Two Man Mine

Long after the California gold rush was over there were still prospectors out in the hills trying to find the "big strike" that would make them rich. Most of the surface gold and placer deposits were worked out, so the only way to find gold was to dig down into hard rock following veins of quartz. Hard rock mining was very expensive and much labor was needed to dig the shafts, so most successful mining operations were conducted by large companies that could raise capital and hire many workers.Young, adventurous miners knew that you couldn’t get rich working in the big mines, so they struck out on their own. Working on a “shoestring”, these industrious but cash strapped men cobbled together simple, homemade and often discarded tools to work the mines. They formed small partnerships and worked as a team, hoping to share the profit when they “struck it rich.” They had no “articles of incorporation” and often didn’t even own the land they were working. Many worked claims abandoned by bigger companies, or old mines that had played out. Webster’s dictionary defines the term “wildcat” as “any business or procedure or the like considered outside the bounds of legitimate practice”. Thus they became known as “Wildcat Miners” and their diggings as “Wildcat Mines”.......... All over the Mother lode and the Sierra mountains, along roads or “back in the brush” one can find abandoned shafts and holes. They don’t seem to go into the earth very far, and there are no signs of buildings, head frames or industrial equipment in the area. These holes are all that is left of a wildcat mine. The typical wildcat operation was worked by two to six men. (more than that and the fighting broke out!) If two men worked the mine, one man worked inside the mine and the other ran the winch or worked outside. Old miners used the term “two-man-mine” as a somewhat derogatory description of a very small, unprofitable venture ............