Finding Gold in Colorado Historic Sites & Modern Prospecting Honey Holes

My journey here…

Prospectors often ask each other when they got ‘the fever’. For me it came when I was a six-year-old kid. My dad used to read National Geographic magazine to my little brother and I after dinner. We had fun with the stories about gold prospecting in Australia, Africa, etc. In August of 1969 the magazine included a story about gold in Colorado. I was fascinated and at the age of 6 was soon digging pretend mines in our front yard (before my parents planted grass of course!).

Things got a little more serious when I moved to Colorado in May of 1989 and went to “Digger’s Old-Timer” run by “Digger” and Diana Cummings. This, now long gone, place in North Clear Creek Canyon just west of Denver welcomed about 5,000 tourists and locals each summer who wanted to learn to pan. You could buy a bucket of pay dirt dug out of a hillside gravel deposit (a “bench placer”) to pan out. By the time my (very) patient wife and I left that day, I had a few flakes of wild gold caught in my vial and a couple gold pans of my own. Of course back then it was pretty tough to find information on where else you could dig. As you’ll learn here in many of my articles, it’s much easier now!

Many years later my wife said something like “With the kids out of the house a lot these days, you need to find some hobbies!”. My response was that I already had hobbies, I just wasn’t doing them. And so, I ramped back up on gold prospecting and also on brewing my own beer. Since Father’s Day 2011, I’ve been out prospecting multiple times every month around the calendar. Iโ€™ve only missed two months since then! Matching that with a desire to see the whole state of Colorado, I got sucked into doing extensive research on places to dig and gold tourism sites around the state. All of that led to this site and my plans to write a book…which really happened! My main guide book is over 460 pages and has over 180 public access dig sites in it!! Want to learn more about our books? Click HERE

By the way, today if you drive up Clear Creek Canyon toward Central City & Blackhawk, you’ll drive past the wastewater treatment plant for those towns. Sadly, that’s what sits where The Oldtimer’s place used to be. However, there’s good news: a bit further along you’ll come to a similar place where you can learn to pan and even dig in the creek yourself. If you stop at Vic’s Gold Panning, be sure to say hi from me! Give Jesse a ring at 303-582-0710 to make plans to stop by ๐Ÿ™‚ Learn more about his place here: https://findinggoldincolorado.com/vics-gold-panning/

On the way up the canyon from metro Denver, as you enjoy the amazing scenery and cool little road tunnels, you are also driving right past some good spots to dig! Learn more about that here: https://findinggoldincolorado.com/clear-creek-canyon-tips/

Meanwhile, how did you catch the fever?

Photo note: My gold production from an hour or so in a honey hole in metro Denver. Follow this blog to learn (almost) all my secrets ๐Ÿ˜‰

This site costs money to keep up. The only way it pays for itself is shopping referrals. If you appreciate the info here, please click thru one of my shopping links the next time you want to shop online. It won’t cost you anything extra and it keeps the site going!

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