Workings — The Red Wing Mine

The main drift of the Red Wing Mine looking back along the iron rails laid into the floor, slate walls on either side, the back of the working receding into darkness. — **The main drift, looking back.** Iron rails laid into the floor.

The named places on the hill

The Red Wing has about thirteen and three-quarter acres of patented ground on a hillside west of Logtown. It is worked from above by adits into the hillside, and from the surface by stopes and pits. Some of the named workings are open and dry. Some carry water. Some had to be dug back out by hand. One was reopened only this spring.

The Discovery Adit is off the lower road. It runs about three hundred and fifty feet of drift to reach the vein. Don entered it in July of 2023 with sample bags and an MD20 metal detector. The detector did not hit. The first buckets of rock he carried out returned microscopic gold. Curly-cued stubs of old candles were still pinned in the walls where the early operators had wedged them in.

The Lower Crosscut still carries water in places. To the right of the entry the drift goes about twenty feet into a small chamber that fills back up with water as soon as it is drained. To the left a short branch ends at the standing water. The drift goes up a little before that, and there is quartz in the back. Don drained part of it in August of 2023 and has not been all the way to the end.

The middle adit is where Don, his father, and his brother worked in the 1980s. They drove a short crosscut off it looking for better ore. They stoped up toward the air shaft chasing the vein. By the early 1990s the ground had sloughed and the middle adit was closed. Don dug it out by hand over two weeks in January of 2025, in hour-long shifts because his back wouldn't let him do more.

I'm only spending about an hour at a time in there. I tire out pretty quick. About an hour is all I can do, and I have to get out and make contact with my safety person on the outside. So I've turned an eight-hour job into an eight-day job here, or ten-day job. But I'm starting to think I'm going to get through there for the first time in thirty-five or forty years.

From the channel — January 14, 2025

He broke through on the fourteenth. Four days later he stood up in the middle adit for the first time since the 1990s. The water tank was still where they had left it. The walls had been sloughing off for thirty years.

This here, this is not a collapse. This is my dad and my brother-in-law shot up in here, try to find some better ore. ... Nature's reclaiming this thing. Well, it was good to finally get back in there after thirty some years, kind of sad to see it in that condition though.

From the channel — January 18, 2025

The ore pass collapsed at the entry and has since been cleared. The old stope sits on the surface above the main vein. Don worked it through most of 2025 until the heavy rains of January 2026 partly buried it under fresh slough, and his rotor hammer went under with it. He had to cut the cord on the hammer to pull it out.

The old stope marks the boundary between the work of the early operators and the work of Don's family in the 1980s. A wooden windlass with a hand-crank and a half-barrel bucket still hangs above the stope from the 1980s push. The bottom of the bucket is gone, the wheels are still on the tipper, the rest of it is intact. Below the windlass line, everything was solid quartz when the family broke in.

That was done. That's where the Oldtimer stopped. See how it just kind of pinched out. But everything below us, we did. This was solid quartz all the way across down in here. Just massive.

From a walk through the workings — 2026

There's your bucket. What's left of it. The bottom's gone, and the veil's probably still there. Veil's on the top, and then the hoist wheels are on the little tipper things. That thing make a man out of cranking that thing — oh yeah.

From the same walk — 2026

The other named places on the hill are the main vein, the property-line pit at the south end, and the stringer pits at the top. The stringer pits were the first place Don worked. A fallen oak in June of 2023 had pulled up a root ball that exposed quartz with visible gold in it. He hand-dug specimens out of the soil for the rest of that summer.

The main vein is the one that cuts through deeper than any of the worked levels. The early operators sunk a small shaft toward it from the stope and stopped. Don's family stoped up toward the air shaft chasing it in the 1980s and stopped. Whether the vein has been crossed at depth, or whether all of the worked rock is shoots coming off it, is the unresolved question on the property.

We thought we were going to hit that main vein that cuts through down here. We thought we were going to get into it down there, but I don't think we ever did. All of this is coming out of that main system, and you should be standing right on it down there. It's ten more feet. Yep. It's always ten more feet.

From the same walk — 2026

The portal was opened on May 21, 2026. The mill site sits apart from the workings, on a separate bench of the property.

Securing the portal — May and June 2026

At the end of the May 21 video, Don said the next job was to make it safe to walk underneath the vertical face at the portal, and to get a door on it to keep people out. He has been at it ever since. The work below: ground support at a collapsed stope outside the mine, then the wooden form for the new concrete portal and gate he is pouring at the entry.

Outside the mine near a collapsed stope at the Red Wing, with wooden boards wedged between rock faces overhead providing ground support. — **One.** Ground support at a collapsed stope.

Looking down into the working pit during the portal-securing work, with a yellow hard hat, a Bosch rotor hammer, drill bits, rebar lengths, water bottle, and tape measure scattered around the half-built frame. — **Two.** The day's work in progress.

The wooden form built for the new concrete portal at the Red Wing, with heavy verticals, cross-bracing, span beams, and tie-back cables anchored into the rock; the deeper working visible through the form. — **Three.** The form for the concrete pour.

Inside the wooden form for the new concrete portal at the Red Wing, looking out, with plywood walls and plank floor in place and a stack of rebar pieces waiting to be set inside the form before the pour. — **Four.** Inside the form, rebar waiting.

The eight improvements — surveyor's field notes, August 1948

When James filed for the federal patent, the surveyor walked the property and recorded every cut, tunnel, shaft, and pit by number. The instrument was a Lietz Light Mountain Transit No. 11307. Distances were chained off with calibrated steel tapes from Keuffel & Esser. Eight workings made it into the survey, plus the mill. Each was given a bearing from Cor. No. 1, a dimension, and a dollar valuation. They appear in the official record below.

No. 1A cut, 3 ft wide, 10 ft face. Runs to the portal of a tunnel that drives 52.2 ft, then 46.55 ft, then 33.65 ft, to a discovery point at 73 ft — where the tunnel is blocked under a caved stope.$1,400
No. 2A cut, 4 ft wide, with a 12 ft high portal. The tunnel inside runs 18.9 ft to a cave-in.$1,500
No. 3A cut, 4 ft wide, to the face and caved portal of a tunnel that is inaccessible.$500
No. 4A cut, average width 8 ft, depth 5 ft, running 28.9 ft to a 6 ft face.$100
No. 5A shaft, 2½ by 6 ft, 15 ft deep.$150
No. 6A cut, 10 ft wide, 3 ft deep, 32 ft long.$50
No. 7A pit, 2 ft wide, 3 ft deep, 12 ft long.$15
No. 8A cut, 5 ft wide. Runs 16.4 ft to a face 7 ft wide. Average depth 3 ft.$25

One other improvement is recorded on the same page: a mill, 12 by 21 feet on the ground, sitting 244.6 feet south of Cor. No. 1, with the long sides bearing S.13°W.

Two pages of the field notes are below. The first describes the survey instrument and the corner traverse. The second enumerates the eight improvements above. The bottom of the last page carries a quiet correction: The discrepancies between these field notes and the amended location certificate are due to errors in the latter.

1948 surveyor's field notes for U.S. Mineral Survey 6286, page describing the survey instrument and the corner traverse. — **Field notes, page 1.** Survey instrument, methodology, and the start of the corner traverse.

1948 surveyor's field notes for U.S. Mineral Survey 6286, page listing the eight numbered improvements on the property. — **Field notes — the eight improvements.** Each working with bearing, dimension, and 1948 valuation.

The main hill, from above

A bare-earth LiDAR survey of the property from the U.S. Geological Survey, acquired in November and December of 2021. The image below is one square mile of country with the tree canopy filtered out in post-processing. The main worked hill sits at the center, with the chain of cuts and dump lobes running along its spine. The road wraps around it. The drainage cuts north to south through the middle.

Bare-earth LiDAR multidirectional hillshade of the Red Wing Mine, showing the main worked hill, the central drainage, the access road wrapping the workings, and the dump lobes. — **The main hill, from above.** USGS 3DEP bare-earth LiDAR, multidirectional hillshade, 2021.

George Wheeldon walked the property — 1983

When Don's family bought the Red Wing in 1983, they hired George A. Wheeldon — a registered geologist at 250 Cala Drive in Placerville — to walk the property and survey what was there. He left three pages of fieldwork behind. An assay results sheet on his letterhead, with sample identifiers down the left side and ounce-per-ton values in his handwriting in the right column. And two hand-drawn maps of the workings, with sample-location arrows penciled along the vein traces and assay values notated where the samples came from.

The three pages are below.

George A. Wheeldon & Associates assay results sheet, 1983, with hand-written sample identifiers and fire-assay values. — **Wheeldon assay results sheet, 1983.** Sample identifiers and fire-assay values on Wheeldon's letterhead.

Hand-drawn workings map of the Lower Tunnel, 1983, with sample-location arrows and assay values. — **Hand-drawn map — Lower Tunnel.** Sample arrows and assay values along the vein.

Hand-drawn workings map of the Red Wing, 1983, with sample locations and assay values along multiple drift levels. — **Hand-drawn map — worked vein overview.** Multiple drift levels with sample arrows and assay values.

The workings now

The Lower Crosscut still carries water. A worked drift recedes into the dark, with daylight at the far end. The vein shows in cross-section on the back of another drift. Surface trenches sit open on the hillside. The working face is where the rotor hammer rests between shifts.

A surface trench on the Red Wing property near the top of the hill, looking down from the rim, with water standing in the bottom and a gloved hand visible at the foot of the cut. — **A surface trench, near the top of the hill.** Holding water in the bottom.

Looking out of a drift in the Red Wing toward the portal, with daylight coming in through the far opening. — **Looking out toward the portal.** Daylight at the far end.

A quartz vein cutting across the dark slate back of a drift inside the Red Wing workings. — **The vein on the back of a drift.** Quartz against slate host rock.

A surface trench cut into the hillside at the Red Wing, with a five-gallon bucket of ore sitting on the edge and brush around the rim. — **Surface trench.** Bucket of ore on the edge.

A surface vein outcrop at the Red Wing with a rotor hammer and a shovel leaned against it. — **Surface working face.** Rotor hammer and shovel leaned against it.

An interior working face inside one of the Red Wing adits with the rotor hammer at its foot. — **Interior working face.** Rotor hammer at the foot.

Equipment on the property

Three things on the property are worth pointing out. The underground ore-chute door was brought to the Red Wing from another mine, along with the Huntington mill that came with it. Out in the woods sits a hammer mill — a Williams Patent Crusher & Pulverizer out of St. Louis, bolted to a scrapped car chassis and run off the car's own motor and transmission — left there by an operator before Don's family, with the cast-iron maker's plate still readable under the moss. The three plastic buckets of broken ore on the back of Don's quad are the day's haul, ready to come down off the hill to the mill.

An iron ore-chute door inside the Red Wing workings, set in a wooden frame above the drift, with iron rails on the floor leading up to it. — **The ore-chute door, underground.** Salvaged from another mine. The “#1” tag is a later family addition.

A rusted Williams Patent Crusher and Pulverizer hammer mill bolted to a car chassis, partly covered by moss, still on the Red Wing property. — **Williams Patent Crusher on a car chassis — in the woods.** Driven off the car's motor and transmission. Partly reclaimed by moss.

The cast-iron maker's plate on the hammer mill, reading 'WILLIAMS PATENT CRUSHER & PULVERIZER CO, ST. LOUIS, MO. U.S.A.,' partly covered with moss and lichen. — **Detail — the maker's plate.** Williams Patent Crusher & Pulverizer Co., St. Louis, Missouri.

Three plastic buckets full of broken ore loaded onto the rack of Don's quad on grass at the staging area. — **Three buckets on the rack — down off the hill.** The day's haul, ready for the mill.