Location
Foothills of the Pinal and Apache Mountains, T. 1 S., R. 15 E.; Tps. 1 and 2 N., Rs. 14 and 15 E. (unsurveyed)
Topographic Maps
Globe 15-minute quadrangle; 7 l/2-minute quadrangles—Inspiration, Lost Gulch, Gold Gulch, and Pinto Creek; Haunted Canyon (Pinto Creek); Globe (Pinal Creek); Pinal Peak (Gap and Catsclaw Flat; upper Pinal Creek).
Geologic Maps
Peterson, 1960, Geologic map of the Haunted Canyon quadrangle, scale 1:24,000.
Peterson, 1962, Geologic map of the Globe-Miami district, Pinal County, Arizona (pi. 1), scale 1:24,000. (Lost Gulch, Gold Gulch, Pinto Creek, and Pinal Creek)
Peterson, Gilbert, and Quick, 1951, Geologic map of the Castle Dome area, Gila County, Arizona (pi. 1), scale approximately 1:6,000. (Gold Gulch)
Ransome, 1904, Geologic map of the Globe quadrangle, scale 1:62,500. (Pinal Creek; Gap and Catsclaw Flats)
Access
From Globe to Lost Gulch, dirt roads lead about 4 miles west from State Highway 88, 4i/2 miles north of Globe, to mining areas near Lost Gulch; to Gold Gulch, an improved road leads 2i/ 2 miles north from U.S. Highway 60-70, 12 miles west of Globe, to Castle Dome mine area; to Pinto Creek, a dirt road leads 5-6 miles northwest from road to Castle Dome mine to Pinto Creek and Haunted Canyon; to Pinal Creek, Sixshooter Canyon Road, three-quarters of a mile south of Globe, leads 3 miles south to placer area, paralleling Pinal Creek.
Extent
Small placer deposits occur in six localities within the GlobeMiami district. Some placers are near the major copper-mining areas, but they are not necessarily derived from the copper ores.
Lost Gulch, northwest of Globe, is the most productive placer area; the gulch drains southeast from the vicinity of Myberg Basin and the south flanks of Flat Top and Sleeping Beauty Mountains in the Copper Cities mining area to the Inspiration tailing pond (before construction of the pond, Lost Gulch drained to Pinal Creek). The gold placers occur along Lost Gulch and adjoining benches for an undetermined distance, but they were most actively worked in the mile-long part of the creek along the south flank of Sleeping Beauty Mountain (T. 1 N., R. 14 E., Inspiration quadrangle).
Gold was recovered from the gravels near the Golden Eagle vein (unlocated), said to be a short distance north of Miami. This placer area includes a group of gulches that were mined in 1933 and is probably the deposit referred to as the Inspiration placer, located north of Claypool (probably in sec. 16 or 17, T. 1 N., R. 15 E., Globe quadrangle).
Placers occur in the gravels in Gold Gulch in the Castle Dome mining area (west half of T. 1 N., R. 14 E. Inspiration quadrangle). The exact location of the placers is uncertain, but the gold probably was found in gravels half a mile south of the Castle Dome mine.
Placer gold was recovered in small amounts from unlocated placers along Pinto Creek, which heads near Mount Madera in the Pinal Mountains and drains northwestward to the Salt River. One locality where gold probably was recovered is the gravels near the junction of Pinto Creek and Haunted Canyon (Haunted Canyon quadrangle), which were prospected for many years by one man who lived at that locality (Nels P. Peterson, written commun., 1969)
In the southern part of the Globe-Miami area, placer deposits are found in Pinal Creek (Globe and Pinal Peak quadrangles) and in Gap and Catsclaw Flats (Pinal Peak quadrangle). Nels P. Peterson (written commun., 1969) reported that he was told that the gravels were sluiced along the bed of Pinal Creek from about a quarter of a mile above 66 Ranch (SW14 sec. 13, T. 1 S., R. 15 E.) nearly to the edge of Globe, a distance of about 3i/2 miles.
The placers adjacent to Pinal Creek at Gap and Catsclaw Flat (sec. 24, T. 1 S., R. 15 E., Pinal Peak quadrangle) occur in an area about 4,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide east of Pinal Creek near 66 Ranch. Gold was also recovered from gravels in Pinal Creek on the northeast slope of the Pinal Mountains—near the source of Pinal Creek (Pinal Creek quadrangle). There is no evidence to suggest placer gold accumulations in Pinal Creek downstream from Globe, although the Old Dominion mine and veins system is north of Globe and was once famous for the free gold contained in the copper ores.
Production History
The placers in the Globe-Miami district were worked intermittently from the late 1880's until 1961. Most of the gold was washed from the gravels of Lost Gulch and Pinal Creek. For most years, Lost Gulch was the only placer credited with production; no production directly attributed to Gold Gulch and Pinto Creek has been recorded. The gold recovered from Lost Gulch ranges from fine to fairly coarse; the largest nugget recovered weighed about 2 ounces. The placers were mined by sluicing, rocking, or drywashing; daily returns from the placer areas were low.
Source
The placers have resulted from the erosion of small gold-silver and gold-pyrite veins not associated with the copper porphyry deposits in the Globe-Miami district. In the vicinity of Lost Gulch, numerous small discontinuous pyritic veins occur in the Precambrian schists exposed between Inspiration and the Copper Cities mining area; the placers in this gulch probably were derived from these deposits. The small placers in Gold Gulch probably were derived from the erosion of the Continental vein, which contains low concentrations of gold in the copper ore. The source of the gold in Pinal Creek area is not known, but probably is the small gold-bearing veins in the Precambrian schists exposed in the Pinal Mountains.
Literature
Blake, 1899: Notes placers in Lost Gulch; source of gold. Engineering and Mining Journal, 1893: Reports recovery of considerable amounts of coarse gold from Pinto Creek placers.
Hinton, 1878: Lists mines and placers; cites production of placers.
Peterson, 1962: Placer deposits are not described; gold-silver veins that may be a source of the placers are described.
Peterson, Gilbert, and Quick, 1951: Notes placers in Gold Gulch; describes ores that may be the source of the placer gold.
Ransome, 1903: Notes placers in Pinal Creek. 1904b: Notes placers in Lost Gulch, Gold Gulch, and Pinal Creek; locates placers in Pinal Creek.
Trippel, 1888: Production (Pinal Creek and Lost Gulch); locates placers. 1889: Production statistics for 1888 (Pinal Creek and Lost Gulch).
U.S. Bureau of Mines, 1934, 1935: Production; names of productive placer claims.
Wilson, 1961: Names five placer areas; location; describes gravels and size of gold particles (Gap and Catsclaw Flats; Lost Gulch); placer mining during the period 1932-33.
