History
Nevada gold history
The Osceola district and the gold country around it, told from the record.
Nevada is the Silver State, but its story starts with gold as often as silver, and nowhere more clearly than at Osceola. These pieces trace the district and set it in the wider sweep of Nevada mining, each sourced to the USGS, the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, and the National Park Service, with the uncertain points flagged.
HistoryThe Osceola Mining District
Nevada's great placer camp: the 1877 rush, hydraulic mining, the famous Dry Gulch nugget, and total production.
HistoryThe Osceola Ditch
Eighteen miles of ditch, a granite tunnel, and $108,000 spent to carry Wheeler Peak water to the mines.
HistoryMary Ann Canyon
The placer ground south of the townsite, worked from the early 1900s and the focus of later claims.
HistoryThe Comstock Lode
The 1859 strike that built Virginia City, helped fund the Union, and made Nevada a state in 1864.
- History
Nevada's Gold Rush
Placer camps across the Silver State, from Osceola and Spring Valley to Round Mountain and Rye Patch.
HistoryOsceola Ghost Town
What survives today: the cemetery, foundations, tailings, and the dry line of the ditch. How to visit responsibly.