![]() ![]() ![]() The process of panning for gold hasn’t changed much since the Deadwood gold rush of 1876. Finally he got an authentic prospector’s pan - a banner day indeed. Later, equipped with one of his mom’s pie pans, he set about panning for gold wherever he found a ledge, or outcrop, of mineralized rock that might have deposited gold into a streambed as it slowly eroded. He still has some of those pieces of schist.īy age 9, Schmeltzer was sneaking off into the abandoned mines around Lead, looking for gold with a candle in his hand. Lou Schmeltzer, one of the older members of the club, can still remember the day 80 or so years ago when one of his father’s friends brought white quartz crystals embedded with gold into his father’s barber shop in Lead, along with pieces of schist that had free gold between the layers. People used gold for decoration long before they used it for money, and if you’ve seen unprocessed gold sparkle, a little bit of that fascination probably rubbed off on you.įor many club members, their love affair with gold started at an early age. Sell a gold nugget and you’re trading something unique for plain old folding money, and eventually whatever ordinary goods that money can buy. Most are kept in small vials filled with water or mineral oil.Īs I rotate the vials, nuggets and flakes roll around, catching light as only gold does, and these prospectors’ reluctance to sell their gold suddenly seems reasonable. Almost all of them have brought their best finds to lunch. Why else would someone go out panning for gold?Īnd then the members of the club bring out their favorite nuggets. ![]() “We never sell the gold,” Kathleen Flanagan, secretary of the Black Hills Prospecting Club, tells me over lunch in Rapid City. Gary Mallams and fellow miners welcome opportunities to introduce youth to the adventure and intrigue of prospecting. ![]()
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