70 



GEOLOGIC GUIDEBOOK ALONG HIGHWAY 49 



[Bull. 141 



Kelsey was founded in 1851. James Marshall's last days were spent 

 there. A building on the property of his Gray Eagle mine once housed a 

 pioneer museum but the exhibits have been moved to Columbia and other 

 places. Only a huge arrastre-stone remains of the old exhibits once 

 displayed there. The adit of the Gray Eagle lode mine is immediately 

 behind the museum building. It never paid, and Marshall died without 

 ever having a hand in a really successful mining venture. 



North of Kelsey, a distance of 1.4 miles, a road leads off to the east 

 through Spanish Flat and Meadowbrook, ending at Georgetown. Spanish 

 Flat, more recently known as Louisville, was one of a great many placer 

 camps of the vicinity dating from about 1850. The Alhambra and Lost 

 Lode mines are located close to the Louisville road. They are shallow open 

 cut and tunnel workings in stringer lodes. Both are idle. 



Garden Valley, originally named Johntown, is 5.5 miles northwest 

 of Kelsey. Johntown was a placer camp which later became a vegetable 

 growing center, hence the present name. The entire area in which Garden 

 Valley, Spanish Flat, Georgetown, and Greenwood are located is one of 

 the most beautiful landscapes in California and is bound to find increas- 

 ing favor as a recreational region. The broad rolling meadowlands are 

 bordered by flowing streams and beautiful stands of coniferous trees. 

 The primitive area of the Rubicon River northeast of Georgetown is 

 almost untouched by the inroads of man. 



Half a mile beyond Garden Valley, a road to Meadowbrook leads 

 past the Black Oak mine near the Garden Valley school. The Black Oak 

 has been one of the best mines in El Dorado County, having produced 

 over a million dollars in gold. The veins are on the contact of Mariposa 

 slate and greenstone and are the same series as in the Alpine and Beebe 

 mines to the north in Georgetown. The workings are rather shallow but 

 the drifts and crosscuts are extensive. 



Georgetown, 7.3 miles from Garden Valley, looks much as it did in 

 the '50 's. Mining activity there was initiated in 1849 by a party of placer 

 miners from Oregon, and the site was first known as Growlersburg. 

 Several lode mines helped keep the town active after the placers were 

 exhausted. Lumbering and fruit-growing are now the principal activities. 

 The main street has many well preserved buildings such as the Masonic 

 Hall erected in 1852 and the Balsar House dating from 1859. Edwin 

 Markham taught school in Georgetown in the 1880 's. Like those of many 

 other Mother Lode towns, Georgetown's pioneers rallied to the Union 

 side during the Civil War. An armory was built in 1862 which is still 

 standing. The El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce has erected 

 suitable historical markers at sites of special interest. The Alpine at the 

 center of town and the Beebe at the northern edge are the best known 

 of the Georgetown mines. The Alpine was first developed in the 1860 's 

 and was extensively worked during the 1930 's. The Beebe is largely a 

 twentieth-century development. Both produced occasional bonanza pay 



streaks but gold values were spotty. The Alpine shaft is less than 500 feet 

 deep ; the Beebe has a large open cut and a 500-foot shaft. 



Five and one-half miles west of Georgetown is the crossroads hamlet 

 of Greenwood which once boasted several wineries and was a supply 

 center for many adjacent placer districts. A large lumber yard is the 

 principal activity there now. Numerous placer and hydraulic diggings 

 can be seen along the road between Georgetown and Greenwood. The 

 bedrock is Mariposa slate and greenstone of uncertain age but there are 

 few good exposures because of the deeply weathered nature of the bedrock 

 and the soil mantle. The road is bordered by rank growths of yellow- 

 flowering Spanish broom, an introduced plant. 



A mile north of Greenwood at the Greens Mill road junction are good 

 exposures of well bedded Mariposa slate. The relation of the bedding to 

 the slaty cleavage can easily be seen there. A number of small folds within 

 the Mariposa are evident in the road cuts along the Greens Mill road. 



Less than half a mile from Greens Mill junction, a paved road turns 

 off to the north which leads to Spanish Dry Diggin's and ultimately to 

 other old camps on the North Fork of the American River. Spanish Dry 

 Diggin's was discovered by a group of Spaniards under General Pico in 

 1848. The placer mines were soon superseded by the "seam" or stringer- 

 load mines such as the Grit and the Barr. There has been a resumption of 

 mining activity at the Grit or Littycote mine. The Grit had an early 

 production of over $500,000 and the Barr over $300,000. A mass of gold 

 weighing 101 troy ounces was taken from the Grit mine in August 1865. 

 This was donated to the museum of the State Division of Mines in honor 

 of Jules Fricot by his heir Mrs. Marie Fricot Berton and is now on 

 exhibition in the Ferry Building, San Francisco. 



One mile beyond the Greens Mill road junction is a fault contact 

 between Calaveras rocks and serpentine. The Calaveras there is composed 

 of mica schist, chert and basic intrusives such as basalt. Another small 

 body of serpentine occurs at the Penobscot farm 1.3 miles farther west. 

 From the Penobscot farm west to Cool the basement rocks are mainly 

 Calaveras schist, chert, and meta-basalt and greenstones of doubtful age. 

 These are intruded locally by small bodies of serpentine. The Penobscot 

 farm is a picturesque, well kept property surrounded by orchards and 

 grazing land and is the principal landmark between Greenwood and Cool. 



Resuming the way up Highway 49 from Cool, the route is through 

 serpentine and then along a narrow limestone belt bounded on both 

 sides by greenstones of uncertain age. An enormous thickness of green 

 meta-volcanics is exposed between the limestone quarries and Auburn. 

 The North Fork of the American River has cut a tremendous gorge into 

 this rock and the exposures in the river bed and the road cuts leading 

 down to it are excellent. This meta-volcanic series may be a northern 

 facies of the Logtown Ridge meta-volcanics but accurate correlation has 

 not vet been established. 



