I love this area! I also found some nice gold the first time I went! Of course I had to do a lot of sampling but towards the end of the day I found a nice pay streak of some fine gold in a little river bank - too bad I had to leave to fight traffic back home, otherwise I would have got more. It’s beautiful here and there’s rich gold mining history here! The GPAA has some claims in the area and there’s a section of the river open to the public (so no need to be a member of a club or claim owner) But the area is claimed up so do your research first. I noticed a lot of drywasher tailing piles of claim owners in the old mining town of Keyesville - It’s interesting to me that gold is found here by both wet and dry methods.

 

Keyesville History

 

In 1851 gold was first discovered on Greenhorn Creek near the Kern River by a exploration party sent out by John C. Fremont. This discovery led to the first Kern River gold rush. Prospectors spread out finding rich placer gold yielding as much as $50 per pan and several lode deposits. In 1852, Richard Keys, a half-Cherokee '49er discovered lode gold at Keyesville. Soon afterward Captain Maltby discovered the nearby Mammoth mine. After discovery of placer gold in the Kern River in the spring of 1854 a stampede of miners began to the area. By January 1855 the area was swarming with miners. In August 1855 five or six arrastras were running and by spring 1857, 16 were running. From 800 to 1,000 men were working the mines. The first stamp mill was hauled though Visalia from San Francisco and erected on the river in 1856 by Abia T. Lightner. By 1858 three arrastras, and five water driven mills with a total capacity 22 stamps, were working Keyesville ore. They were all destroyed in the floods of 1861-1862. Three years later, in 1865, a 20-stamp mill was constructed on the Kern River, but it did a poor job recovering gold and was soon shut down. In its heyday the town of Keyesville consisted of 5 or 6 stores, 3 hotels, 4 saloons, a brewery, two livery stables, a wagon-making shop, 2 blacksmith shops, a barber shop, 2 butcher shops, a shoemaker's shop, express and post offices. There were boarding houses and saloons at the individual mines. After the high-grade placer deposits had been exhausted, the Euro-Americans moved on to other areas, however, Chinese miners continued to work the gravels in Keyesville well into the 1860s.

The underground mines in Keyesville were idle until a 1897 revival. During this time a 5-stamp mill was erected at the Keyes mine and a 10-stamp mill at the Mammoth. Both mines were intermittently active until about World War II. The Keyes mine produced a total of $450,000, the Mammoth about $500,000. Small scale placer mining has been conducted in the Keyesville Mining District from the first discovery of gold until present.

Recreational Mining

 

In order to control illegal occupancy of mining claims within the Keyesville area, on March 19, 1968, the BLM withdrew several hundred acres of land in the Keyesville area from the mining law. Four hundred acres remain withdrawn from the mining law, and is managed for recreational mining. Recreational gold mining on lands withdrawn from mineral entry is not a mining activity--it is a privilege. Be a good citizen and leave the area clean and fill in your holes.

 

Opportunities and Restrictions

 

The 400 acre Keyesville Recreational Mining Area is located within the 7,133 Keyesville Special Management Area. The recreational mining area is one-half mile wide and encompasses one and one-quarter miles of the Kern River. A popular location in the spring of the year, and also within the recreational mining area, is lower Hogeye Gulch.The recreational mining area is about two miles northwest of the community of Lake Isabella, about one-quarter mile below State Route 155. The west side of the river is accessed via paved Keyesville Road, and on the east by the dirt road that leads to the Slippery Rock picnic area. Panning, dredging, sluicing, and dry washing are allowed. All activities are subject to any other applicable Federal, State, or County laws or regulations. Other rules which apply include:

 

Camp fires require a current fire permit. Camping is permitted up to 14 days within any 30 day period and up 28 days in a year.

   

Only hand tools may be used, motorized equipment including pumps (except dredges), chain saws and mechanized earth moving equipment (backhoes, bulldozers) are prohibited.

   

Dredges working Hogeye Gulch must have an intake nozzle diameter of 3 inches or less.

  

Water may not be pumped from water courses for any purpose.

   

High banking, hydraulic mining and ground sluicing are not permitted.

   

Sluices / riffle boxes / dry washers must have collecting surfaces of no greater than 6 square feet.

   

Explosives, mercury or other hazardous chemicals may not be used.

   

Vegetation may not be disturbed.

   

Any subsurface archeaolgical, historical, or paleontological remains discovered during mining activies must be left intact; all work in the area should stop and the Bakersfield Field Office Manager should be notified immediately. Resumption of work may be allowed upon clearance by the Field Office Manager.

 

More History

 

In 1848, gold was discovered in Northern California, and the tide of gold-seekers soon became a flood. A number used the Kern Valley route as a pass through the Sierra, and then continued to the gold fields up north. But gold fever caused exploration of streams and rivers in the Kern Valley as well.

 

In 1853, a gold miner named Richard M. Keyes discovered gold in a quartz vein a few miles from the present community of Lake Isabella. An instant mining town, Keyesville, sprang up at the site. Over the next few years the Greenhorn area was swarming with would-be millionaires looking for the next big gold strike, but with little luck.

Then in 1858, in what would become a Kern Valley legend, a Cherokee man with the poetic name of Lovely Rogers was chasing his mule in the area of what is now Wofford Heights, when he paused to pick up a rock to throw at the animal. but before he could throw it, his eye caught, the gold flecks in it.

 

So, like Keyesville, soon there was Rogersville, adjacent to the newfound Big Blue gold mine. Then an enterprising fellow threw a plank across two barrels and opened a whiskey bar, which prompted the name of the gold mining encampment to be changed to Whiskey Flat.

 

A few years later, in 1864, the name was changed by the people of the growing town to the less wild and woolly name of Kernville. The rush for gold had supplanted the Indian village of Tulonoya, next to the site of the original Kernville.

 

Also in 1864, gold was found again just a dozen miles south of the Kern Valley at Havilah, setting off yet another gold boom. Havilah rapidly grew to 3,000 residents. Stagecoaches and freight wagons traveled the Kern Valley's dusty trails, going to and from gold fields.

 

But the gold rush gradually burned out, and the Kern Valley turned to another activity--ranching. This was the main activity of the area at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. During this bucolic era, the Kern Valley ranchers established homesteads, schools, and churches here. Stores popped up. Land parcels were laid out into townships. In the late 1800s, small communities such as Bodfish and Isabella developed and grew.