Gold Bug Park in Hangtown (Placerville)

As many of you know, Placerville is a mining town. Recently they've been upgrading Gold Bug Park & Mine  as an area of interest (it's still small-time but interesting enough.) So we drove into town to explore.

The entrance is in the back of the gift shop. The "tour" is either 5 or 8 dollars, it includes a hard hat and an audio wand.

Miners followed quartz veins to find gold. This mine was dug manually and blasted with dynamite. We could still see holes where they would have placed the sticks of explosives before setting them off.

According to the recording mining was hard work (obviously) and really only paid for your "jeans and beans." Not many made it rich. "The mines were closed by order of the President as gold mining was considered a non-essential industry and men were needed to go to war."

No, we couldn't see any gold veins running through the rock. But since it was abandoned for the war, it is likely gold could still be found there.

Below everyone is looking up an air shaft. We couldn't see to the top.
If you would like to read the history of this mine: click here.

Next we headed up the hill to the stamp mill where gold was extracted from the quartz.

The machine was amazing...massive. We were told it could be heard echoing throughout the hills up to five miles away.

Below is an explanation of how it works.

You can see how the machine worked by watching this miniature in the video here. It was small but quite loud.

In all, I am glad we went. It's worth an afternoon. There are trails and picnic benches as well. If you want to visit, as you're driving through Placerville, just look for the signs that say Gold Bug Park and follow them.