Gold Rush! A Kid's Guide To Techatticup Gold Mine, Eldorado Canyon, Nevada

The Nelson and Eldorado Canyon areas were home to ancient Puebloan, Paiutes and Mojave Indians who lived in peace there for hundred of years. In 1775, Spaniards arrived looking for gold. They settled at the mouth of the Colorado River and called it Eldorado. However, they missed the rich gold veins beneath the canyons flanks, and found silver and there was not enough silver to make mining worthwhile, and so they left. By 1861 miners discovered the Salvage Vein about five miles up from the Colorado River, a rich, vertically stacked ribbon of gold running through a steep ridge along one side of the canyon. Several miners formed the Techatticup Mine through a series of shady dealings. The name is the Paiute Indian word for hungry, a term heard by early settlers and said by the starving Indians inhabiting the dry hills. The Techatticup Gold Mine was once owned by Senator George Hearst of California, father of William Randolph Hearst, the famous publisher. The history of the area is fascinating. Where else can you hear about prospectors who were Civil War deserters, gunfights over gold, daily killings and other acts so despicable even law enforcement refused to come from a mere 200 miles away? There was virtually no law in Eldorado Canyon, and the Techatticup Mine was in the middle of it all!

Now owned by a family whose five sons have cleared tunnels through the mine and have found and uncovered even more of its history, this is the place to be and see American history and how a part of it was formed. So take a tour through the pages of this book with photographer John D. Weigand, and award winning author and poet, Penelope Dyan and see what they saw when they explored this fascinating place!