Location
This district is in central Calaveras County in the vicinity of the town of Railroad Flat, seven miles south of West Point and 13 miles east of Mokelumne Hill. The district was named by an early-day placer miner who had laid a few hundred feet of wooden railroad track on his claim.
Geology
The area is underlain chiefly by graphitic schist, slate, quartzite, and metamorphosed chert (see fig. 25, p. 129). A number of narrow north-striking quartz veins contain free gold and often abundant sulfides, especially galena. The ore shoots are small and usually do not extend to depths of greater than 200 feet, but they often are rich.
Several deposits of quartz-rich gravels have been mined by drifting or hydraulic king. These gravels were deposited by the south-trending Tertiary Fort Mountain channel. In places the gravels are overlain by rhyolite.
Mines
A.V.G., Bald Eagle, Banner Blue (placer), Clary, Fine Gold $200,000, Jeff Davis, Kaiser Wilhelm, Lampson (placer), Mohawk, Old Gray, Petticoat, Poe, Prussian Hill, Sanderson $100,000+, Summit, Swiss.
Bibliography
Clark, W. ., and Lydon, P.A., 1962, Mines and mineral resources of Calaveras County: California Div. Mines and Geology, gold, pp. 32-93.
Lindgren, Waldemar. 1911, Tertiary gravels of the Sierra Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 73, pp. 210-212.
Storms, W. H., 1894, Ancient channel system of Calaveras County: California Min. Bur, Rept. 12, pp. 482-492.
Turner, H. W., 1894, Jackson folio: U.S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas of the U.S., folio 11, 6 pp.
Turner, H.W., and Ronsome, F.L., 1898, Big Trees folio: U.S. Geol. Atlas of the U.S., folio 51, 8 pp.
