Callahan is in south-central Siskiyou County in the upper Scott River region. During the early days there was considerable gold production from old bench gravels and gulches tributary to the river in the south portion of the district. The town was. named for M. B. Callahan, who established a store here in 1851. In the early 1900s and again in the 1930s, substantial amounts of gold were recovered by bucket-line dredges that worked the Scott River north of the town of Callahan for a distance of five miles. There are a number of gold-quartz deposits in the district, the most productive having been the Cummings or McKeen mine, which had a total output valued at $500,000. The veins usually are in or near a granitic body and the ore bodies are small but often are rich.
Bibliography
Brown, G.C., 1916, Siskiyou County, Callahan district: California Min. Bur. Rept. 14, p. 825.
Dunn, R.L., 1893, Callahan's Ranch: California Min. Bur. Rept. 11, pp. 433-434.
