Ron Jolliff 128 pages softcover
Placer gold first attracted
adventurers to the northern mines after its discovery in Shasta County
in 1848, but almost immediately, valuable deposits of copper were also
noted. Copper production remained idle until the Mountain Copper Company
acquired Iron Mountain in 1896. British and eastern financiers such as
Guggenheim and Rothschild saw the potential in the unique combination of
high-grade copper ore, a functioning railway, and vast quantities of
limestone and quartz for flux, and they invested in major smelters to
conquer the difficult sulfide ore. The decades that followed were the
greatest period of prosperity in Shasta County's history, producing
towns such as Coram, Keswick, Kennett, and Copper City and attracting
thousands of hardworking miners and townspeople as well as new railroads
such as the Sacramento Valley & Eastern, Quartz Hill, and Iron
Mountain. While the boom ended in deforestation and erosion, the actions
of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Shasta Dam brought prosperity to
the area. Today, most of the copper towns rest under Lake Shasta.