On the way, they hit gold. Not the Blue Bucket Mine, but a big enough strike for everyone to stake a lucrative claim — even Adams, who had been following the party scavenging food from camp leftovers. The town of Blue Bucket has yet to be platted. Is it still out there, somewhere in the mountains of northeast Oregon, waiting for a weekend adventurer, elk hunter or fly fisherman to stumble upon?
Have subsequent floodwaters covered all the yellow pebbles with silt yards deep? Or did some crazy lonely prospector find it, mine it secretly and disappear?
There are good reasons to be skeptical of this frontier Oregon legend; there are aspects of the Blue Bucket story that make it clear it's been at the very least augmented over the years. First, if the nuggets made such great fishing sinkers, and the settlers were so hungry, would they not have brought a few as fishing tackle?
Secondly, why are there no names associated with this story? Sure, the people involved could have tried to keep quiet about it, hoping to go back and cash in; but there were two or three years in which they supposedly had no idea what they'd found, and their unusually difficult Oregon Trail experience would have been a frequent topic of conversation during that time. How is it that we don't know who they were? Third, in an era in which people sometimes had to bite coins to make sure they weren't fakes, how likely is it that a blacksmith would not recognize the nuggets as gold, even after learning how soft they were by beating one on the wagon tire?
Then, too, the idea that none of the children of the wagon train would have snuck a rock or two into a pocket seems pretty unlikely.
Is legendary Blue Bucket Mine still out there in Oregon mountains?
There's probably something real in this story somewhere; a legend like this seldom springs from nothing. Still, though, it's been years. Who knows what the real story is? The one thing we do know is that generations of Oregonians have shared and appreciated and wondered about this story around campfires and over dinner tables throughout the years.
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And we know, too, that people looking for it have made history — and would not have done so had it not been for this bit of frontier folklore. As a historical account, it's pretty sketchy. But as a piece of oral folklore, this story's place in state history is assured and well deserved. Tales Out of Oregon. Pars Publishing, ; Sullivan, William L. Everything on this Web site authored by Finn J. Thus was the Silver City District born.
It will probably always be so.
The vast expanse of mountains, canyons, and volcanic tablelands that makes up the "Blue Bucket country" includes most of southeastern Oregon, northwestern Nevada, and extreme southwestern Idaho. Although comprising nearly 40, square miles of area, this immense tract of land has been a backwater region for prospectors and mining activities in general.
The Lost Blue Bucket Mine
Lagging behind by nearly a decade, the plateau country north of the Great Basin began yielding its mining secrets during the 's. The first official discovery of gold in what was to become "Blue Bucket country" occurred in eastern Oregon during the summer of Rich placer deposits were discovered in Griffin Gulch, located just north of present-day Baker. About the same time, placer gold was discovered on Elk Creek and the middle fork of the John Day River.
The great eastern gold belt of Oregon had finally been tapped! Other rich strikes followed including the Cornucopia, Sumpter, and Cracker Creek discoveries. These three districts collectively produced nearly a million ounces of gold. On the eastern fringe of "Blue Bucket country", the first significant discovery of gold took place in in the Owyhee Mountains of southwestern Idaho.
It was during that year that gold was discovered in the gravels of Jordan Creek. A mining camp called Silver City quickly sprang up around the rich diggings. And rich they were!
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On the southern fringe of "Blue Bucket country", the first significant discovery of gold took place in in the southern foothills of the Pine Forest Range of northwestern Nevada. Located on the northern edge of the Black Rock Desert, the Varyville District supported 2 five-stamp mills for nearly a decade before it succumbed. Located 45 miles southwest of Varyville, the Leadville silver deposits eluded discovery until Producing both silver and lead, the Leadville District survived until the 's. Smaller, more modest deposits of gold and silver were discovered in the Donnelly District and the Deephole or Granite Range District further south.
Although the northern, eastern and southern margins of "Blue Bucket country" harbor rich mineral deposits, the interior is mostly barren. The exceptions are the Mormon Basin District, located 10 miles southeast of Bridgeport and the smaller Malheur District, located 10 miles to the southwest. This was , before the California Gold Rush , and back then many could not recognize gold.
Fisher kept one nugget and left the rest behind. The wagons eventually reached what is now The Dalles, Oregon in October, The single nugget was eventually recognized as gold.
Lost Blue Bucket Mine
Another version holds that when the Stephen Meek Wagon train stopped along the trail in present-day Crook County near Bear Creek, children went to gather water at some distance from the camp. They returned with a blue bucket filled with shiny pebbles.
An old-timer in the party stated that the pebbles were made of copper. One of the families, however, kept several of the pebbles as souvenirs. Years later, and after having moved to California, the family came across the pebbles in a dresser drawer. By this time, the California Gold Rush had occurred, and the expertise was available to recognize that the pebbles were in fact gold.