About 30 minutes out of Nevada City, as the crow flies, is the Malakoff Diggins State Park. This is the location of what was the largest hydraulic gold mine in California. Like many other mines, it were shut down due to the immense amount of toxic waste it produced.
Wikipedia tells us that
By 1853 miners invented a new method of mining called hydraulic mining. Dams were built high in the mountains. The water traveled from the reservoirs through a wooden canal called a flume that was up to 45 miles (72 km) long. The water ran swiftly to the canvas hoses and nozzles called monitors waiting in the old riverbeds. The miners would aim the monitors at the hillsides to wash the gravel into huge sluices. Over time the monitors became bigger and more powerful. Their force was so great they could toss a fifty-pound rock like a cannonball or even kill a person.
As you can see, above people came from all over to make their fortune here. But the life of the mine was limited.
In the late 1860s the towns of Marysville and Yuba City were buried under 25 feet (7.6 m) of mud and rock, and Sacramento flooded repeatedly.[7]
By 1876 the mine was in full operation with 7 giant water cannons working around the clock.
By 1883 San Francisco Bay was estimated to be filling with silt at a rate of one foot per year.[6] Debris, silt, and millions of gallons of water used daily by the mine caused extensive flooding, prompting Sacramento valley farmers to file the lawsuit Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company. On January 7, 1884 Judge Lorenzo Sawyer declared hydraulic mining illegal.[9]
In spite of the success of the mining operation, many of the people who died here were far from rich. One way we can see this is in the many wooden markers in the cemetery. This one below is by far the largest wooden one we've seen. Interestingly, it has metal letters on it.
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