-foot
and Rudyard
intervals along the tunnel
Reservoir,
angled toward the creek,
constructed dams,
which led to the South Yuba
and built a huge
River. Two crews would
flume and ditch
enter each shaft and dig in
system to carry
opposite directions along
water to wash
the tunnel line. This method
ore at the claim.
of tunneling shaved a year
North
Bloomfield
today
At capacity, the
from usual tunnel methods,
resulting water power could work 100,000
enabling miners to dig into the pit’s rich
tons of gravel per day at the diggings. The
pay dirt and process the material through
North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company
the tunnel before ejecting debris into the
continued to expand and invest in more
river. Fifteen crews dug simultaneously. On
water supplies and hydraulic mining
November 15, 1874, the tunnel was completed
facilities; they built over 100 miles of canals
at a cost of $498,800.
and ditches that carried water to claim sites
In 1876, the company began using
for hydroblasting the rock and soil.
seven full-scale Craig monitors — powerful
The Company began work on a 7,847-foot
water cannons — to wash the gravel from
drainage tunnel through the bedrock from
the mountainside and capture any gold
it held. This effective method brought
new prosperity and workers to North
Bloomfield — as mounds of spent debris
choked downstream waters.
The company’s records show expenditures
of $3 million for all capital improvements.
They had collected only $3 million in gold
before a judge issued an injunction to cease
using water cannons and river dumping.
Lake City, ca. 1870
The Sawyer Decision
During the 1850s, concerns emerged about
the debris from hydraulic mines. Toward the
end of the 1860s, as large-scale hydraulic
operations got underway, the debris problem
became severe. Farms and towns in the
Central Valley were flooded and destroyed.
Silt traveled all the way to San Francisco
Bay, impairing marine navigation of the
Sacramento River and parts of the bay. River
channels were closed to steamboat traffic.
Because mining had contributed to valley
towns’ prosperity, many towns depended
on the mines for sustenance. The valley
inhabitants simply built their levees higher
to hold off floods.
In 1875 the town of Marysville flooded.
Because the town was surrounded by high
levees, the floodwaters swept in and filled
the area as if it were a giant bowl. Many
residents lost their property or their lives.
Finally, a petition was submitted to the
State Legislature requesting that laws
regulating mining operations be passed.
Years of skirmishes followed, both in and
out of courts. In addition to the lawsuits,
injunctions, and appeals, some destruction of
Water cannon display on Humbug Day
property also took place. When the Rudyard
Dam on the Yuba River failed in 1883, miners
suspected the dam had been dynamited.
On January 7, 1884, after months of
testimony and argument, Judge Lorenzo
Sawyer handed down his decision in the
case of Woodruff (a Marysville property
owner) vs. the North Bloomfield Gravel
Mining Company. In a 225-page document
that described the damage caused by
mining debris, Sawyer issued a permanent
injunction against dumping tailings into
the Yuba River. Attempts were made to
keep hydraulic mines profitable, such as
impounding the debris, but within a couple
of decades, California’s environmentally
devastating hydraulic-mining era ended.
As a result of the Sawyer decision, North
Bloomfield’s population had shrunk to half
by 1900. Several buildings stood empty and
decaying. When the first World War began
in 1914, some buildings were demolished
for their lumber. Prohibition later closed the
town’s saloons. The population grew during
the Depression era, when former residents
returned to North Bloomfield’s empty
buildings seeking a free place to live.
When World War II started in 1941, people
left to find work in other places, and more
buildings were razed. By 1950, North
Bloomfield’s permanent residents numbered
fewer than twenty.
The legacy of hydraulic gold mining can
still be seen in the gouged hillsides and
choked streambeds around Malakoff Diggins.
Scientists are investigating the enduring
effects of introduced mercury on the
ecosystem — evaluating soils, native fauna,
and water quality to understand the extent
of biological uptake in areas affected by
historical gold mining.
Becoming a State Park
In the 1960s, Nevada County locals initiated
a campaign to preserve the history of
North Bloomfield and hydraulic mining.
The idea caught on, and Malakoff Diggins
State Historic Park was created in 1965. Park
visitors can see the way miners lived near
the remnants of the main Malakoff mine
and five other claim sites that were blasted
with water to get at the gold thought to lie
embedded beneath.
NATURAL HISTORY
Geology and Vegetation
Sedimentary and volcanic rocks are
evident in the cliff walls of the Diggins, with
alternating layers of conglomerates, white
fine-grained clays, and iron-stained siltstones.
Landslides and erosion have changed the
profile of the pit since the days of hydraulic
mining. The pit is about 6,800 feet long from
southwest to northeast, and it ranges from
1,000 to 3,800 feet wide from north to south.
More than 100 feet of eroded deposits
have accumulated on the pit floor,
transforming its raw, u-shaped surface into
a flat plane. Native vegetation has become
established in the once-barren areas.
About 3,200 forested acres in the park
surround the pit, at 2,500 to 4,000 feet
elevation. The second-growth ponderosa
pine forest also has incense cedar, black
oak, white and Douglas-fir, and sugar pine
growing on its upper slopes.
Whiteleaf manzanita is the park’s most
profuse woody shrub. Hillsides are covered
with ceanothus, including buckbrush and
deerbrush. Spectacular wildflowers bloom
in the spring.
Wildlife
Nocturnal animals such as black bears,
mountain lions, coyotes, and bobcats roam
in the dark. Black-tailed deer may be seen
during the day.
The park’s bird species include the darkeyed junco, mountain chickadee, California
quail, Steller’s jay, black-throated gray
warbler, and mourning dove.
Fishing — Rainbow and brown trout may
be caught in South Yuba River. Blair Lake
reservoir holds black bass, bluegill, and
rainbows. All anglers 16 and over must
possess a valid California fishing license.
Hiking — The park has more than 20 miles
of scenic foothill trails with degrees of
difficulty varying from easy to strenuous.
The renowned South Yuba Trail connects
to this trail network.
Programs and events — Gold panning
near China Garden and guided tours
of historic town buildings are offered
during museum hours. Humbug Day takes
place each June, and an Ice Cream Social
celebrates September. Environmental Living
Programs are available to school groups. Call
the park museum at (530) 265-2740 or visit
www.malakoffdigginsstatepark.org for a
current schedule of events.
Climate
From October through April, the western
slope of the Sierra receives between 40 and
60 annual inches of rainfall. Snow is common
at higher elevations. Spring, summer, and fall
temperatures range from the high 50s to the
mid-80s.
RECREATION
Camping — Three miner’s cabins in North
Bloomfield may be reserved. The 30 family
campsites at Chute Hill each have tables,
food lockers, and fire grates. The group
campsite is reservable for 9 to 40 people
with no more than 10 vehicles. Reservations
are recommended for weekends or summer
weekdays. For camping reservations, call
(800) 444-7275 or visit www.parks.ca.gov.
Swimming — Blair Lake has a small swimming
section near the picnic area. No lifeguard
service is available, so please use caution
and swim at your own risk.
The Diggins at Malakoff hydraulic mining pit
NEARBY STATE PARKS
• South Yuba River SP
(Bridgeport crossing)
17660 Pleasant Valley Road
Penn Valley 95946
(530) 432-2546
• Empire Mine State Historic Park
10791 East Empire Street
Grass Valley 95945
(530) 273-8522
ACCESSIBLE FEATURES
The restrooms are accessible. For accessibility
updates, visit http://access.parks.ca.gov.
This park receives support in part from a
nonprofit association. For more information,
contact Friends of North Bloomfield &
Malakoff Diggins (affiliated with South Yuba
River Park Association) • (530) 265-2740
www.malakoffdigginsstatepark.org
PLEASE REMEMBER
• Dogs must be on a leash no
more than six feet long and
must be under control at all
times. They must be confined
to a tent or vehicle at night.
• All natural and cultural park
Poison oak
features are protected by law
and may not be disturbed or removed.
• Step with caution. Watch for rattlesnakes
and poison oak in many parts of the park.
• Disease-carrying ticks may be present.
• Black bears can smell food and toiletries
stored in cars or tents. Use the bearresistant metal lockers for all food and
scented items.
• Please check in and pay day-use fees
at the park headquarters/museum in
North Bloomfield.
• Please use only marked roads and trails.
Off-road vehicles and making or using
unofficial trails are not permitted within
park boundaries.
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