Every now and then somebody tries, against huge odds, to reopen one of the Nevada County underground quartz mines to pull more gold out of the ground.

Digging for gold today is a lot different that it was during the Gold Rush. Back then environmental impact studies amounted to figuring out whether the diggins would cave in. Near the early mines there were no high-priced homes whose owners worried about their wells running dry as water was pumped from the underground tunnels. Traffic caused by mine employees trying to get to work was not a problem.

The Idaho-Maryland mine was one of the Big Three located around Grass Valley and Nevada City. Along with the North Star Mine and the Empire mine the Idaho-Maryland brought the title "Queen of the Northern Mines" to Nevada County. Today efforts are being made to reopen the famed Idaho-Maryland with 21st Century techniques, such as making ceramic tiles from tailings - the leftovers - instead of just dumping them out on the surface.
Discovered in 1863 to be the source of gold-bearing quartz, the Idaho mine was consolidated in 1893 with the Maryland mine and a few other smaller holdings.

In 1942, War Production Board Order L-208 forced all gold mines to close. Although the order was rescinded in 1945, most of the mines that had been productive in pre-war years could not reopen. The fixed price of gold, the high cost of materials and labor, and the prohibitive expense of rehabilitating plants and workings that had lain idle were obstacles The Idaho-Maryland could not overcome.

WPB Order L-208 was unique in that it was the only World War II Government order closing a productive industry, gold mining, which it classified as nonessential. Mine owners were given seven days to shut down.

The results of the order in accomplishing its avowed purpose of channeling manpower to essential war production mines, such as copper, were negligible. The economic loss to the gold-mining industry was great.

In 1940 gold output in this area totaled nearly $51 million, the most valuable annual output since 1856. Thousands of miners were employed in the quartz mines at Grass Valley, Alleghany, Nevada City, Jackson, Sutter Creak, Jamestown, and French Gulch.

The Pearl Harbor attack put the miners out of work, America into the war, and effectively shut down the country's gold mining industry. Now, with new tools and techniques, today’s miners are attempting a revival.

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Copyright Don Baumgart, 2007