Lights Creek is a well-known gold-bearing drainage in north-central Plumas County. It drains roughly 57.5 square miles before joining up with Indian Creek. Its main branch winds up the North Arm of Indian Valley then passes through the steep-sided lower canyon reach, then splits into an East Branch and a West Branch. North Valley Road is a county-maintained road that is paved to the lower bridge where it becomes an improved gravel road. The county does not maintain the road past the upper bridge over the East Branch. The National Forest Service maintains “forest system roads” beyond the upper bridge. Access up the West Branch is relatively good. The washouts from the 2016 winter floods have been fixed but brush is ever encroaching on the road. In some places, Advanced Geologic has pruned the brush back to maintain unfettered access. The East Branch access roads are not maintained and have fallen into impassable disrepair.
Gold was discovered in Lights Creek in the late 1840s. Jobe Taylor, founder of the town of Taylorsville, located the Taylor Gold Placer Mine in the early 1850s, but it wasn’t in the creek. It was on top of the north flank of Mount Jura, which overlooks Taylorsville to the southwest. Taylor discovered an ancient river channel deposit that was laid down some 35 million years ago and it had gold in it! The auriferous Tertiary gravel deposit was later discovered on many of the ridge crests in the Lights Creek drainage, as well in the side drainages that have eroded into the deposit. Hence, the Tertiary gravel deposit has been referred to as the Jura Deposit.
Copper was discovered by Henry A. Engels in the Lights Canyon Mining District in 1880. Engles founded the Engles Mining Company and opened the Superior Mine in 1901. The copper ore was extremely rich and was milled and concentrated onsite, then shipped to a refinery in Utah. An immediate influx in people occurred with more than 1,200 workers servicing the mine. The mine closed in the 1930s due to the declining price of copper. Some reports stated that gold was mixed in with the copper ore. Therefore, lode gold also contributed as a gold source to Lights Creek.
There are two general regions of Lights Creek, the upper watershed and the lower drainage through the steep canyon. The upper watershed contains remnant deposits of the auriferous Tertiary Jura Channel. Large outliers of the deposit exist in the Western Branch but not so much in the Eastern Branch. The drainages that have eroded into the deposit were hit hard by the historic miners. Remnant tailings piles, sluice channels and some hydraulic workings can be seen. Water is plentiful in the spring and early summer but wanes considerably during the late summer months. Good access is provided by Forest Service road 28N30 and some off-shoot roads.
The lower portion of Lights Creek begins at the junction of the Eastern and Western Branches at the upper bridge. This is where the county-maintained road ends. The canyon begins a short distance down valley. Here the creek flows on bedrock where there are plunge pools, small gravel bars and bench gravels. As the canyon opens up again, the gravel bars and bench gravels become wider and wider. Historic miners have hit these areas hard but left a lot in their passing. Look at each of our claims carefully and see which ones will work best for you.
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