El Dorado Canyon (Nevada)
Nevada
During the Civil War, two mining camps a mile apart in this canyon took opposite sides.
In 1862, miners who favored the Confederate cause set up along El Dorado Canyon, south of the Techatticup Mine. They called it Lucky Jim Camp. A mile up the canyon sat another camp, Buster Falls, and its miners were Union men. The war was being fought two thousand miles away, and here it was compressed into a mile of desert rock. The canyon had been named in 1857 by a steamboat captain, George Alonzo Johnson, after gold and silver turned up. Then in April 1861, just as the war began, word spread that John Moss and others had found silver lodes here. That fall, miners flooded in. Camps went up along the whole length of the canyon. San Juan sat at the top, near where the town of Nelson stands now. Alturas and Louisville sat midway, near the Techatticup Mine. At the bottom, where the canyon meets the Colorado River, was a boat landing called Colorado City.
This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
Lucky Jim Camp was the home of miners sympathetic to the Confederate cause. A mile (1.6 km) up the canyon was a camp with Union sympathies called Buster Falls.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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