Treasure Tales and Treasure Stories About Oregon from the Archives of Lost Treasure Magazine

Lost Blue Bucket Placer Gold

In 1845 an emigrant wagon train was on its way to Oregon. Upon reaching Gravelly Ford Crossing on the Humboldt River, at the present site of Beowawe, Nevada, they split into two parties. One continued along the Humboldt River, the other went due north by way of the Black Rock Mountains.

Leaving the Black Rock Mountains, the wagon train came to another mountain range. From a high point they could see the Twin Sister Peaks. Camp was made at a spring in the canyon below them.

Some of the members picked up pieces of yellow metal. These people were farmers and did not recognize the "yellow rocks" as being gold nuggets. They picked up several buckets full (the buckets were painted blue).

After leaving the mountains, the party started across the Deschutes River. Here the wagons capsized and the buckets were lost. Only a few of the nuggets, those the children were carrying, were saved.

The party reached northwestern Oregon and settled on homesteads. Several years later, a few of these settlers moved down to Sutters Fort in California. Here they saw gold nuggets being recovered by miners. The nuggets lookedjust like the little yellow rocks they had picked up in eastern Oregon.

A party of 90 persons was immediately organized to return to southeast Oregon and search for the area that had now become known as the Blue Bucket Placer.

Hostile Indians ambushed the outfit and more than half of the men were killed. Only two men who knew the location of the golden canyon survived to get back to California. They died shortly afterwards. However, before dying, they told a Dr. Drane of Yreke, California, the story and gave him instructions on how to find the canyon.

Dr. Drane was running a store and hotel and he didn't want to leave his business. A trapper on his way to the California gold fields stopped at Yreka. The doctor showed him some of the gold nuggets that he daily washed out of his sluice boxes. "If that's gold," said the stranger, "I know where there's a pile of it, in a steep walled canyon northeast of here."

The trapper had wintered his horses in the canyon and had found the gold. While the trapper was describing the place the doctor recalled the story of the two sick men. According to the description, the two places were identical.

Eventually, with a friend and the trapper, he set out to look for the canyon. When they reached the head of Goose Lake Valley and the top of Warner Hill, the trapper pointed out the Twin Sisters Peaks to the northeast and said, "That mountain off to the right is the one. The canyon lies on this side and to the north of it."

The three men found the place just as described but although they looked, not a trace of gold could they find. With their food supply almost gone, the trio gave up.

So somewhere in a canyon below the Twin Sister Peaks in Harney County, a rich gold placer waits for a determined gold prospector.