Yentna-Cache Creek mining district facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yentna Cache Creek mining district
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Alaska Mining District
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 Yentna Cache Creek mining district
Location in Alaska
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| Country | United States |
| State | Alaska |
The Yentna Cache Creek Mining District is a special area in Alaska, USA, where people have been finding gold for a long time. Gold was first discovered here in 1898 in the upper Susitna Valley. Soon after, people started "staking claims," which means marking out areas where they wanted to mine.
By 1906, miners were using a method called "placer mining" in the Cache Creek area. Placer mining is when you look for gold that has been washed into rivers or streams. Over the years, about 200,000 ounces of gold have been found in these deposits.
In 1927, a road was built from Talkeetna into the mining area. This road is now known as The Petersville Road. The mining camp of Petersville, Alaska even had its own Post Office for a few years. Today, there are two special areas, the North and South units of the Petersville State Recreation Mining Areas, where people can go to mine for gold just for fun. Many smaller, family-run gold mining operations still work here today.
Besides gold, some miners have also found a mineral called tungsten, which comes from deposits of scheelite. There has also been a small amount of "lode" mining for gold. Lode mining means finding gold in veins within rocks, not just loose in the dirt or rivers.
This mining district is also famous because of the artist Sydney Laurence. It's also known for a mystery: four miners were killed in 1939, and the case was never solved. This event even got attention across the country.
A large, steam-powered machine called a dragline was once used to mine gold in Peters Creek. You can still see the piles of leftover rocks and dirt, called tailings, from that operation today. This area is now part of the Petersville State Recreation Mining Area.
Cache Creek Mine
In the 1920s, a huge machine called a bucketline dredge was built to mine gold in Cache Creek. This dredge used coal to power its engines at first, and later it used electricity from a hydroelectric plant. The dredge dug up the entire valley of Cache Creek. After the dredge finished, bulldozers were used to mine any gold that was left.
Before 1942, another method called "hydraulic mining" was also very popular. This involved using powerful jets of water to wash away dirt and gravel to find gold. You can still see many old ditches from this type of mining all over the Dutch Hills today. It's reported that about 115,000 ounces of placer gold came from Cache Creek. Even in 1998-1999, an active placer mine was still working there.
The Blue Ribbon Mine
The first mining at what became The Blue Ribbon Mine was reported in 1906. Except for a few times when no mining happened, gold has probably been found there almost every year since. We don't know the exact total amount of gold found, but at least 20,000 ounces have been reported. Most of this gold was found using small-scale methods, either by hand or with simple machines. This placer mine is still working today, and the company is also looking for new gold deposits in rock veins.
