Location
The Genesee district is in the southeast end of the Crescent Mills-Taylorsville-Genesee gold belt of east-central Plumas County. This is not a single belt but rather several parallel belts or zones of gold and copper mineralization. The well-known Walker copper mine is in this district.
History
Gold was first placer-mined in the streams during the gold rush, and lode mining began soon afterward. Genesee is believed to have been named by the Ingalls family for a valley in New York State. Mining activity continued almost steadily through the early 1900s. The Walker copper mine was worked on a major scale from about 1915 to 1942, and the concentrates were delivered to the Western Pacific Railroad at Spring Garden via a nine-mile aerial tramway. There has been intermittent gold and copper prospecting in the district since.
Geology
This area is underlain by the same series of Paleozoic and Mesozoic metamorphic rocks found in the Taylorsville district to the west and northwest (see Taylorsville district). Contact metamorphism, especially in the vicinity of the Walker mine, has altered the rocks into hornfels and schist. The gold-ore deposits consist of either quartz veins or zones of quartz stringers that contain free gold, limonite, and sulfides. A number of high-grade pockets have been found. There are several patches of auriferous Tertiary gravels.
Mines
Austrian Syndicate, Big Cliff, Blue Bell, Bullion, Calman, Cosmopolitan, Five Bears, Green Ledge, Gruss $460,000, Hinchman, Magpie, Mountain Lion, Native Son, Peter, Taylor (placer), Wards (placer).
Bibliography
Averill, C. V., 1937, Plumas County, copper and gold: California Div. Mines Rept. 33, pp. 93-124.
Diller, J. S., 1908, Geology of the Taylorsville region, California: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 353, 128 pp.
Diller, J. S., 1909, Mineral resources of the Indian Valley region: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 260, pp. 45-49.MacBoyle, Errol, 1920, Plumas County, Genesee mining district: California Min. Bur. Rept. 16, pp. 12-18.
