Oat Hill Mine
Original iron sign. Photo by Christopher Lloyd. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.
The California gold rush in the Sierra Nevada and the silver mining in Nevada's Comstock load fueled the industries that required mercury to extract gold and silver from ore. Consequently, mercury mining along the Northern California's Coast Ranges began production as early as the mid-1860's. Boom-and-bust fluctuations characterized mercury mining.
The Oat Hill Mine was one of several prominent mercury (quicksilver) mines in the Mayacamas Mining District. The Oat Hill Mine was one of the largest producers of mercury in the North Coast Ranges. The mine employed roughly 200 Chinese workers to help load and clean the mercury furnaces.
Mine workers were often exposed to unsafe working conditions including the exposure of mercury vapor which resulted in neurological damage including uncontrollable shaking and salivation and working in unsafe mining tunnels. Chinese wages were about half of those compared to white workers, and yet they were assigned the most dangerous work. Chinese workers suffered most from mercury poisoning, and dozens of Chinese workers were buried alive in a tunnel collapse at the Socrates Mine.
The Oat Hill Mine Road was an important thoroughfare to the Oat Hill Mine, and wagon carts were used to transport supplies and refined mercury to waiting rail-cars in Calistoga. Visitors can still see wagon ruts etched into the bedrock. Chinese labors purportedly constructed the Oat Hill Mine Road.
Wagon wheel ruts on Oat Hill Mine Road. Photo by Chris Lloyd. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.
Trailhead. Photo by Fred Wong. Courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.
Location: 38.589344, -122.577441
City: Calistoga
County: Napa
Submitted by: Chris Lloyd
Road; Mining
Bureau of Land Management, Ukiah Field Office
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Access directions:
The Calistoga trailhead parking is located at the northeast Y-intersection of CA 29 (Lake County Hwy) and Silverado Trail N less than a mile northeast of Calistoga along CA 29. Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District manages the historic Oat Hill Mine Trail as it passes through State, Bureau of Land Management, and others.