here - State of Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources

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Mother Lode. East Belt and West Belt, Calaveras County, Calif. (2,046,000)
Alleghany and Downieville, Calif. (2,173,000)
Bisbee, Ariz. (2,193,000)
Boise Basin, Idaho (2,300,000)
Virginia City. Mont. (2,617.000)
Tintic, Utah (2,648.000)
Butte. Mont. (2.725,000)
Tertiary placers. Nevada County. Calif. (2,903,000)
La Porte, Calif. (2,910,000)
Leadville. Colo. (2,970.000)
Folsom. Calif. (3,000,000)
Telluride. Colo. (3,000,000)
Nome, Alaska (3,606.000)
Goldfield, Nev. (4,195.000)
Central City. Colo. (4.200.000)
Hammonton, Calif. (4,387.000)
Columbia Basin. Calif. (5,874,000)
Juneau, Alaska (6.884.000)
Fairbanks. Alaska (7,464.000)
20 40
100 120 140 160 180
MILLIONS OF FINE OUNCES
INTRODUCTION 5
FIGURE 2.-Gold production (to nearest 1,000 ounces) of 25 principal gold-mining districts of the United Statesthrough
1959.
mining activity boomed; gold production reached
2 million ounces in 1850 and 3 million ounces in
1853. It then declined steadily and in 1862 again
dropped below the 2-million-ounce level. Placers
were the chief source of our domestic output until
1873 (Loughlin and others, 1930, fig. 3), when their
output was exceeded by that of lode mines, a relation
that has continued through 1965. Placer activity
remained at a relatively low ebb during the
1880's and early 1890's, but there were three periods
in later years when placer production, though exceeded
by lode production, formed a significant proportion
of the domestic output-in 1896 when large
dredges were introduced in California, in 1904
when large deposits of rich gravels were discovered
in Alaska, and in 1934 when the price of gold was
increased to $35 an ounce.
In many districts the prospectors followed goldbearing
gravel to the source of the gold in veins,
200
and lode mining began shortly after placer mining.
It was not, however, until about the middle 1860's,
when the Mother Lode and Grass Valley lodes in
California and the Comstock Lode in Nevada became
important producers, that lode mines became
significant sources of gold. Lode production increased
rapidly after the discovery of gold in the
Cripple Creek district, Colorado, in 1892. By 18':\8,
production from this district together with the increased
placer production in California and the accelerated
output of the Homestake mine at Le"d,
S. Dak., had raised our annual gold production to
more than 3 million ounces. Production continned
to rise with the discoveries of gold at Tonop"h,
Nev., in 1903, the placer deposits of Alaska in 1914,
and gold at Goldfield, Nev., in 1905. By 1905 g1ld
production for the first time exceeded 4 million
ounces, a level maintained until 1917. Because o:l' a
shortage of manpower during World War I, pro-