Ivan Coffman followed the serpentine road up the Feather River Canyon and into the Sierra Nevada foothills to the historic outpost of Belden. It was 1970, and Coffman, a young craftsman who did masonry work in Fresno, had the week off. He pulled off the road and parked his truck at a bend where the Yellow Creek, a small tributary, feeds into the Feather River. He walked upstream. Sure enough, he found what he was looking for: nuggets of gold, resting in the creek, everywhere. 

“That year, we had a terrific flood that washed a huge bar of gravel off down into this hole, and that’s what left all that gold layin’ there,” Coffman said, with a slight twang in his voice. He went back to his truck, grabbed a 5-gallon bucket and nearly filled it with pebble-sized nuggets. “It’d been hidden for all them years,” he said.

A carving at Belden, Calif., honors the gold mining heritage of the Feather River Canyon. 

During the Gold Rush, fortune seekers mined millions of dollars’ worth of gold in the Feather River Canyon, and Belden, one of the booming mining camps in the canyon, had a thousand residents in its heyday. After the gold came the railroad and tourism — fishing was plentiful on the Feather River, and mining camps turned into resorts. In the 20th century, however, a series of dams constructed on the Feather River created a “stairway” of hydroelectric power. Fish populations declined. The landscape was altered. The economy faltered. But once in a while, someone still found a life-changing stroke of luck in Belden. 

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That week in 1970, Coffman said, he found about 50 ounces’ worth of gold in the riverbed near Belden. At the time, gold was worth around $35 an ounce. Today, the price is around $4,400 an ounce. 

Coffman called his business partner in Fresno to tell him he’d be staying in Belden longer than he’d originally planned. He never went back to masonry.

Ivan Coffman, 87, owner of Belden, Calif., has been mining gold in this area for over 50 years. He shows some of the gold he found nearby.

Ivan Coffman, 87, owner of Belden, Calif., has been mining gold in this area for over 50 years. He shows some of the gold he found nearby.

At 87 years old, Coffman still mines for gold in the Feather River almost every day and the riches he’s found led to other ventures. He’s a jewelry maker and a loan lender and, in 1989, he bought Belden. 

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By then, Belden was on the verge of becoming a ghost town: A fire in the 1970s had destroyed most of the ramshackle buildings. Coffman rebuilt what was left, turning the compound into an........

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