Many miners know that lead is very commonly associated with silver values, but the truth is that it is also associated with gold values in many locations as well.

There are many other locations in the area where gold has been found, but Woods Creek is the most famous of the creeks and gulches in the area where the 49ers searched for that elusive yellow metal.

Every time we prospected here we found gold, sometimes some really coarse flakes, but no large nuggets (yet).

There are both hard rock and beach sand types of titanium deposits, but the hard rock deposits need to be at least 10 percent titanium while the beach sands often are economic with only two or three percent titanium.

For approximately 30 years, the mines produced good ore, some so rich it was simply sent straight to bagging, bypassing milling and loaded directly on the rail cars.