El Dorado Canyon (Nevada)

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El Dorado Canyon
2015-10-29 08 39 17 Abandoned mining buildings in El Dorado Canyon at about 5620 feet on the western slopes of Star Peak, Nevada.jpg
Abandoned mining buildings in El Dorado Canyon, at about 5,620 feet (1,710 m) on the western slopes of Star Peak, Nevada
LocationU.S. Highway 95 near Nelson, Nevada
Reference no.6 [1]

El Dorado Canyon is a canyon in southern Clark County, Nevada famed for its rich silver and gold mines. The canyon was named in 1857 by steamboat entrepreneur Captain George Alonzo Johnson when gold and silver was discovered here. [2] [3] It drains into the Colorado River at the former site of Nelson's Landing. [3]

Contents

The town of Nelson lies in the upper reach of the canyon. Eldorado Canyon Mine Tours operates mid way in the canyon at the Techatticup Mine one of the oldest and most productive mines in the canyon.

History

Prospecting and mining in the El Dorado Canyon started by 1857, if not earlier. [4] : 13, note 27  [5] But in April 1861, as the American Civil War began, word got out that silver and some gold and copper lodes had been discovered by John Moss and others in what became known as El Dorado Canyon, in New Mexico Territory, now Nevada. The canyon was on the west side of the river sixty five miles (104.6 km) above Fort Mohave at what was then considered the limit of navigation of the river. George A. Johnson came up river and made a deal to supply the mines with his steamboats at a lower price than that provided overland across the Mohave Desert from Los Angeles. That fall, news of the strikes in the Colorado Mining District (by 1864 also called the Eldorado Canyon District), brought a flood of miners to the canyon. [6]

Several mining camps were founded in the canyon over the years. At the beginning San Juan, or Upper Camp, was at the top of the canyon miles from the river near the modern town of Nelson. Midway down the canyon near the Techatticup Mine were Alturas and Louisville. At the mouth of the canyon was the boat landing of Colorado City. [7] : 33, 35 

During the time of the American Civil War, three new mining camps developed in the middle canyon. In 1862, Lucky Jim Camp was formed along Eldorado Canyon above January Wash, south of the Techatticup Mine. [8] Lucky Jim Camp was the home of miners sympathetic to the Confederate cause. A mile (1.6 km) up the canyon was a camp with Union sympathies called Buster Falls. [4] : 15, and Note 33  [9] : 611 

In late 1863, Col. John R. Vineyard, at the time a California State Senator for Los Angeles, completed a ten stamp mill the first in the canyon, on its north side just below Lucky Jim Camp, at what soon became El Dorado City. [10] Vineyard's mill, assembled from mill parts salvaged from abandoned works in the Mother Lode country of California, processed the ore of its mines and cut out the cost of shipping the ore out to San Francisco for such processing, cutting costs in half. George Alonzo Johnson's steamboat company losing this downstream ore trade and making fewer trips up to the Canyon responded by raising its freight rates. [7] : 33, 35 

From 1865 to 1867, as part of Mohave County, Arizona Territory, El Dorado Canyon had its own post office. [11] : 96 

In 1867, to secure the riverboat traffic and protect miners in the canyon from Paiute attacks the U.S. Army established Camp El Dorado, an outpost at the mouth of El Dorado Canyon that remained until it was abandoned in 1869. From 1870 the mines again were active to the point where from 1879 to 1907 El Dorado Canyon again had a post office, now in Clark County, Nevada. [12]

The mines continued to produce ore until World War II. [13]

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Nelson is a census-designated place in Clark County, Nevada, United States. The community is in the Pacific Standard Time zone. The location of Nelson is in El Dorado Canyon, Eldorado Mountains. The town is in the southeast region of the Eldorado Valley. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 37.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Callville, Nevada</span> Human settlement in United States of America

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steamboats of the Colorado River</span> Overview of steamboats on the Colorado River

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Techatticup Mine, is a former gold mine, now a tourist attraction. It is located at an elevation of 2,477 feet (755 m), midway in Eldorado Canyon, in Clark County, Nevada.

Mohave was the first stern-wheel steamboat of that name running on the Colorado River between 1864 and 1875.

Louisville, which is now a ghost town, was a mining camp in El Dorado Canyon near the Techatticup Mine in the Eldorado Mining District, of New Mexico Territory. The camp was probably named for Nat S. Lewis, the superintendent of the Techatticup Mine in the 1860s, and camp doctor.

San Juan or Upper Camp is a ghost town that was a mining camp of the Eldorado Mining District. It was located in the upper reach of El Dorado Canyon, just below the present day location of Nelson in Clark County, Nevada.

El Dorado City, which is now a ghost town, was a mining camp in the Colorado Mining District at the mouth of January Wash at its confluence with El Dorado Canyon. It was located about a mile down the canyon from Huse Spring, at an elevation of 2,382 feet (726 m). Its site was located nearby to the south southeast of the Techatticup Mine the primary source of the ore its mill processed.

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Nina Tilden, one of the two opposition stern-wheel steamboats that ran on the Colorado River from 1864 to 1868. Purchased by George A. Johnson Company it ran on the Colorado River from 1868 until 1874.

Lucky Jim Camp sometimes called Lucky Camp is a ghost town site in Clark County, Nevada. It was within New Mexico Territory when founded in 1862.

Buster Falls, now a ghost town, was a mining camp in El Dorado Canyon above Huse Spring and the Techatticup Mine in the Colorado Mining District during the time of the American Civil War. The source of the name of the camp is unknown. Its site lay along the canyon a mile above the site of Lucky Jim Camp. The site would be just above the El Dorado Canyon's confluence with Copper Canyon.

Stone's Ferry is a former settlement founded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ferry crossing of the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona, in Clark County, Nevada, United States.

Cottonwood Island, a large island in the Colorado River, within Cottonwood Valley, in Clark County, Nevada. Cottonwood Island was a low-lying island about 10 miles long and up to 3 miles wide. It was forested by cottonwoods and also after the spring flood, cluttered with driftwood from the riparian woodlands along the upper watershed of the Colorado River, washed down and caught in the first wide valley where the river slowed and spread out. Cottonwood Island was important as a source wood and of fuel for steamboats on that river and for the early mills and mines in El Dorado Canyon.

Colorado Mining District was primarily a silver and gold mining district organized in El Dorado Canyon, New Mexico Territory on the west shore of the Colorado River in what is now Clark County, Nevada. The Colorado District was part of Arizona Territory from 1863 to 1869. In 1869, the land of Arizona Territory north and west of the Colorado River east to the 114th meridian of longitude, including the Colorado District, was turned over to Nevada.

Mormon Island, was an island in the Colorado River near Hardyville, in Mohave County, Arizona since removed by the action of the river.

Quartette or Quartette Mill or Quartette Landing, was a mining settlement, location of the stamp mill of the Quartette Mining Company, owner of the largest mine in the Searchlight Mining District and a steamboat landing on the Colorado River, in what is now Clark County, Nevada. It lay at an elevation of 646 feet.

Murphyville was a short lived placer gold mining camp 12 miles below El Dorado Canyon, on the east bank of the Colorado River in Arizona Territory, in 1891.

References

  1. ↑ "Nevada Historical Markers". Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. Archived from the original on 4 February 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  2. ↑ Carlson, Helen S. (1 January 1974). Nevada Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. University of Nevada Press. p. 106. ISBN   978-0-87417-094-8 . Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  3. 1 2 Vanderburg, William O. B027: Placer mining in Nevada. NV Bureau of Mines & Geology. p. 62. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  4. 1 2 Townley, John M. (Spring 1968). "Early Development of El Dorado Canyon and Searchlight Mining Districts" (PDF). Nevada Historical Society Quarterly. 11 (1). Retrieved September 19, 2020.
  5. ↑ Angel, Myron, History of Nevada, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, Thompson and West, Oakland, Cal., 1881, p. 476, "In 1852 the Mormons obtained the contract for carrying the mail over the route which Congress had that year established from Salt Lake to San Bernardino. A station was established at Las Vegas, and Brigham Young located a settlement at that point, partly for protection to the route, and partly for smelting lead from the Potosi mines nearby. The Mormons occupied this place till the time of the Mountain Meadow massacre in 1857, after which they sold out to parties from El Dorado Canon, and returned to Utah."
  6. ↑ Official Map Of The Territory Of Arizona, With All The Recent Explorations. Compiled by Richard Gird C.E. Commissioner. Approved By John N. Goodwin, Governor. In Accordance With An Act Of The Legislature, Approved Oct. 23d. 1864. We hereby certify that this is the Official Map of the Territory of Arizona, and approve the same. Prescott October 12th 1865. (with signed seal dated 1863). Published By A. Gensoul, Pacific Map Depot. No. 511 Montgomery St. San Francisco. Lith. Britton & Co. San Francisco.. Accessed from www.davidrumsey.com, December 1, 1865. Shows the name at the location of the El Dorado District along the Colorado River was already established in 1864.
  7. 1 2 Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978 Archived January 18, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lucky Jim Camp
  9. ↑ James Graves Scrugham, Nevada: A Narrative of the Conquest of a Frontier Land, Vol. 1, American Historical Society, Chicago, 1935
  10. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Eldorado City (historical)
  11. ↑ John and Lillian Theobald, Arizona Territory Post Offices & Postmasters, The Arizona Historical Foundation, Phoenix, 1961.
  12. ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Eldorado Canyon Post Office (historical)
  13. ↑ El Dorado Canyon Nevada Historical Marker 6 from http://shpo.nv.gov accessed January 19, 2015

40°31′5.84″N118°13′19.94″W / 40.5182889°N 118.2222056°W / 40.5182889; -118.2222056

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