McCoy District
Overview
Other Names: Horse Canyon
County: Lander
Discovered: 1914
Commodities: silver, gold, iron, lead, zinc
Comments
The original McCoy district covered only the eastern flank of the northern part of the Fish Creek Range about 30 miles south-southwest of Battle Mountain. The district is now enlarged to include all of the northern tip of the Fish Creek Range.
References
Stoddard, 1932, p. 50; Schrader, 1934, p. 1; Vanderburg, 1939, p. 64; Bonham, 1976; Stewart and others, 1977, p. 86
McCoy Placer District Description
Location
East flank of the Fish Creek Mountains, on the west side of the Reese River Valley, T. 28 N., R. 42 E. (unsurveyed).
Topographic Maps
McCoy 15-minute quadrangle.
Geologic Maps
Ferguson, Muller, and Roberts, 1951a, Geologic map of the Mount Moses quadrangle, Nevada, scale 1:125,000.
Access
From Winnemucca, 55 miles east on U.S. Highway 40 to Battle Mountain and junction with State Highway 8a. From there, it is 12 miles south on State Highway 8a to light-duty road leading south- west about 10 miles to Fish Creek Mountains. A dirt road leads 8 miles south to the McCoy district on the east side of the mountains.
Extent
Small placers were worked in the near vicinity of the Gold Dome mine, one of the group of mines northeast of the site of McCoy (approximately sec. 2, T. 28 N., R. 42 E., unsurveyed).
Production History
Small placer gold production has been recorded for 3 years, 1924, 1935, and 1939. The district was first located in 1914, and some unrecorded placer gold was probably obtained soon after.
Source
The placer gold was presumably derived from erosion of the lode-gold deposits in the area that contain free gold. The Gold Dome mine is a replacement deposit in diorite and contains abundant free gold. The placer gold recovered from the area in 1924 was 756 fine.
Literature
Schrader, 1934: Notes past small-scale placer-mining activity near Gold Dome mine; describes geology and lode deposits.
U.S. Geological Survey, 1924: Fineness of placer gold recovered in McCoy district.
Meadow Valley Mountains District
Overview
County: Lincoln
Commodities: gold, silver, uranium
Comments
Located east of U.S. Highway 93.
References
Tingley, 1989c, p. 5
Mellan Mountain District
Overview
County: Nye
Discovered: 1930
Commodities: gold, silver
Comments
This district is located in the vicinity of Mellan Mountain, an area of two joined hills near the old townsite of Mellan in Cactus Flat, about 13 miles east of the Cactus Range.
References
Kral, 1951, p. 131; Cornwall, 1972, p. 38; Tingley and others, 1997, p. 7-50
