Mining The Illinois River Valley

The following post is provided courtesy of Gary Swanson.

Mining The Illinois River Valley - Southern Oregon

 "Suckers" from Illinois found gold in Oregon! 

The Illinois River Valley was named after a group of miners who hailed from the state of Illinois in about 1852. "Sucker" creek was also named for the same group, as Illinois was known as the "Sucker State." 

Well, the gold seekers tore through the Illinois River Valley along both sides of the Illinois River. The vast piles of "tailings" stretches for miles in this beautiful valley as evidence of the wealth in gold, silver, and platinum that came from Mining The Illinois River Valley. 

Just northwest of Little Falls, the Illinois River Valley widens, and this wide area made it profitable to bring in the big guns for the hydraulic operations. 

We discovered these ditches starting high up the valley sides, which were built to bring massive amounts of water down to the hydraulic Mining In The Illinois River Valley. Chinese laborers were often used for the backbreaking work of building these miles of waterways. 

Water coursing down the mountain and funneled down through ever constricting flumes and hoses creates tremendous water pressure, which was used to blast the hillsides to separate the gold and minerals from the surrounding rock. 

Whether dredged, or hydraulically mined, the huge piles of remaining rocks are referred to as "tailings." I would assume the word was derived from the workings of a dredge where the material went in the front, and ended up coming off a conveyor in the rear or "tail" after the gold had been extracted. 

The Illinois River Valley has largely "grown over" the scars left by gold mining, but there are still signs of the gold miners scattered throughout the Illinois River Valley area, as you will find all over Josephine County.