Malakoff Diggins
State Historic Park  

(North Bloomfield Rd.) Take a side trip to the Malakoff Diggins, the largest hydraulic mining operation in the 19th century. Gold was found in Nevada City in 1851, but the surface gold was soon depleted. One disappointed gold miner called the diggins "Humbug." In the 1860's, hydraulic mining was used to extract the gold from the deep gravel, buried in the hillsides. Water, stored in reservoirs, was carried in pipes and blasted out in huge water cannons, called "monitors." The sand and gravel were captured in sluices, where the heavier gold dropped down and was retrieved. Today the Malakoff Diggins is 3,000 acres of impressive cliffs, pine forests, mazanita groves, streams, lakes and the abandoned town of North Bloomfield.