The (Secret) History of Gold Prospecting in the United States and the 38 States Where Gold Has Already Been Found! by Tim Rapp - HTML preview

Chapter 4 There Has Never Been a Better Time To Prospect For Gold!

Most people consider the 1800’s to have been the boom times for gold prospecting in the United States. Most people could probably come up with rationalizations for why this might have been, such as:

1. Fewer restrictions on mining activities,
2. A virgin land previously unexplored for mineral resources, 
3. Few government controls on mining activities, etc.

But with only a little consideration, the reader will realize that early miners had to work a lot harder to reach their prospecting goals than today’s prospector. In the late 1800’s it was much harder to acquire and preserve food, medical help was primitive or non-existent, hostile Indian tribes and bandits were a constant life-threatening danger, or a relatively inconsequential work-related cut or scrape could become infected killing the unlucky miner many hundreds of miles from the nearest road or doctor.

20.17 lb Alaskan Gold Nugget Found in 1998 By a Bulldozer Operator

Figure 13   Alaska Centennial Nugget found near the town of Ruby, Alaska in 1998, 20.17 lbs{20}

The Alaska Centennial Nugget was found in 1998 along Swift Creek by Barry Clay as he operated his bulldozer (Figure 13). He was pushing a load of dirt with his tractor when he noticed the nugget at the top of his dirt pile he was pushing and jumped down from the cab to inspect it more closely. He immediately recognized it as a huge nugget of gold and buried it nearby for safekeeping until he came up with a plan for what to do next.{21} It was determined later to be the largest nugget found in Alaska and the second largest documented nugget found in North America. NOTE: the largest existing nugget found in North America is the “Boot of Cortez found in Sonora, Mexico in 1989.{22}

26.7 lb Gold Nugget Found in 1989 by an Elderly Man with a Cheap Metal Detector

Figure 14   Boot of Cortez Nugget found in the Mexican state of Sonora in 1989, 26.7 lbs{23}

The Boot of Cortez was found in 1989 in the Mexican State of Sonora by a local Mexican citizen (Figure 14). He used an inexpensive metal detector from Radio Shack to locate the nugget. The Boot of Cortez was sold at auction for $1,553,500 in January, 2008.{24} To date, this is the largest existing gold nugget found in North America.

6.07 lb Nugget Found in 2014 Where Other Prospectors Have Been Finding Gold For 155 Years

Figure 15   Gold nugget found in the mountains of Butte County, California in 2014, 6.07 lbs{25}

Butte Gold Nugget, 6.07 pounds, found July, 2014 in the mountains of Butte County, California.  Sold for $400,000.00 to an anonymous collector (Figure 15). The Gold Nugget Museum of Paradise, California, Butte County has an annual celebration: “Gold Nugget Days”, to celebrate the finding of a 54 pound gold nugget in 1859. The 6.07 pound gold nugget in Figure 15 was found 155 years after the 54 pound nugget was found!