A miniature model of the five-stamp mill at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center can be viewed inside before visitors travel a short distance down the hill to a life-size re-creation of a mill used at the Rabbit Mine. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins).

By CHRIS COLLINS

Of the Baker City Herald

Teacher Nancy Dor will take a gold-mining lesson from retired geologist Howard Brooks of Baker City home to her eighth-graders in Breaux Bridge, La., when summer vacation ends.

Dor and her family joined the audience at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center’s Leo Adler Theater July 5 for Brooks’ PowerPoint presentation on gold mining in Eastern Oregon.

andquot;This was a welcome treat,andquot; said the 55-year-old Dor. andquot;This is something we can carry over to the classroom.andquot;

Dor was traveling with her 11-year-old son, Seth; her sister, Linda Theriot, 58, a fifth-grade social studies teacher; their mother, Ida Guidry, 82, a retired fifth-grade social studies teacher; and their aunt Verna LeBlanc, 82, who spent 51 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture before her retirement. Theriot was visiting the center for the third time. The others were making their second visit.

andquot;This is such an awesome museum,andquot; Theriot said. andquot;Every time I come I learn something different.andquot;

The women left home on June 25 and have been park hopping their way across the country. They had visited the Grand Canyon and Yosemite and Crater Lake national parks before arriving at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center last week.

The teachers were impressed with the information shared by Brooks, who retired from a 35-year career with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries in 1991.

Dor said she will incorporate what she learned as part of her annual science symposium, andquot;Wonders Under the Earth.andquot; And Theriot will carry it to her hands-on social studies lessons about pioneer life.

andquot;This reinforces what Nancy and I do in the classroom,andquot; Theriot said.

Sharing knowledge

Brooks shares his knowledge of mining and geology with center visitors as a member of the Trail Tenders volunteer organization.

Two years ago he was honored as Trail Tender of the Year for his service to the center, where he devotes more than 300 hours of his time each year.

Brooks will present his mining program again during Miners Jubilee weekend at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visitors who want to get a head start on the weekend may do so for free Thursday. On other days the charge to enter the center is $5 for adults and $3.50 for seniors. Children 15 and younger are admitted free every day.

In addition to Brooks’ mining presentations, indoor and outdoor mining exhibits help visitors relive the area’s rich mining history. John Brown, another Trail Tender who volunteers countless hours at the center, says he points out the mining exhibits as he welcomes visitors.

He estimates that only about 10 percent of them take the time to travel to the outdoor mining displays.

andquot;They ask, ‘What’s that got to do with the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center?andquot; he says.

That gives Brown a chance to explain the importance of gold mining to the development of the region and how the discovery of gold at Griffin Gulch near Baker City in 1861 drew Oregon Trail settlers back to Northeastern Oregon from the Willamette Valley. And he points to nearby mines, including the Cliff Mine, which continues to operate and is visible to the north of the center.

(An informational sign titled andquot;The Lure of Goldandquot; sits along Highway 86 and tells a brief history of how mining helped develop the region. Visitors who are short on time may access a view of wagon ruts at the traffic pullout, which is six-tenths Continued from Page 1

of a mile west of the center.)

Visitors to the center learn that remnants of the Flagstaff Mine, established in 1895, can be seen from the east side of the building. An informational sign along one of several paved trails denotes that the collapsed timbers in the sagebrush are the remains of a bunkhouse and cook house used by the Flagstaff miners. Tailings left by a 20-stamp mill that operated at the site also can be seen nearby along with remains of a storage building. A collapsed mine shaft is just out of sight past the tailings.

A miniature replica of a five-stamp mill, a huge machine that pounded gold out of rocks, is displayed along the center’s east wall. It offers a step-by-step guide to the process the mill used to extract gold.

Farther along the outdoor trail and down a stair-step slope is a replicated mine shaft complete with an ore car rolled up to the entrance on a rail line and a bucketful of ore waiting to be hauled to the surface by a windlass (a hand-cranked machine that uses a cylinder wound with rope for raising loads).

Talk like a miner

A vocabulary list to help visitors andquot;talk like a minerandquot; is incorporated in the display.

For example, it tells visitors that an adit is a passage into a mine from the side of a hill; mucking is the act of loading broken rock into carts or buckets to be hauled out of the mine for processing; and a winze is a small shaft from an upper level downward.

Just below the andquot;mineandquot; sits a full-size five-stamp mill re-created from the one used at the Rabbit Mine. The display was completed five years ago and although the mill is not yet operational, the plan is to someday have it up and running, once all safety requirements are met, said Sarah LaCompte, center director.

Brooks and LaCompte worked together to develop the mining exhibits, which outline the history of gold mining in Northeastern Oregon and the lives of those who worked the mines. Historic photographs from the files of the Baker County Public Library complement the displays.

A stair-stepping chute nearby pipes water from the center to accommodate gold-panning demonstrations and gold-panning lessons. Small samples of gold and garnets or other stones are added to the water to ensure success for participants, Brooks said.

andquot;Kids like to find a pretty stone whether it’s gold or not, it’s pretty,andquot; he said.

Brooks has his own collection of pretty stones from around the region that he plans to someday add to the center’s exhibits. Already on display inside the center are examples of limestone, quartz, iron pyrite, jasper and yellow quartz along with tools and other mining equipment.

Brooks offers prospecting advice to those who ask

Brooks said visitors regularly ask him where they can pan for gold.

He refers the prospectors to the hills east of Baker City toward the North Fork John Day River, Cracker Creek and areas around Granite. Just as in days gone by, miners head to the creeks with a pan, a pick and a shovel in search of gold. The precious metal is easily separated from other materials found in the creek beds because of its weight, Brooks said. But getting to the treasure requires stamina.

andquot;It’s a lot of hard work,andquot; he said. andquot;But if they can pan a little kernel of gold, they get just as excited as you can imagine. There is such a thing as gold fever.andquot;

But Brooks says he prefers his roles as geologist and historian.

andquot;It’s the duty of the center part of it is to remember the history of mining,andquot; he said. andquot;It’s part of our heritage.andquot;