Cat Town, California

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Cat Town
Former settlement
Cat Town is located in California
Cat Town
Cat Town
Location in California
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Cat Town is located in the United States
Cat Town
Cat Town
Cat Town (the United States)
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Coordinates: 37°38′40″N 120°05′22″W / 37.64438°N 120.08935°W / 37.64438; -120.08935
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
CountyMariposa
Elevation
2,254 ft (687 m)

Cat Town is a former settlement and mining camp in Mariposa County, California, United States. It is located in Solomon Gulch, within the historic territory of the Southern Sierra Miwok people, and gave its name to the Cat Town mining district in northwestern Mariposa County. The district was a gold-mining area near the Mother Lode, with mining activity concentrated in the late 19th century and later prospecting for molybdenum.

History

The U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System locates Cat Town in Solomon Gulch at an elevation of 2,254 feet (687 m).[1] The settlement gave its name to the Cat Town mining district, a gold-mining district in northwestern Mariposa County.[2][3]

Solomon Gulch was an early placer-mining area on the Merced River. In spring 1850, George W. Coulter opened a small store at the mouth of Solomon's Gulch, where Newell D. Chamberlain described rich placers as already present. Coulter soon moved his business to Maxwell's Creek, where his tent store became the beginning of Coulterville.[4]

Cat Town was later identified as the old mining camp at the Cat Town mining district in northwestern Mariposa County.[2]

The Cat Town area is within the historic territory of the Southern Sierra Miwok people. Linguist Sylvia M. Broadbent described Southern Sierra Miwok territory as roughly equivalent to modern Mariposa County, and the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation describes its people as Indigenous to Mariposa County and Yosemite.[5][6] Available sources for Cat Town identify the former settlement and mining district, but do not identify a specific Indigenous village at Solomon Gulch.

Mining district

Clark described the Cat Town mining district as adjoining the Kinsley-Greeley Hill district to the north and the Coulterville portion of the Mother Lode to the west. The district lies on a separate northwest-trending vein system, possibly part of the same mineralized belt as the Whitlock district to the southeast.[2]

Mining activity in the district was greatest during the 1880s and 1890s. The Gold Bug mine and several other mines were active in the 1930s, and the area was later prospected for molybdenum. Clark identified the Black Bart, Gold Bug, and White Porphyry mines as the district's principal gold sources.[2] Mindat.org lists Cat Town as a locality within the Cat Town mining district and identifies the Black Bart, Fortuna, Gold Bug, and White Porphyry localities within the area.[7]

Geology

The district's deposits consist of gold-bearing quartz stringers in schist, slate, metachert, and greenstone. Ore values generally occurred in small, high-grade pockets associated with albitite and diorite dikes. The deposits were not mined below depths of about 100 feet (30 m).[2]

The White Porphyry group, one of the district's principal gold sources, was a former lode gold mine south-southeast of Cat Town along Solomon Gulch. The U.S. Geological Survey's Mineral Resources Data System identifies the White Porphyry group as a past gold producer in the Cat Town district, with surface and underground workings and a listed elevation of 2,001 feet (610 m).[8] Mindat.org describes the White Porphyry mineralization as a vein and dike deposit hosted in volcanic rock, slate, schist, and chert.[9]

See also

References

  1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Cat Town
  2. Clark, William B. (1970). Gold Districts of California. Bulletin. Vol. 193. San Francisco: California Division of Mines and Geology. p. 142. Retrieved May 3, 2026.
  3. "Cat Town Mining District, Mariposa County, California, USA". Mindat.org. Hudson Institute of Mineralogy. Retrieved May 3, 2026.
  4. Chamberlain, Newell D. (1936). "Beginnings of Hornitos and Coulterville". The Call of Gold. Mariposa, California: Gazette Press. Retrieved May 3, 2026.
  5. Broadbent, Sylvia M. (1964). "Introduction". The Southern Sierra Miwok Language. University of California Publications in Linguistics. Vol. 38. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 3. Retrieved May 23, 2026.
  6. "About Us". Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. Retrieved May 23, 2026.
  7. "Cat Town, Cat Town Mining District, Mariposa County, California, USA". Mindat.org. Hudson Institute of Mineralogy. Retrieved May 3, 2026.
  8. "White Porphyry Group (MRDS #10031004) AU". Mineral Resources Data System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved May 23, 2026.
  9. "White Porphyry group, Cat Town, Cat Town Mining District, Mariposa County, California, USA". Mindat.org. Hudson Institute of Mineralogy. Retrieved May 3, 2026.