Thars Gold in Them Thar Hills A Historical Account of The Bohemia Mining District Calapooya Mtns, Oregon Ed Buchner Geo 522 March 17, 2003Ed Buchner GEO 522 March 17, 2003 Introduction High in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, thirty-five miles southeast of Cottage Grove, lies a vast tract of land with much to tell of. This piece of land is the home of the once bustling mining district referred to as Bohemia. At the Willamette Umpqua divide at 5000 feet elevation lays the center of the Bohemia Mining District on the saddle between Mount Bohemia and Mount Fairview. From this point the rugged landscape within five miles in any direction was part of the mining district (see Appendix A). First discovered in 1858 was the gold that the region is well known for across Oregon. At one point in time many believed that the Bohemia area would grow to become the largest most successful gold mining district in the US (Warner, 1904). Sadly this was not the case. Bohemia was plagued by many factors over the years preventing the area from going beyond a small, bustling, mining town. Much of the information given in the following pages comes from a wonderful account of the Bohemia Mining District done by Ray Nelson of Cottage Grove. Ray Nelson dedicated much of his life to prospecting in the Bohemia District (Oregonian, 1963). Ray was also concerned with the many tales of fame and fortune deriving from the district (Oregonian, 1963). Nelson’s father was the steam engineer for the Annie Mine, his first years salary paid for his trip to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 where he saw one of the first electric plants. On his return from Chicago he proceeded to build Cottage Groves first electric plant and install the city’s original incandescent lighting system. The Vesuvius mine; one of the more successful and also recently mysterious mines, was bought by Nelson in the 1950’s or early 1960’s. Many of the facts if not directly cited came from this account of Facts and Yarns of the Bohemia Gold Mines.First Gold In the summer of 1858 O.P. Adams, W.W. Oglesby, Rufus Adams, and William Shields started up Sharps Creek and attempted mining. They did find gold, however, lacking proper mining equipment made it tough for gaining much more than a mere livelihood. Later in the year two of the party traveled to Josephine County and observed the mining operations there. On their return they built sluice boxes, which enabled them to do quite well for themselves. The following year the group split up and attempted placer mining in many of the streams in the area. Several people ended up in the upper headwaters of the streams coming off of Mount Bohemia and Mount Fairview but did not find any gold in the streams. Little did they know that the ground they were walking over was full of the mineral and in the future would provide many miners with riches. With the Civil War at the start of the 1860’s the region was dormant. No word was heard of gold mining in the region until 1963. James Johnson, born in the eastern European country of Bohemia, had just killed an Indian in Roseburg and was running from the law with his buddy George Ramsey. They made there way up the North Umpqua River to Steamboat Creek and then City Creek. Here in the Calapooya Mountains they believed they could hide from the law until “things cooled off.” Bohemia Johnson, as his friends called him, was distracted during their travel up City creek by the glitter of gold quartz in the stream. The location where this gold quartz was found is three-quarters of a mile south of the summit of Mount Bohemia. Johnson and Ramsey climbed up to the summit and found that they were at the headwaters of Sharps Creek. They left the region via the trails following Sharps Creek down to the Row River and out to Cottage Grove. In the following two summers of 1864 and 1865 there was a surge of development in the area. Among the first to arrive was the original group from 1858 and 59 who had traipsed across the area and not found a sign of gold. In 1866 the first “town” meeting was held in the new miners camp. The following year another meeting was held to set the rulesto govern the new mining district. The Miners Code of Laws resulting from this meeting were: Article 1. The District shall be known as the BOHEMIA DISTRICT, and shall extend six miles in every direction from discovery of Johnson’s ledge. Article 2. Claims taken in 1866 and laid over by miners meeting in last October shall be good till June 1, 1867. Article 5. Claims shall be 100 yards by 25 yards. Article 6. One claim only to each person, and two to the original locator. Article 12. Water running through Bohemia City is reserved to the town. Article 13. Town lots shall be 50 by 75 feet, and shall be held by building a house thereon, or by fencing in the property. With these laws the town of Bohemia City was formed. In the following year a few cabins, hotel, saloon, and a branch office of the Douglas County Recorder’s Office. Johnson’s Mine The claim that Johnson first made and worked is now known as the Mystery Mine. Johnson attests that the gold there must have been only a pocket because it gave out at a mere depth of six feet. Many still hold the belief that the mine Johnson actually was getting his gold from was somewhere else; this other supposed mine is still a mystery. There are many mines in the region, if not in the district nearby, that are of mystery. Many tales are abounding telling of mountain men emerging from the canyons with mules laden with rich gold ore. These mines have been hunted after for a century or more now and none have yet to be found. The First Stamp Mill The gold in the mountains of the Bohemia district was in the quartz veins, which weaved their way among the ridges. To separate the gold from the quartz parent material a mill was used. There are many different styles of mills to do this now, however, at that point in time the only economical way was a stamp mill. A stamp mill has a number of mallets that are dropped continuously on the ore, crushing it into a fine powder. This finepowder is then mixed with water and run across a table coated with mercury. The gold sticks to the mercury and the remaining “dirt” is washed away. In the beginning this process did not extract the entire gold content and as much as fifty percent went downstream of the mill. These streams that the