Pinacate Mining District facts for kids

The Pinacate Mining District was a special area near Perris, California, where people dug for gold. It was a very important place for gold mining in the past.

Digging for Gold in Pinacate

Where is Pinacate?

The Pinacate Mining District is located about 5 to 8 miles southwest of a town called Perris, California. It's in Riverside County, California.

What Mines Were There?

Many mines were part of this district. Some of the bigger ones included the Good Hope Mine, Steele's Mine, and the Santa Rosa Mine (also called Rosalia). Other mines were the Virginia or Shay Mine, the Santa Fe Mine, and smaller ones like the Little Maggie Mine.

How Much Gold Was Found?

Miners in the Pinacate District found a lot of gold! By the year 1959, they had dug up about 104,000 ounces of gold. All this gold came from "lodes," which are like veins or cracks in rocks where gold is found.

Why Did Mining Stop?

After a while, the amount of gold being found started to go down. The district became less active until the mid-1930s. At that time, people tried to reopen and fix up the Good Hope Mine and a few others.

However, these efforts didn't work out very well. The Good Hope Mine, for example, had to close because it became flooded with water from underground. After 1943, very little gold was found. Between 1943 and 1959, only three more ounces of gold were produced in the entire district.