See also Clearwater County Idaho Gold Production
Blacklead District
Commodities: copper, iron
This little-known district, accessible only by pack trail up the St. Joe River from Avery on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, was prospected for copper in the early days and for some time thereafter, but is now abandoned. It contains contact-metamorphic deposits scattered in irregular seams and replacement deposits without apparent system in blocks of the Blacklead limestone of Anderson (Paleozoic (?)), which are enclosed in the Idaho batholith. The deposits contain considerable magnetite, small amounts of partly oxidized chalcopyrite, and minor quantities of quartz, epidote, zoisite, and hornblende.
Other deposits containing magnetite are reported to have been found elsewhere in Clearwater County, notably one in the general vicinity of T. 38 N., R. 5 E. According to Anderson, these are all probably of similar type and some may contain enough iron to be of possible future value.
Burnt Creek District
Commodity: gold
Both veins and placer deposits have long been known here, but the production has not been large. The district, which is 35 miles from Ahsahka on a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and 10 to 15 miles from Elk River on a branch of the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, is underlain by gneissic Belt rocks cut by numerous diverse dikes. The lodes are irregular, discontinuous quartz veins with pyrite, arsenopyrite, and gold in local shoots.
Moose Creek District
Commodity: gold
This is one of the early placer camps at which operations have been continued intermittently up to the present time, although production appears never to have been great. It is in and near unsurveyed T. 39 N.R. 10 E., and is accessible only by pack trail, a fact which may in part account for the limited development. Apparently, no lodes have been mined.
Musselshell District
Commodities: gold, monazite
This is one of the early placer districts. It is in and near T. 36, N., R. 6 E. Monazite as well as zircon and garnet are sufficiently abundant in this and other placer districts in the region to be of possible value under suitable market conditions.
Orofino Coal District
Commodity: coal
In the general vicinity of Orofino, there are several minor workings on lignitic beds in sediments intercalated in the Columbia River basalt, probably of little interest except for small-scale local use.
Oxford District
Commodity: copper
his little-known district in and near T. 38 N., R. 7 E., is mainly underlain by quartz diorite related to the Idaho batholith. It contains a few lodes. The Oxford mine, which was largely caved when visited by Anderson in 1929, is on a quartz vein containing chalcopyrite which is oxidized to malachite, apparently to a considerable depth.
Pierce City District
Commodity: gold
Discovery of placer gold in this district in 1861 initiated mining in Idaho, although the presence of metals had previously been noted in a few other places. The district is now reached from Orofino on a branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad and by highway. Different estimates of the production of the Pierce City district range from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000, mostly mined prior to 1875, although intermittent production has continued to the present time and has increased somewhat in recent years as a result of dredging and lode mining. Anderson estimates the production from gold lodes at about $250,000, mostly before 1905.
The district is mainly underlain by the Idaho batholith, but there are considerable remnants of metamorphosed and injected Belt strata, now largely gneissic, and numerous pegmatitic and other dikes. On the west side of the district, Columbia River basalt laps up on the older rocks.
The lodes are mainly in or close to the gneissic masses and are irregular, discontinuous fissure fillings of quartz, 2 to 10 feet thick, with local shoots containing auriferous pyrite, native gold, and some arsenopyrite. The ore mined is sei d to contain from half an ounce to an ounce to the ton in gold.
Some of the placer gravel is in terraces on the sides of the valley, others on ridges, and some in the present stream channels. The high deposits, locally as much as 500 feet above modern streams, are thought by some to result from damning of the streamways by the Columbia River basalt. principal placer operations in the district were on Orofino Creek, but a number of the stream valleys in the surrounding region have also been profitably worked. It appears that throughout this part of Idaho the richer and more accessible placer deposits are, in general, worked out.
There may be some untouched deposits in localities unknown to the early miners and there are doubtless places where dredging or other large-scale methods can recover gold that could not be profitably handled in the early days. Even at present there are numerous adverse factors varying in different localities, such as transportation difficulties, narrow, steep canyons, abundant boulders, and scarcity of water during the short summers. Lode mining has not as yet progressed beyond small-scale operations, but, under market conditions favorable to gold mining, there is a possibility of expansion.
Ruby Creek District
Commodities: gold, lead, silver
This district, which includes what is sometimes termed the Neva district, is exceptional in this part of Idaho because, in addition to the gold veins first worked, lead-zinc deposits are being developed. This district is crossed by both a railroad and a highway. There has been intermittent production of gold on a small scale, but as yet little production of base metals.
The country rook is mainly quartzite and mica schist of Belt age out by small granitic masses and dikes of different kinds.
The gold veins are presumably similar to those in other parts of the county. The veins containing sulphides mainly result from replacement along fissures, some of which trend slightly west of north and others nearly at right angles. They contain sphalerite with subordinate galena in a siderite gangue and minor quantities of other minerals such as chalcopyrite and ankerite or dolomite. The Ruby Creek mine is the only place where lodes of this sort have yet received much development.
