Fairplay District

Publication Info:
Gold Districts of California
Bulletin 193 California Division of Mines and Geology 1976
Table of Contents

Related: Where to Find Gold in California

Location and History
This district is in southcentral El Dorado County about 20 miles southeast of Placerville. It includes the Slug Gulch and Cedarville areas. It is primarily a placer-gold district, but some copper has been mined here. The area was first settled in 1853 by N. Sisson and Charles Staples. The name, according to tradition, arose from an incident in which an appeal for fair play forestalled a fight between two miners.

Geology
The deposits here are part of an isolated Tertiary gravel channel that extends southwest from Slug Gulch toward Fairplay. The gravels are of various ages. Older benches of quartz gravel are rich, younger intervolcanic gravels are leaner. The gold is extremely coarse. At Slug Gulch the bedrock is limestone; elsewhere it is slate and schist; to the west is granodiorite. A few narrow gold-quartz veins are found in the district.

Bibliography
Clark, W. B., and Carlson, D. W., 1956, El Dorado County, placer deposits: California Jour. Mines and Geology, vol. 52, pp. 429-435.

Lindgren, Waldemar, and Turner, H. W., 1894, Placerville folio: U.S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas of the U.S., folio 3, 3 pp.

Lindgren, Waldemar, 1911, Tertiary gravels of the Sierra Nevada: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 73, pp. 180-181.

Mining and Scientific Press, June 17, 1876.

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