Principal Gold Producing Districts of the United States
Most of Pennsylvania's gold has been produced from the Cornwall iron mine in Lebanon County.
South Dakota, third among the gold-producing States, produced a total of about 31,208,000 ounces of gold through 1965, mostly from the Homestake mine. The gold districts are in the Black Hills in the northwestern part of the State. Most gold has been produced from lode deposits, but placers have also been mined.
Utah, whose total gold output through 1965 was 17,765,000 ounces, ranks sixth among the gold-producing States. The first major ore discovery in the State was in 1863, when lead ore was found in Bingham Canyon. Gold placers were found nearby the following year. Silver-lead ore discoveries in the Cottonwood, Park City, and Tintic districts in the late 1860's and 1870's generated feverish activity which lasted until 1893 when the financial recession caused a sharp drop in the price of silver. In the early 1900's, large-scale mining of the low-grade copper ores of the Bingham district began. Gold has been an important byproduct of these ores. In 1965, the Bingham district, in addition to being one of the major copper producers of the world, was the second largest gold producer in the United States. The Tintic, Park City, and Camp Floyd districts also have yielded substantial amounts of gold.
Washington, whose total gold output from 1860 through 1965 was about 3,671,000 ounces, is one of the few States in which gold production has increased in recent years, mainly because of the output of the Knob Hill mine in the Republic district and the Gold King mine in the Wenatchee district. Gold was first discovered in the State in 1853 in the Yakima River valley. Placers were worked along most of the major streams of the State through the 1880's, but most of them were depleted by the early 1900's. Lode de¬posits were found in the 1870's and eventually supplanted placers as the chief source of gold. Of the 15 major gold districts of Washington, the most productive have been Republic, Wenatchee, and Chelan Lake.
Wyoming is a minor gold-producing State; its total output through 1965 was about 82,000 ounces. Only two districts— the Douglas Creek and the Atlantic City-South Pass—have been significant.