Empire Mine State Historic Park

Getting There
Drive 24 miles north of Auburn on Highway 49 to Empire Street exit in Grass Valley. The park is located in Grass Valley at 10791 East Empire Street.

Seasons/Climate/Recommended Clothing
Summer and spring are warm; fall and winter can be cool. Layered clothing is advised.

Operating Hours & Contact
The park is open seven days a week from 10am - 5pm. Closed on New Years Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

Please call the park for tour hours at 530-273-8522

Park Fees & Tours
Park Fees:
-Adults - $7.00
-Children - $3.00 (ages 6-16)
-Children under 6 - free

Tours:
Public Cottage and Mineyard tours = included in entry fee

Cottage Living History tours = $2.00 per adult, weekends only from early May through late September. Tours are 45 minutes long, beginning every 15 minutes from 12noon until 3pm (no 1:15 or 1:30 tours).
Timed tour ticket only.

Call park for more details.

Private tours; private garden tours; and luncheons are available by reservation for additional fees, call park for information.

No Credit Cards Accepted for park entry fees
Cash or Check Only Please

The Secret Room
To keep track of the mine's 367 underground workings, a place called "The Secret Room" (named for its blacked-out windows) was built. In it, the entire room was filled with a scale model of the mine's below the surface workings. Few people knew the room existed while the mine was in operation. Today, visitors to the park can see it in the Visitor Center. The model represents five square miles of underground workings. When the visitors go down the actual shaft in the park, they have journeyed only "one inch" on the model. Anything past "two inches" on the model is underwater in the actual mine.

About the Park
Within two years of James W. Marshall's discovery of gold in 1848, great hordes of '49ers had panned out most of California's gold-bearing streambeds. Only a few miners had any real idea of the quantities of gold that were locked beneath the surface of the Sierra in sheet-like veins of quartz. But in June 1850, George McKnight discovered a gold-bearing quartz outcropping about a mile from here (near St. Patrick's church in downtown Grass Valley). Then, in October of 1850, a lumberman named George Roberts found flecks of gold in a surface outcropping of quartz where the park's main parking lot is now.

Hearing the news, hundreds of miners flocked to this area to stake out the customary 40-foot by 30-foot placer claims. They soon found, however, that they lacked the skills necessary to tunnel deep into the earth. Chipping and blasting rock was hard and dangerous work. Cave-ins were frequent, and tunnels were continually being flooded by underground springs. By 1851, the land was perforated with hundreds of "coyote holes" - vertical holes in the ground, 20 to 40 feet deep, that resembled water wells. Miners were lowered into these holes in buckets. George Roberts, like many others, became discouraged and sold his claim for $350 to a group that was consolidating small claims into a single operation to be known as the Ophir Hill Mine. In 1852, the Ophir Hill Mine property was purchased by John Rush, who changed the name to Empire Quartz Hill Company.

Ownership of the mine continued to change rather rapidly during the 1850s and 1860s. Surface structures and processing plants were repeatedly torn down, rebuilt, and modernized. The Empire Mine prospered after capitalist William Bourn gained a controlling interest in 1869, but his death in 1876 was followed by a slump in production.

In 1879, Bourn's son, William, Jr., reached the age of 22 and took over management of the mine. At that time, all indications pointed to the mine's imminent closure. Many believed that profitable operations were impossible below the 1,200-foot level, but young Bourn reorganized the company and boldly pushed several shafts much deeper. For several years, operating expenses were barely paid, but by 1884 the operation was making a profit once again.

Much of the Empire's success was the work of Bourn's cousin, George W. Starr. Starr began work in the Empire Mine at the age of 19 and, in six years (1881 to 1887), worked his way from mucker to mine superintendent. In 1893, he gave up his position to join the famous mining engineer, John Hayes Hammond, in the gold mines of South Africa. Then, on his way to Alaska in 1898, Starr stopped in San Francisco to visit his cousin. Bourn persuaded Starr to return to the Empire, where he served as superintendent until 1929.

The most important factor in the success of hard-rock mining in California was the immigration of skilled miners from Cornwall, England, where hardrock tin and copper mining had been carried on for over a thousand years. These Cornishmen brought experience, skill, and the latest technological advances in mining equipment. One of these inventions, "the Cornish pump," was so efficient that the pumps of this kind continued to be used until the early 1930s. By 1890, the population of Grass Valley was reportedly 85 percent Cornish. Cornish miners dug 367 miles of tunnels -- some of which angled downward into the earth some 11,000 feet, nearly a full vertical mile below the surface.

Before World War I, Bourn and Starr installed many mining improvements, and the Empire became famous as one of the most progressive and best managed gold mines in America. Even to its final day, however, mules were used as a source of power to haul rock to the main mine shaft where it could be hoisted to the surface. The mules were well cared for and lived in snug, under ground barns until they became too old to work.

In 1929, Bourn, in failing health, sold the Empire Mine to Newmont Mining Corporation. During the same year, Newmont also purchased a controlling interest in the North Star Mine. The combined operation of these mines was then known as the Empire-Star Mines Company Ltd. Gold from the Empire-Star not only helped keep the Newmont Corporation solvent during the early 1930s but made the Great Depression something the residents of Grass Valley "only read about in the papers".

The Empire Mine's prosperity continued until World War II, when the War Production Board halted nonessential industries, such as gold mining. The mine reopened in 1945, but the price of gold remained fixed at its 1934 level of $35 an ounce, providing little profit. By the early 1950s, inflation had driven the cost of mining to $45 per ounce of gold. The company could not pay the miners enough to feed their families. Consequently, on July 5, 1956, the miners went on strike. For several months thereafter, while the strike continued, the big underground water pumps remained in operation in anticipation of the miners' return. The removal of underground mining equipment began in January 1957. On May 28th, the last pump was shut down and the mine finally closed. Its equipment was sold at auction in September 1959. By then total gold production had reached nearly six million ounces. (More than two billion dollars worth of gold in 1994 prices.)

In 1975, the State of California purchased the Empire properties for $1,250,000.

Accessible Features
Visitor center/museum: Housed in a historic structure, the visitor center and exhibits are generally accessible for many visitors. Parking. Parking is generally accessible. Designated accessible spaces are available. Parking on south side of Empire Street provides closest and safest site access for persons with mobility impairments, but there are also designated accessible spaces across the road. Restrooms adjacent to the south parking lot are accessible.

Mine shops and exhibits area: The routes to and through the mine yard include some paved walkways that allow some of the first floor buildings to be usable. However much of route of travel has sloping terrain and large, shifting gravel. Restrooms are generally accessible.

Empire Cottage: Persons using wheelchairs may make advance arrangements for transportation or for access to alternative entries or lifts. The cottage is seen by guided tour only and is generally accessible except for one tight hallway. The formal gardens may be seen from above near the ramp to the Cottage. Contact the park for more information.