No license is required to prospect for gold or any other mineral in Washington. The right to mine gold or other minerals on land in Washington may be acquired in one of several ways, depending upon the ownership of the land and its mineral rights.

The right is acquired on “open” land simply by making a discovery followed by proper staking and recording, and the mining claim then may be held indefinitely by doing the required $100 worth of assessment work each year.

The first discovery of gold in Washington was probably that reported by Stevens (1860), who, in describing explorations made by Captain McClellan and his party in search of a rai I road route through the Cascades in 1853, said, “Here the first traces of gold were discovered, and though not sufficiently abundant to pay for working, it caused considerable excitement in the camp. 11 The locality referred to was in the Yakima Valley, though it is not clear whether it was near the mouth of the Naches River or was on the headwaters of the Yakima River. In the same report Stevens wrote, “It is also worthy of observation that gold was found to exist, in the ex-plorations of 1853, throughout the whole region be-tween the Cascades and the main Columbia to north of the boundary, and paying localities have since been found at several points, particularly on the southern tributary [probably Peshastin Creek] of the Wenatshapan [Wenatchee Riverl. The gold quartz also is found on the Naches River. ”

In 1855 there was a small gold rush to the Col vi lie region, and on September 14 of that year the Oregonian newspaper reported prospectors recov-ering $5 to $8 per day using rockers along the Pend Oreille River. On September 28 and November 23 the Olympia Pioneer and Democrat newspaper re-ported placer-gold discoveries along the Columbia River from the mouth of the Spokane River to the mouth of the Pend Orei lie River and up that river for at least 40 miles. Prospectors were said to be making fairly good recoveries on Sheep Creek just south of the Canadian boundary. The placers in this region appear to have been too sma 11 and too low grade to hold the prospectors’ interest for long, and their attention was soon directed to other areas.

1 Asotin County Snake River bars .

2 Benton County Columbia River bars

3 Chelan County Blewett area Bridge Creek Chiwawa River Columbia River bars Entiat River Lakeside (Lake Chelan) Leavenworth Negro Creek Peshastin Creek Railroad Creek Wenatchee River

4 Clallam County Cedar Creek Ozette Beach Sand Point Shi Shi Beach Yellow Banks

5 Clark County South Fork Lewis River

6 Douglas County Columbia River bars

7 Ferry County Bridge Creek Columbia River bars Covada district Danvi lie area Kettle River bars Republic Sanpoil River

8 Garfield County Snake River

9 Grant County Columbia River bars

10 Grays Harbor County Cow Point Demons Point Moclips River Point Brown

11 Jefferson County Ruby Beach

12  King County Denny Creek Money Creek Tolt River

13 Kittitas County Cle Elum River Columbia River bars Liberty Manastash Creek Naneum Creek Swauk Creek Teanaway River Yakima River

14 Lincoln County Columbia River bars

15 Okanogan County Columbia River bars Mary Ann Creek Methow River Myers Creek Nighthawk Orovi lie Park City Similkameen River Squaw Creek Twisp Wauconda

16 Pacific County Fort Canby

17 Pend Oreille County Pend Oreille River bars Russian Creek Sullivan Creek

18 Pierce County Silver Creek

19 Skagit County Skagit River

20 Skamania County Camp Creek McCoy Creek Texas Gulch

21 Snohomish County Darrington area Granite Falls Sultan River

22 Stevens County Columbia River bars Kettle Falls Kettle River bars Marcus Meyers Falls Northport district Orient

23 Whatcom County Acme vicinity Mount Baker Ruby Creek Silesia Creek Slate Creek

24 Whitman County Snake River bars

25 Yakima County American River Morse Creek Summit district Surveyors Creek