Granite District – Grant County, Oregon
This claim is located 1 mile outside of Granite, Oregon on a paved road.
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The Gold Rush Quarry is named for its initial appearance. However, for better or worse, it is not an actual Quarry. The claim covers a large expanse of about 8 acres where various ores and minerals have been staged from the mines in the hills up the canyon. The mines up the canyon are well known for producing gold, gold and oft times, gold. The gold is native, or free-milling and many of the mines were started as placer operations which then turned to lode development. Over the years ores, waste dumps and various other types of rock from within the Granite district have been dumped here. Much of the ore is very rich and has visible gold deposits, and thus high value to be crushed and processed. There are also what look to be silver and lead ores which were likely dumped in the 1950s when silver looked like it might make a comeback. The primary value will be in the gold ores. There is an estimated 2500 tons of high to mid- grade ore that is ready to be processed from the various mines farther up the canyon. The claim is in close proximity to the city of Granite and Granite Creek. It is thought that the rock may have come from the workings of the Oraplata Mining Company. The Oraplata Mining Company worked over 65,000 yards of gravel a month, and about 400 acres of patented land.

Bedrock in the Granite district consists predominantly of a group of bedded metasedimentary rocks that were originally shales and small amounts of limestone, sandstone, and interbedded lava flows. In the eastern part of the district a large granodiorite intrusion cuts the metasedimentary rocks. The layered rocks were thrown into east-trending isoclinal folds. Unconformably overlying these rocks are less severely folded and somewhat faulted Tertiary auriferous gravels, andesite tuff-breccias, and lava flows.

The lode deposits are in veins in the pre-Tertiary metasedimentary rocks near or in the granodiorite. The veins are of two types: (1) open-space fillings characterized by quartz and calcite gangue and fragments of unreplaced wallrock, and (2) dike material, gouge, crushed country rock, and sparse quartz and calcite. In veins of the first type, the major metallic constituents are pyrite, chalcopyrite, tetrahedrite, arsenopyrite, sphalerite, and galena. In veins of the second type, pyrite is predominant, and in many veins it is the sole metallic mineral.[1]

This is from a 1940s report,

The Oraplata Mining Company Operating on Granite Creek in Grant County operated continuously during 1939 and has started 1940 with an increased capacity over the fore part of 1939. A year ago the company was washing about 65,000 cubic yards of gravel per month and today the total is 100,000 yards a month. An additional investment in equipment of about $55,000 was made to make the increased production possible.

A new Northwest model 95 dragline that swing a three-cubic yard ESCO bucket on a 60-foot boom, two new 160 horsepower Murphy diesel engines, one on the dragline an one on the dredge, and a new RD77 caterpillar and bulldozer.

The company has dredged out most of the old Lawton townsite on Clear creek at the junction of that stream with Granite Creek, and from there down Granite Creek and is now working on the old Milquakee placer ground.

A crew of 17 men is employed in the operation. S K Atkinson, Sr.. of Boise, Idaho, is president and manager of the company and S.K. Atkinson, Jr., is superintendent of the operation.[1]

This is from another report around the same time,

Gold was first discovered in this area, which covers old town-sites of Lawton and Milwaukee Meadows, in 1862. Benches and bars were mined. The Oro Plata Company began operating in the fall of 1938 and operated continuously until September 1940.

The depth of bedrock varied from 6 to 20 feet and averaged about 10 feet. Gravel was moderately coarse, but few boulders were over a foot in diameter. Bedrock was soft.[2]

Federal Registered Mining Claim ID: ORMC172967