By Paisley Kirkpatrick
The Empire Mine, located in Grass Valley, California, is one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest, and richest gold mines in California. Between 1850 and its closure in 1956, the Empire Mine produced 5.8 million ounces of gold, extracted from 367 miles (591 km) of underground passages.
My grandparents lived in Nevada City, another town situated in the Mother Lode. Exploring gold mines became a summer ritual once I hit my teens. We'd find remnants lying on the ground in old garbage dumps and along the property not far from their house. Grandma and I found checks dated in 1901 from a gold mining company, crucibles (a ceramic container in which gold was melted at very high temperatures), and several other gold containers.
I remember the first time I visited the Empire Mine. We were able to step four feet into the mine to the place where the miners loaded and unloaded into the cart that carried them deep inside the mine.
We learned they kept canaries in cages. If one died, they knew methane gas (a colorless, odorless flammable gas that is the most common dangerous gas found in underground gold mines) was in the section they worked. The miners new they needed to vacate that area of the mine. They'd take mules down into the mines to carry what the miners dug out of the walls. They'd enter the mine before sunrise and come out after sunset.
The mules never saw daylight.
In Oct. 1850, George McKnight discovered gold in a quartz outcrop (ledge) called the Ophir Vein. It was bought and purchased several times until the Empire Mining Co. was incorporated in 1854. Miners from the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, England, arrived to share their experience and expertise in hard rock mining. Particularly important was the Cornish contribution of the Cornish engine, operated on steam, which emptied the depths of the mine of its constant water seepage at a rate of 18,000 gallons per day. This increased the productivity and expansion underground. Starting in 1895, Lester Allan Pelton's water wheel provided electric power for the mine and stamp mill. The Cornish provided the bulk of the labor force from the late 1870s until the mine’s closure eighty years later.
William Bowers Bourn acquired control of the company in 1869. Bourn died in 1874, and his estate ran the mine, abandoning the Ophir vein for the Rich Hill in 1878. Bourn's son, William Bowers Bourn II, formed the Original Empire Co. in 1878, took over the assets of the Empire Mining Co., and continued work on the Ophir vein after it was bottomed out at 1200 feet and allowed to fill with water. With his financial backing, and after 1887, the mining knowledge and management of his younger cousin George W. Starr, the Empire Mine became famous for its mining technology. Bourn purchased the North Star Mine in 1884, turning it into a major producer, and then sold it to James D. Hague in 1887, along with controlling interest in the Empire a year later.
Bourn reacquired control of the Empire Mine in 1896, forming the Empire Mines and Investment Co. In 1897, he commissioned Willis Polk to build the Cottage on land near the mine, using waste rock from the mine.
The Cottage included a greenhouse, gardens, fountains and a reflecting pool.
PHOTOS:
Paisley Kirkpatrick
JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, c
Clark, W.B. - Gold Districts of California, Bulletin 193, California Division of Mines and Geology
Johnston, W.D. - The Gold Quartz Veins of Grass Valley, California, Professional Paper 194, USGS
Broken Promise is set in the California 1849 Gold Rush. The heroine inherits a gold mine and must discover its location to save her inheritance.
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In more than 100 years of mining, the mines of Grass Valley made it the richest of all California gold mining towns.
In December 1848, President James K. Polk declared in a State of the Union address that large quantities of gold had been discovered in California. As word spread about the gold rush, prospectors flooded the foothills. The small settlement began looking like a village. Then in 1850, a settler by the name of George McKnight discovered gold in the quartz rock along Gold Hill and the real boom began.
By 1851, thousands of people were living in the bustling town now known as Grass Valley and in the nearby town of Nevada, (later renamed Nevada City when Nevada became a state). 
Grass Valley suffered a disastrous fire in 1855, and Nevada City burned in 1863, but the towns quickly rebuilt and continued to grow.
My grandparents lived in Nevada City up until I was a junior in high school. I remember when I was in my teens my grandfather told us tales of the gold rush and what happened afterwards. One story that sticks in my mind is that when they tore old saloons down to put in a new highway, they found piles of gold dust that had seeped through the cracks in the wooden floors. If they'd only known way back during the days of the gold rush, the search for gold for some would have been more profitable.
The Empire, Northstar, Pennsylvania, Idaho-Maryland and Brunswick mines became known around the world, attracting hardworking miners and would-be millionaires. As the underground mines grew, skilled hard-rock miners from Cornwall and Ireland arrived. They settled into their new hometown of Grass Valley while mine owners and managers lived in nearby Nevada City. Over the next 100 years the mines extracted more than $400 million in gold, making Grass Valley California’s most prosperous mining town. Unfortunately, gold mining declined in the 1950’s and eventually all of the hard-rock mines were closed.
Both Grass Valley and Nevada City are on the national register of historic places and have multiple buildings on the national register.
The National Hotel in Nevada City 
and the Holbrook 
in Grass Valley are reminders of the grandeur of California gold rush hotels. The Golden Gate Saloon in the Holbrook is known as the oldest continuously operating saloon west of the Mississippi!
Information provided by Grass Valley’s Chamber of Commerce
