Gold Mines

A Hike That’s Pure Gold
By Jeff Bagato
Special to The Washington Post
Reprinted from The Washington Post 11/23/01

On the trail to the Maryland Mine above Great Falls and the C&O Canal, the freshly fallen leaves rattle underfoot so loudly I can barely hear my guide, Ranger Rod Sauter, pointing out the signs of excavation hidden in the terrain. The Gold Mine Loop leads up the hill above the Great Falls Tavern through thick woods of majestic tulip trees, young American beech and skinny papaws. Although mining stopped long ago- the work simply was not profitable enough to continue- visitors to the park can experience gold fever just by viewing the mill ruins and other mining features in C&O Canal National Historical Park.

"This is one of the main Maryland mining sites, and one of the most easily observed and accessible mining sites in the park," notes Sauter, supervisory ranger for the park’s Great Falls Interpretive District.

Legend has it that a Union soldier camping near Great Falls, Md., was washing dishes when he saw gold flecks sparkling in the stream. His discovery jump-started a miniature East Coast gold rush that resulted in 30 small mines spread across the hills of Montgomery County above the falls. The remains of two other mines, the Ford and the Anderson, are within park boundaries. This activity rekindled an industry that in Maryland is as old as 1829, according to Walter Goetz’s booklet "Montgomery County Gold Fever" (available in the Tavern gift shop, which also houses a small exhibit on Great Falls mining).

The first of the new mines, the Maryland Mine, was founded by former Union soldiers in 1865 who incorporated as the Maryland Mining Co. The next year, the Maryland Mine began to produce actual gold, and the Union Arch Mine was founded in the surrounding area, near what is now the Cabin John Bridge. Over the following decades, mining occurred sporadically on the Maryland Mine site, as various companies gave up and were reinfected with gold fever. The hike follows the path of this history as it moves uphill from the Tavern just over a mile the mine ruins, and the round trip takes about two hours. Less ambitious gold enthusiasts may take a five-minute shortcut down the Falls Road Spur, near the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Falls Road.

Off the trail and up a hill, we spot one of the first landmarks, a long ridge of earth- now covered over in leaves- that clearly isn’t nature’s landscaping. A closer look reveals a two-foot-deep prospecting trench dug from east to west to locate the vein of quartz running north-south, represented on the current topography by a perpendicular groove. During World War I, the Atlantic Development Co. spent $130,000 on this excavation. (The mysterious work back in the woods caused locals to suspect that a German invasion force was digging trenches in the hills, and federal authorities were called in to investigate.) Today, small chunks of quartz poke up from the leaf cover; these chunks are the remains of mining activity. Some larger pieces farther down the hill may have naturally broken through the soil with erosion, Sauter says; these quartz boulders, or "floats," would have signaled the nearby vein.

Farther up the hill, we come to our first mine shaft, originally dug in 1867. The shaft was filled in years ago for safety reasons; these days, it’s just a giant indentation lined with leaves, and a mature tree grown from the center of the bowl. Nearby and enclosed in tall chain link fence lies a jumbled pile of rusted corrugated sheet metal. After a moment’s study, it’s not hard to see that it once was a rather large structure, albeit one that collapsed almost half a century ago. This ruin was a crushing mill, built in 1935 by yet another Maryland Mining Co. when gold prices rose to $35 per ounce. Here, quartz rock was broken into successively smaller chunks in preparation for amalgamation, in which the crushed quartz sand was washed over a copper plate coated in mercury. The mercury combined with the gold, forming an amalgam that stuck to the copper.

Near the mill lie the ruins of other company buildings; the assay office and water tower have been reconstructed, but are protected by tall fences and signage offering stern warnings of the dangers of hidden mine shafts and rickety construction. Underground and unseen lie three or four mine shafts up to 200 feet deep and horizontal tunnels, called adits in the trade, which were dug along the quartz veins. This last Maryland Mining Co. worked the area until 1940. There has been no mining activity on the site since then.

Sauter can’t help but compare all that effort and expense to the total gold recovery from all the Montgomery County mines from 1860 to 1951: a mere 5,000 ounces. At today’s price of $277.80 per troy ounce, that’s $1,389,000 worth, although historical payouts totaled only $150,000.

"Gold digging is literally a scheme to get rich quick," Sauter says. "But if you look at the effort put in here, it definitely wasn’t a way to get rich quick. The challenge was to find where the gold was and how to get it out. It was just too expensive." Over time, he adds, "the land itself became more valuable, especially being underdeveloped land in a highly developed area."

Before I have a chance to ask, Sauter notes that mining and panning for gold are no longer allowed here: "The gold deposits are protected by the park."

That fact, and the knowledge of poor financial returns, doesn’t discourage most people , however. "I tell people about all the effort involved in prospecting," Sauter says, "but when I ask them if they would still do it, they say ‘Yeah!’"

For more information and a schedule of future "Get Rich Quick?" hikes, please call the Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center at (301) 767-3714.