The Empire Mine is located about 50 miles from Sacramento. The park is 856 acres and sits among gorgeous forested foothills at elevations of 2,500 and 2,900 feet.
My 5 year old son really enjoyed this museum yesterday, in fact, he wants to go back today!
They had a mining kit that he was eyeing yesterday, I also discovered that they have mining clubs still existing as there still is gold in the hills. In Fact, recently there was a vote about whether to open this mine again, but it lost by 5 votes. The word by the park rangers was that many people are worried about environmental damage to the area if the mine opens again.
The mine had a small gift shop with some "fools gold" which my son is fascinated with! There are mostly adult items at the shop, such as jewelry, etc.
My son said, "I liked going down into the shaft." We waited until other people were also walking down into it as it was a little dark and scary for me, too! The most interesting part of this museum for my son was this shaft viewing area. The ore "skips" that moved the rock to waiting ore cars sped through the portal at 600 and 1200 feet a minute. The deepest shaft is more than 5,000 feet down.
Resources:
Empire Mine State Historic Park
10791 East Empire Street
Grass Valley, CA 95945
(530) 273-8522
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