People Came and Left This Meadow

People Came and Left This Meadow. . , The water came first. , Melting snow from the surrounding mountains drains into Holcomb Valley. The underlying rocks and soils prevent the water from percolating down, thus creating a wet meadow. The water stays for most of the spring, then slowly evaporates through the summer months. Trees can't grow in the saturated soil, but other plants thrive. , The Serrano Indians were attracted to the meadows. They used the grasses for basket weaving and hunted the deer feeding on the shrubs. , Water brought easy gold. , Water can wash minerals out of the rocks high in the mountains. In May of 1860, Billy Holcomb found bits of gold in the dirt along Caribou Creek, which flows through this meadow. This "placer" gold was the easiest to process. Miners separated gold from sand and gravel by washing it in metal pans or large wooden sluice boxes. Most of the placer gold was quickly removed from streams and creeks in Holcomb Valley within two years of discovery. , Removing the gold from the rock was much harder. , By 1861, most miners were looking to the ledges above Holcomb Valley for veins of gold-bearing quartz. Rock was crushed to get to the gold. For small operations an arrastre was used, for larger operations a stamp mill did the crushing. The Mammoth Vein, in the hills north of Holcomb Valley, was one of the most promising. A 20 stamp mill was erected below the ledges. Iron rails and ore cars transported the ore from the mine adits to the stamp mill. , The town of Belleville came and went in just four years. , Hard to believe now, but this meadow in front of us once supported the settlement of Belleville! In 1860, wooden cabins and stores were built quickly to accommodate swarms of prospectors and their families. However, hard rock mining was difficult work, and the deposits were disappointing. The terrible winter of 1861-1862 was the last straw, and Belleville was a ghost town by 1864.