1860-1870
Mining Claims
After the 1849 California Gold Rush, prospectors fanned out across California looking for the next mother lode. In the 1860s and 1870s, hopes were high that fortunes would be made in the canyons below Calistoga’s Palisades. While the prospectors found little gold, a large deposit of quartz-bearing silver was discovered traversing our canyon and the two canyons immediately to the north. Miners dug exploratory pits and tunnels to track the vein and staked their claims.
R.F. GRIGSBY
Robert Faires Grigsby proved to be the ablest of the mining entrepreneurs. Grigsby acquired the best mining claims from other prospectors and staked his own. The map above, drawn by Grigsby, shows the claims that stretched across our canyon. The old border of Edward Bale’s Rancho Carne Humana is clearly marked. The area labeled “Horn’s Ranch” is now one of our Cabernet blocks. The mining notice pictured here, dated 1876, was for the Kingston Claim. The holes were made when the notice was nailed to a stake at a corner of the claim.
THE PALISADES MINE
Grigsby, a mining engineer with experience running mines in Mexico, built the Palisades Mine two canyons to the north. R.F. Grigsby lived with his wife Meda at the Palisades Mine where they raised their family. At the mine site there were three family dwellings, a two-story boarding house for mine workers, three barns, storerooms, an assay office, a blacksmith shop, and a garden and orchard. Grigsby’s daughter Enid, who lived in our canyon until she passed away, called it, “Paradise on Earth.” While Grigsby staked claims in our canyon, he never developed them.
Grigsby built his mining works starting in 1876. He bought the abandoned mill from the Silverado Mine on Mount St. Helena made famous by Robert Louis Stevenson in Silverado Squatters and hauled it down the mountain for his own operation.The Palisades Mine operated for only four years, beginning in 1888, and employed as many as 30 men at its height. During those years, Grigsby reported that12,55 tons of ore went through the mill producing 7,000 to 10,000 ounces of silver bullion per month. The mine shafts, dug by hand, descended over 250 feet below ground and were as long as 1400 feet.
Operations ceased at the Palisades Mine in 1893 when the price of silver dropped and Grigsby’s youngest son was killed in a mining accident. Grigsby moved to Mexico where he continued to develop mines. Today, only the old machinery and mining carts from the Palisades Mine remain at the site. The buildings have all succumbed to wildfires.
