The American West is littered with lost gold mine stories. The Lassen Peak area was of no exception. In the early 1900s, Tom Ravenscroft had a ranch ten miles east of Susanville, and occasionally took in travelers. On one occasion a stranger stopped in and became ill during his stay. The Ravenscrofts nursed him, but to no avail; he died there. The stranger told Ravenscroft of a gold mine he had discovered in Kings Creek Valley, near Lassen Peak. There he made a dugout on the side of the mountain where he found the gold.  He extracted two or three sacks of ore that he sent to Salt Lake City to be assayed. To his amazement, it yielded nearly $300. When he left Kings Creek, he stored his rifle, cooking utensils and so on in the prospecting hole. He covered it with rock to make it look as natural as possible.

The following summer, Ravenscroft attempted to locate the mine. He stopped at Drakesbad to talk with Alex Sifford about various
localities. For some time Ravenscroft was elusive about what he
sought. He finally told Sifford the story, and Sifford was much more
responsive to Ravenscroft’s questions. Ravenscroft was intimidated by aspects of the region where it would be necessary to search to locate the mine, and he gave up.

In the 1930s came a new breed of prospectors with the establishment of Civilian Conservation Corps Camps. In the summer of 1933, Frank Boghich, who worked at the Halls Flat CCC Camp east of the park, believed in the lost cabin mine legend. It was his contention that somewhere inside the park was a cache of a half million dollars worth of gold nuggets to be found, and he spent his free time in search of it.

Tim

Petes Creek is a small desert stream that originates near Horse Lake and then flows into a southerly direction where it empties into Willow Creek, at a site referred to as the “The Crossing.”

The who, when and what of naming the creek is not known. In 1944, Phil Lord attributed the naming after Peter Lassen during his 1850 expedition of the region. Lassen accompanied by J. Goldsborough Bruff among others. Bruff kept a diary of the travels, and upon close examination  its apparent they never came across this stream.

The area, even by today’s standard is somewhat remote. It was not until the 1890s that Petes Valley came into prominence.  In 1897, tjhe Associated Colonies purchased the Petes Valley Ranch as part of their Standish Colony scheme. They provided the following information about that place and their intended operations: “In order to give Standish colonists an opportunity to engage in the cattle industry on the most profitable terms, the Associated Colonies purchased one of the best stock ranches in northern California. By herding their cattle together the small farmers of Standish wil have the advantages enjoyed by large cattle owners. Under this systems the man who owns ten head of stock will have  precisely the same facilities as the man who owns a thousand head. The Standish Colony stock ranch and ranges is in Petes Valley, only about ten miles distant from the village of Standish. It is commonly spoken among stock men as a ‘little principality.’ It controls the water of a creek along which the titled land extends for a distance of six miles. The range surrounding the ranch proper includes 20,000 acres and furnishes good summer pasturage for at least 5,000 head of stock.”

The Associated Colonies Standish utopia floundered and so with it their vision Petes Valley—best known today for opening day of pigeon season on September 1.

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