All later sources quote Philip Sparkman's somewhat obscure but thorough 1905 study of the Luiseno natives when talking about San Juan Capistrano's hidden-in-history gold mine. Living in Rincon, Sparkman wrote:
"We cannot pretend to give the exact boundary of their former habitat. but will do so as nearly as possible. Beginning at the mouth of the Agua Hedionda, it ran so as to include what was after the San Marcos rancho, also most of the Escondido rancho, one of their villages being situated in the ravine near the gold mine."
THE. GOLD. MINE. State geologists report that Orange county has scant gold, even minute. in 1927, as example, the Department of Mines and Geology recorded only $60 in production of gold in the county. Maybe the mine was played out by then.
My cousins, the Forsters of San Juan Capistrano, have family stories of the gold mine up in San Lucas Canyon. They may still own some small placer-mined nuggets from the days of Francisco and Tomas Forster.
But the real legendary prospector of the San Lucas was Maximo Lopez. He made his home along the base of the shaded canyon from 1886 to 1940 and -- needing supplies -- would trek ten miles into San Juan Capistrano and pay in nuggets.
At least one other California mission operated a gold mine, using crude methodology and native labor, so the Capistrano tale may not be so mythical after all.
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