Hayden Hill, located some fifty-five miles north of Susanville, was Lassen County’s largest mining community. Unlike its counterparts in California and Nevada, it was small in comparison. Like so many mining communities, Hayden Hill went through numerous boom and bust cycles.

Of course, in 1870 when word spread of the gold discovery miners flocked hoping to find a new “Comstock.” By the mid-1870s things had fizzled on the “Hill” as locals referred to it. In 1878, several major discoveries and the prospectors returned. For the next eight years it was Hayden Hill’s most prosperous times. It was followed by a downturn, then brief uptick, and continued that way. By 1909, Hayden Hill witnessed prosperity that it had not seen since the late 1870s. In 1910, a devastating fire wiped out a major portion of the town and it never fully recovered.

When Lassen Gold Mining revived operations during the early  1990s at Hayden Hill, the miners and their families did not reside there, many opting for Adin the nearest community. When Lassen Gold shut down in 1997, the open pit operation scared the landscape forever and its such a mess the entire “hill’ is fenced off.

Support