The Golden Trinity Claim

About the Golden Trinity Claim

20 Acres Where the Dredges Started — and the Gold Never Stopped Coming

The River Above the Dams

Every prospector in California knows the Trinity River and how many men got rich off the placer gold. However, when Trinity and Lewiston Dams went in, they drowned the land surrounding the Trinity Center dredge fields under a lake and cut off every ounce of sediment — and gold — for the men downstream at Lewiston, Douglas City and Junction City. Now, the golden Trinity's waters dump all the placer gold straight into the reservoir... But the Golden Trinity sits twenty-five miles upstream of all that! Sitting at the mouth of Coffee Creek where it meets the free-flowing upper Trinity River just above the lake, everything still runs the way it did in 1848. Every spring the snowmelt off the Trinity Alps pulls fresh gold out of the lode belt and drops it in these gravels, which get low enough come Summer to wade out in ankle-to-calf high water and start panning the middle of the river!

A Dredge Was Built Right Here

The ground isn’t guesswork. In 1916 the Pacific Gold Dredging Company, a Yukon Gold subsidiary, launched a new nine-cubic-foot all-steel bucket-line dredge at Coffee Creek — this confluence — big enough to make the Engineering and Mining Journal. The dredge worked the mouth of the creek before the company moved it south to the Graves Ranch at Stringtown; the gravels here proved too tight for a dredge that size to pay, which is a familiar story in coarse-gold country and the reason bedrock and bench ground gets left for hand miners. The old “North Lake” operations worked both sides of the Trinity from Trinity Center up into lower Coffee Creek from 1893 to 1922. The Carrville Dredge was the last dredge operating on this reach, running for a few years either side of World War II before it sat idle and finally shipped itself to Brazil in 1965. Just downstream the Estabrook, the largest wood-hull dredge ever built, moved more than 250,000 tons a month, and the Trinity Dredge pulled better than $2.7 million in gold out of ground that now lies under Lewiston Lake. The California Division of Mines put it plainly in Bulletin 193: at Carrville “the river was dredged until comparatively recently,” and Coffee Creek “was placer-mined for many years.” The dredges took the easy gold. They didn’t take the bedrock crevices, the inside bends, the bench gravels, or the gold that has washed in every year since - and that's where a smart, persistent prospector comes in handy!

The Numbers Behind the River

Major Pierson B. Reading found gold on a Trinity River bar in July 1848, the same year as Sutter’s Mill, and Trinity County has been a gold county ever since. By 1854 some 2,500 Chinese miners were working its placers beside the American camps. The state estimates the Trinity River placers at $35,000,000 in gold in the dollars of the day — roughly 1.7 million ounces, worth over $6,000,000,000 at today’s gold prices!. Trinity County turned out 2,036,300 ounces of gold between 1880 and 1959, most of it placer, with roughly 1.75 million of those ounces from Trinity basin gravels. In the Coffee Creek district the Golden Jubilee ran 2,613 tons through cyanide for 580 ounces in 1936 alone, and the Yellow Rose was profitably reworking its own old tailings.

Where the Gold Comes From

Coffee Creek drains straight out of the Trinity Alps across the lode belt. Clark records “several high-grade quartz mines near its headwaters,” including the Gold Dollar, where gold sits in granodiorite, serpentinite and aplite. Just south, the Carrville and Trinity Center lodes fed the river for a century: the Trinity Bonanza King produced $1,250,000 and the Headlight another $500,000 from gold-quartz veins in slate and greenstone next to the granite. The Carrville lodes alone were credited with about a million dollars by 1910. The East Fork, Stuart Fork and Swift Creek all carried gold into the upper river too. Every one of those sources still sits above the Golden Trinity, and the river still delivers.

What’s Under Your Boots

This is the Klamath Mountains — a stack of ancient ocean-floor slabs shoved onto the continent and cooked by granite, one of the great gold provinces of the West. The upper Trinity cuts through the Trinity ophiolite (peridotite, gabbro and serpentinite — the source of the region’s chromite and platinum), the Copley Greenstone, the Bragdon Formation slates that host the big Brown Bear vein downstream, and the schists of the Central Metamorphic belt, all intruded by the Shasta Bally batholith about 136 million years ago. That granite is the heat engine that drove gold-bearing quartz into every fracture around it. The tributaries cross the lode belt directly, which is why the Trinity carries coarse gold — pickers and nuggets, not just flour. And here’s the bonus the old dredgemen knew: Trinity placers carry platinum and osmiridium with the gold. The state mineralogist listed platinum among the county’s resources back in 1913, and it still shows up in the pan.

Easy to Reach, Easy to Camp

State Route 3, the Trinity Heritage Scenic Byway, runs right past the confluence — paved highway to the claim. From Redding take 299 west to Weaverville and turn north on 3 for about 40 miles of some of the prettiest mountain road in California. The community of Coffee Creek is a mile away with a store and resorts; Trinity Center, five miles south, has a store, marina and campgrounds on the lake; Weaverville, the county seat, is about thirty-five miles south with everything a prospector needs. The Trinity Alps Wilderness starts up Coffee Creek Road. Flows here are natural and snowmelt-driven: high and cold through spring, then dropping to low, clear water from August into October when the bedrock comes out and the panning is best. Camp on the Forest, fish the river at dusk, and work gravels the dredges wanted first thing in the morning.

The Features of the “Golden Trinity Claim” at a Glance

• Dredged Ground at the Confluence – The Pacific Gold Dredging Co. launched an all-steel bucket-line dredge at the mouth of Coffee Creek in 1916; the Carrville Dredge was the last to work this reach, shipped out in 1965.
• Above the Dams — Gold Still Feeds – Twenty-five miles upstream of Lewiston Dam on the free-flowing river. Fresh gold arrives every snowmelt, unlike the sediment-starved reaches below that inevitably fall into the reservoir.
• $35 Million District – Trinity River placers estimated at $35M in gold; Trinity County produced 2,036,300 oz from 1880–1959, mostly placer — worth over $8,000,000,000 at today’s gold prices!
• Lode Sources Upstream – Trinity Bonanza King ($1.25M), Headlight ($500K) and the high-grade quartz mines at the head of Coffee Creek all drain toward this claim.
• Coarse Gold Country – Klamath Mountains lode belt cut by the tributaries means gold you can pick out with your hands and chunky nuggets, not just fine, flaky gold.
• Platinum in the Pan – Trinity placers are known for platinum and osmiridium riding with the gold.
• Paved Highway Access – Easy to access off the highway, with single-lane paved roads leading up to the claim marker, and sandy/dirt roads finishing the way to the river. Easy to reach via coupe and sedan!

If you’re interested in purchasing this unpatented California placer claim for sale, please email me here.

The Golden Trinity Main Features

Photographs of the Ground

The following were taken on the claim and along the upper Trinity River at the Coffee Creek confluence during a field visit on July 7, 2026. They show the river, the gravel bars, the bedrock and boulders, and the surrounding Trinity Alps country. Click any photograph to open it full size.

Claim Boundaries, Location Map and GPS Coordinates

The Four Corners

Claim boundaries taken directly from the recorded Google Earth KMZ (WGS 84).

A 20-acre unpatented placer block at the mouth of Coffee Creek on the upper Trinity River, above the full pool of Trinity Lake, staked at its discovery monument. Best PLSS estimate T37N R7W Section 8, Mount Diablo Meridian, Carrville 7.5′ quadrangle.

• View the claim on the interactive map
• ↓ Download the Google Earth KMZ of “Golden Trinity Claim” Boundaries

Economic Information About the Deposit and Operations

Mining District

Geologic Structures

The Golden Trinity Claim Mineral Rights Transfer Process

A mining claim gives the holder the right to mine on mineral-rich land that belongs to the federal government. Mining claims are a tangible asset and show proof of all interests in minerals in the area. They can be bought, sold or used as collateral, just like any other piece of real estate.

A mining claim can be sold, traded, leased, gifted, willed, used as collateral or transferred in part or in its entirety just like any other real property using a quitclaim deed which is a recordable conveyance. Questions about the transfer process can be answered by contacting us anytime. All fees and paperwork are current; the first annual BLM maintenance payment comes due in 2027.

Purchasing “The Golden Trinity Claim”

• Full mineral rights transfer for “The Golden Trinity Claim” 20-acre California placer claim
• Official certificate of location, claim location and digital maps
• Email based support for claim maintenance and questions

Make an Offer

Have questions? Concerns? Want to see the river in person? Make an offer on the Golden Trinity Claim.

Contact Us

After your purchase is complete you will be requested to fill out our new claim owner form with your name/address or add any additional claimants you want on the claim.

You’ll get digital copies of your COL and Map of Location delivered via email in PDF format, as well as a Google Earth™ KMZ map file with your claim’s discovery point, corners and points of interest.

We handle all the filing and transfer services on your behalf. Expect to get official stamped/recorded copies of your paperwork mailed to you from the Trinity County Recorder’s Office and the California Bureau of Land Management officiating you as the new claimant within 45 days of purchase. Then officially enjoy mining gold on your own river!

Mineralization & Commodities

The Golden Trinity is one 20-acre unpatented placer claim at the mouth of Coffee Creek on the upper Trinity River, in the historic Carrville / Coffee Creek mining country of Trinity County, California. The Trinity has been producing gold since 1848, and this reach was dredged into the 1960s.

Primary and secondary commodities on this claim include:

Gold is the commodity the dredges came for, and it arrives coarse off the Klamath lode belt. Platinum and osmiridium are the Trinity’s signature bonus, recovered with the gold in the black sands. Silver rides in the district’s lode ores alongside copper, lead and zinc, and the ultramafic rocks upstream shed chromite into every concentrate.

Geology & Setting

The Golden Trinity lies at a tributary confluence on the upper Trinity River in the Klamath Mountains, where ancient ocean-floor rocks meet granite, in a district that has been producing since 1848. The claim area is characterized by:

• Trinity ophiolite — peridotite, gabbro and serpentinite, source of platinum-group metals and chromite
• Copley Greenstone, Bragdon Formation slates and Central Metamorphic schists — hosts to the district’s gold-quartz veins
• The Shasta Bally batholith, the granite heat engine behind the lode belt
• Coffee Creek draining the Trinity Alps lode country straight into the claim
• Historic bucket-line dredge tailings and creek placer workings
• Paved State Route 3 at the claim, with Forest campgrounds and services within five miles

Twenty acres of free-flowing river at a confluence the dredges targeted first. The ground suits a weekend panner with a sluice and a detector just as well as a small operator planning a highbanking season — and every spring the river restocks it.

About the Trinity River Mining Districts

Gold was found on a Trinity River bar in July 1848 by Major Pierson B. Reading, and the rush built Weaverville, Douglas City, Lewiston, Junction City and the upper-river camps at Trinity Center and Carrville. The county’s first dredge, the Kise Brothers’, launched in 1889, and by the 1920s bucket-line dredges lined the river from Coffee Creek to Lewiston. The La Grange hydraulic mine near Weaverville, one of the largest in California, moved over 100 million yards of gravel. The Brown Bear at Deadwood produced 400,000 to 500,000 ounces from its quartz veins.

The state credits the Trinity River placers with $35 million in gold, and Trinity County with more than two million ounces between 1880 and 1959 — most of it placer. The Trinity Center dredge fields went under the lake in the 1960s. The reach above the lake did not.

The Golden Trinity sits on that surviving upper river, at the mouth of a creek the old-timers mined for years, in the heart of California’s Klamath gold country.