However, the work of moving river rock in an area that constantly flooded proved too labor intensive and the area was left untouched as miners moved on to easier diggings.Īround 1890, a Chinese miner by the name of Wong Back Fong, was awarded a 99 year lease to mine the Sailor Gulch flats. The upper part of the gulch was mined extensively in the 1850s and it was suspected that the flats at the base of the canyon contained substantial gold.
The story of the first gold dredge in southern Oregon begins in the mid 1890s at a place called the Chinese Derrick Ground, a mining operation located on the flats at the bottom of Sailor Gulch, the place where a group of sailors discovered gold in 1852 and sparked a gold rush that resulted in the establishment of the town of Waldo. All of the locations mentioned in this story are on private land and not accessible to the public. The following story tells why this site was chosen, how the 100 foot-long dredge was shipped from Portland to this site, and why, despite the rich prospects of gold, the dredge was unable to succeed. The first gold dredge in southern Oregon and one of the first in Oregon history began operation in the spring of 1900 along the banks of the East Fork of the Illinois River near the community of Takilma.
A photo of a dredge in operation may be the Josephine and was probably taken in the spring of 1900.
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