A sample of what I am working on at the moment; a sort of side project before I finish my novel "Gold Ridge" and my forthcoming Oregon mining book "Boom & Bust"
Introduction
A number of years ago, and quite out of the blue, I received an e-mail from an elderly miner living near Eugene, Oregon. This gentleman, whom I had never heard from prior and who's name I never knew, informed me that he was retiring from mining and that for the last thirty odd years he had been putting in a great deal of study into the history of the Fall Creek Mining District. He remarked that he knew of me by reputation of name only and pointedly asked me if I would be interested in receiving his mining archives on Fall Creek as he desired to see that his efforts in collecting documents would not go to waste. I remarked that I had heard of Fall Creek, but admitted that I had never mined there myself, nor did I know much about the area. That said, I told him that I would be glad to help preserve his research and would be willing to insure that the information was available to others.
A couple of weeks later I received a very thick, over-sized envelope in the mail. There was no sender name on the envelope, but upon opening the package, it quickly became clear that it had come from the unidentified elderly miner from Eugene. A quick skim of the material revealed that yes, the man was a very thorough researcher and had put forward much effort to put the mining history of Fall Creek together, as included among the material were numerous location notices that proved to be a record of the very earliest mining claims in that vicinity, not to mention newspaper clippings, photocopies of articles on the area's geology and related information, all neatly arranged by subject in several folders. Included among the material was a folder simply marked “Winberry”.
An examination of that folder revealed information about what could best be described as “a neighboring mining area” to the Fall Creek and Blue River Mining Districts. Up until that time, I don't recall having ever heard of Winberry Creek, let alone anything gold mining related in that area. As with anyone else, that is not that unusual, for there are many little known mining areas on the West Coast and in fact, I had previously written a little about a few of them, such as Chena Creek near Mount Hood, as well as Gold Creek in Clatsop County.
A quick look in my own library actually turned up very little in the way of mere mention of the Winberry Mining District, let alone anything solid or very detailed. What was mentioned briefly was that there was some gold in the area and that during the 1930's the area had enjoyed a brief flurry of mining activity which mostly amounted to the mere promoting of some unproven prospects.
Upon greater inspection of other material that became available to me through much great effort, while Winberry Creek never was the site of a great gold strike or of any mining of any real economical importance, it soon became clear that the story about the area deserved something more than just a footnote or a dishonorable mention in the annals of Oregon's gold mining history. Indeed, as has happened on so many other little creeks in Oregon, there was a bona-fide gold rush to Winberry Creek in the 1930's. Not only did it capture the imagination of outsiders who looked to Winberry Creek and pondered if there might be untold riches locked away in the hills above, but as so often happens, those who took part in the rush fought bitterly against the forces that were pitted against their golden dream. But unlike their predecessors in the 19th century, who fought against hostile Indians, the elements, Poison Oak, starvation and the general sense of despair and melancholy that often plagued the early mining camps, what the Winberry miners fought against the most were those who simply believed that they were wasting their time.
This is their story.
A
Flash In The Pan
Gold
Mining on Winberry Creek
Lane
County, Oregon
Coming to Amazon.com, Fall 2012
Copyright
Kerby Jackson 2012
ALL
RIGHTS ARE RESERVED
ISBN-13:
978-1477535325
ISBN-10:
1477535322
