Where to pan for gold in California

On the map for California

The legends of California

• The sailing stones of Racetrack Playa — Fifteen GPS boulders and a camera caught the ice doing it
• Rattlesnake Dick's lost loot — Legends of America; Active NorCal
• The Ruggles brothers' strongbox — Legends of America; KRCR
• Bloody Springs scattered coin — Legends of America
• The Clear Creek coin wagon — Legends of America
• The Poker Flat cache — Legends of America
• The Lost Gold Lake (Stoddard) — Gold Lake rush of 1850 (California folklore)
• Tragedy Spring cached gold — Amador County history (Mormon Battalion, 1848)
• Gold Bluffs beach gold — Gold Bluffs rush of 1850
• The Lost Cabin Mine (Trinity Alps) — Lost-cabin folklore of the northern mines
• Spanish lost workings (northern mines) — Gold Rush-era folklore
• Red Bluff underground tunnels — Red Bluff / Chinatown tunnel folklore
• Bohemian Grove & the Owl Shrine — Bohemian Club, widely documented
• Bigfoot at Bluff Creek — Patterson-Gimlin film, 1967 (widely documented)
• Tahoe Tessie — Lake Tahoe folklore (Washoe and Paiute tradition, modern sightings)
• The Lemurians of Mount Shasta — Mount Shasta / Lemuria folklore (early 1900s occult tradition)
• J.C. Brown and the lost cave of gold (Mount Shasta) — Documented 1904 tale, Mount Shasta folklore collection (College of the Siskiyous)
• Pegleg Smith’s lost black gold — Documented tale of Thomas L. Smith; Pegleg monument and Liars Contest
• The Riverside Bridge Monster (1958) — Riverside police report and November 1958 press accounts, a documented California cryptid case
• The Lost Ship of the Desert — Desert folklore documented since the 1870 Los Angeles Star
• The Lost Cement Mine — Documented 1857 tale; Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)
• The Dark Watchers — Spanish-era lore; Robinson Jeffers and John Steinbeck both wrote of them
• The Proctor Valley monster — San Diego County urban legend; the footprint cast is kept at the Bonita Museum
• The Borrego Sandman — Desert folklore back to the 1870s; a 1962 track cast sits in the International Cryptozoology Museum
• The Hemet Maze Stone — California Historical Landmark 557; the carving is real, its maker unknown
• The white deer of Presidio Park — San Diego local history; her monument stands at Inspiration Point
• William Waddell’s wandering arm — Waddell’s 1875 death from the grizzly attack is documented; the wandering arm is the folk tale
• The Cahuenga Pass treasure — Los Angeles history; the 1939 Hollywood Bowl dig was covered live by the papers
• Rattlesnake Dick’s lost express loot — Placer County outlaw history (Richard Barter, the 1856 Trinity mule-train robbery)
• Joaquin Murrieta’s caches — California Ranger records, 1853; the caches are folklore
• Tiburcio Vasquez’s hideout loot — Los Angeles County history; the man and the hideout are documented, the caches are lore
• Kokoweef’s river of gold — Earl Dorr’s 1930s affidavit; a documented legend of the eastern Mojave
• The Lost Gunsight lode — Death Valley 49ers accounts, 1849; the founding legend of the desert camps
• The Owens Lake bullion — Cerro Gordo and Owens Valley steamship history, 1870s; the sunken load is lore
• The Lost Dutch Oven mine — Mojave desert folklore, told since the 1890s
• The Saddle Ridge Hoard (found 2014) — Saddle Ridge Hoard, February 2014, fully documented
• The Mojave Nugget (found 1977) — Mojave Nugget, found 1977, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
• The Fricot Nugget (found 1865) — Fricot Nugget, 1865, California State Mining and Mineral Museum

Before you dig

A marker is a public record, not permission. Check ownership, active claims and the local rules first, the map shows all three.