Mine Tales: Gold helped Arizona gain territory status

Its symbol, AU, represents the Latin word for gold: aurum.

Gold, the most malleable and ductile of metals, is also resistant to chemical attack and is highly reflective. One ounce of gold can be flattened to cover in excess of 150 square feet. Although widely distributed, it occurs in small amounts in less than one seven thousandth of an ounce (0.004g) per ton in the Earth’s crust.

An excellent conductor of electricity and heat, it has been used as a medium of exchange and is invaluable for industrial uses including metal alloys, computer circuitry, solders and jewelry.

It was highly sought after by early European explorers including Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s attempt to discover the Seven Cities of Cibola in 1540, and continues to play a critical role in Arizona’s mining history.

Found in hydrothermal quartz veins (lode deposits) and placer (stream) deposits; gold is also a byproduct from copper, lead and zinc mines.

By the late 1850s, an influx of gold prospectors arrived in Arizona seeking both lode and placer deposits. Discoveries made around Gila City, La Paz, Lynx Creek, Rich Hill, Vulture and Big Bug contributed to the early settlement of Central Arizona.

Texan Jacob Snively’s discovery of gold placers near the confluence of the Colorado and Gila rivers in 1858 launched Arizona’s first gold rush and established Gila City.

Drawing more than 1,000 miners, many of whom recovered between $30 to $125 worth of gold per day, the Gila City placers 18 miles upriver from Yuma were abandoned after four years as the productive gravel became depleted. The placers yielded an estimated $500,000.

A second gold rush began in 1862, when renowned explorer and scout Pauline Weaver discovered placer gold near La Paz, the county seat of Yuma County.

It, too, was short-lived.

Some sources say the La Paz placers, including Ferrera and Catarina Gulches, produced more than $8 million in gold, with some nuggets weighing 26 to 47 ounces.

But diminishing placer gold returns, the transfer of the county seat from La Paz to Arizona City (later Yuma) in 1869 and the Colorado River’s change in course that left La Paz without a port were factors that led to its abandonment.

In 1863, major discoveries were made by pioneering scouts and prospectors Weaver and Captain Joseph R. Walker. Weaver led a prospecting party, including early Arizona settler Abraham H. Peeples, from Fort Yuma to discover Rich Hill 30 miles south of the future town of Prescott.

Formerly known as Antelope Hill, Rich Hill is considered to be the richest single placer strike in Arizona history, yielding more than 110,000 ounces of gold.

During the first several weeks after its discovery, gold collectors are said to have pocketed $100,000 in nuggets.

Walker led a party of several dozen prospectors up the Hassayampa River. This expedition — guided by Irataba, a Mojave Indian chief — discovered gold placers in the Bradshaw Mountains, including those at Big Bug, Lynx Creek and Turkey Creek.

These early gold discoveries greatly aided the passage of U.S. territorial status for Arizona — with Prescott serving as the territory’s first capital in 1864, the only wilderness capital in U.S. history.