The Oak Flat claims are located in Sierra County, California less than two miles south of the historic mining town of Alleghany as the crow flies. There is a road going directly to the claims and places to camp on the claims.

There is some overlap with the lode and placer claims so the total acreage is around 150+. There are 3 lode claims and 5 placer claims.

The ore bodies at Alleghany are in quartz veins; they range from small enrichments or pockets containing a few hundred dollars worth of ore to bodies that produced gold valued at a million dollars or more. One enrichment at the Sixteen to One, with a pitch length of 40 feet, yielded ore worth more than $ million; another at the Oriental that had a horizontal stoping length of only 14 feet is said to have produced $734,000 worth of gold. The veins strike in a northerly direction, dip either east or west, and ordinarily are to 5 feet in thickness, although some of the quartz is as much as 50 feet thick. The gold is found in the native form, coarse, commonly associated with arsenopyrite, but with only small amounts of other sulfides. The veins are found mostly in amphibolite, but they also cut across slate, quartzite, chert, schist, and granite. Numerous serpentine and associated mariposite or “bluejay” bodies are present, and appear to have an important influence on the localization of the ore shoots. Practically all the quartz veins in the district contain some degree of gold and as the early miners just went after the richest ones I believe there are many that will pay well which haven’t been worked yet.

Ancient river channels: A major tributary of the Tertiary Yuba River extended south from Rock Creek through Forest and Alleghany and then southeast through Chip’s Flat and Minnesota to Moore’s Flat in Nevada County. This is commonly known as the “Great Blue Lead” or Forest channel. It was uniformly rich and produced some huge nuggets.

These claims have auriferous quartz veins, shear zones, and ancient river gravel deposits. The three known lode deposits are the Roye Sum, Frances D, and Queen of Sheba likely extensions of the Kenton Mine which produced $1-1.5 million at $20.67/oz. There is long term potential in opening up these mines but in the short term working some of the smaller veins, ore the early miners set aside as too low grade, pocket deposits, and the old river channel will keep anyone busy finding a lot of gold for a long time.

The creeks around Alleghany were first discovered to be rich in gold in the early 1850s by a group of sailors from Hawaii. Later the ancient river beds on mountainsides were found to hold huge quantities of gold and the early miners worked these deposits where they could access them. Drift mining of these gravels accounted for much of the gold produced in the Alleghany district from the 1850’s through the 1880’s; the production is believed to have totaled as much as $10,000,000 (at $35/oz).

Quartz mining was reported to have begun in the district in 1853 at the German Bar and Irelan mines. Although the quartz mines were moderately productive until the 1870s, drift mining was the principal source of gold then. The rediscovery of the Tightner vein in 1904 led to the revival of lode mining, which continued until 1965. Alleghany was the only town in California after World War II where gold mining was the principal segment of the economy. After 1960, production from the district, which had been averaging more than $500,000 per year (at $35/oz).

Alleghany was the most famous high-grade gold mining district in California. The value of the total output is unknown, estimated at well over $50 million ($35/oz). Much of this production was from small but spectacularly rich ore bodies.

I am selling these claims with owner financing so you can start mining while paying. The terms would be $25,000 with $500 down and the balance carried over 6 years at 5% making the payments $394.57/month. Once the down payment is paid I will remove the listing and sign over a purchase agreement and right to mine document giving you the rights to claims during the payment period. When the payments are completed I will file the deeds with Sierra County and the BLM transferring ownership to your name.
Feel free to contact me for more information.