Historic Jacksonville, Inc. has often posted stories from Jacksonville’s original gold rush and from its second gold rush during the Great Depression of the 1930s. However, there may not have been that big a gap between the two!
We recently came across an article about a widow who had a cabin near Rich Gulch in the early 1900s. She had a fine garden, flanked with an extensive gravel bar, a memento of the days when the stream was lined with rockers, long toms, or sluice boxes.
In an “Oregon Journal” article by Fred Lockley, the widow said that she lived off her garden and her chickens. “After a heavy rain my chicken money brings in quite a bit extra.” Lockley asked what a heavy rain had to do with bringing in extra money from her chickens?
She went into the house and brought out a small bottle and, taking out the cork, said, “Hold out your hand and I will show you.” She poured a dozen or more small gold nuggets into Lockley’s hand and said, “My chickens range up and down the stream here and, after a heavy rain, they see these nuggets gleaming dully in the cracks of the bedrock, where the miners removed the gravel in the old days, and pick them up.
“I never sell my chickens alive. I sell the eggs, or I sell my chickens dressed, for I frequently get from their crops anywhere from a quarter’s to as high as several dollars’ worth of nuggets. The nuggets you have in your hand there are worth about $5. I got those from the crops of the last few chickens I killed.”
So now you know—“Thar’s gold in them that…chickens!” And who knows where else you may still find it!