OROVILLE—THE CITY WITH A HEART OF GOLD

Rex Burress

Oroville's lovely mayor, Linda Dahlmeier, often uses the popular “Heart of Gold” slogan in describing our city, as does Cliff Marler at the Chamber of Commerce.

There is undoubtedly some metallic golden minerals down there in the valves of the underground support system, down beneath the cluster of buildings, down under downtown, down under Bud Tracy's Oroville Inn, under the Pioneer Museum, under Lott Park...if you dig down to bedrock. Dredgers once offered to buy and move early Oroville to mine the gravels. But the golden hue also springs upward in February's flush of flowers!

There is a great rash of shamrock-shaped leafy ground cover all over Oroville country in late January, and by February, at a time when the almond trees along the river are blooming, “Bermuda Buttercups” are breaking forth with tall stems sporting bright yellow blossoms. You can't miss it! The succulent aliens fade away in the warmer weather after having their day in the sun, but for awhile they were ambassadors of green and gold.

The innocent-looking, soft beauty, often called 'sour grass' by kids that like to suck on the tangy stems, is considered a very invasive intruder. Oxalis pes-caprae, oddly called Bermuda Buttercup, is indigenous to South Africa, but has spread widely through a tiny bulb system that multiplies rapidly. It is beneficial in a number of ways; pleasant to look at during its brief annual presence, a harbinger of spring along with daffodils and narcissus, and even edible to a certain degree, but like the useful and beautiful dandelion, mostly regaled as undesirable. My relatives from Missouri visited in December, and cousin Jonalee was impressed with the bright green early foliage sopping up winter rains to feed its February flowers. She would be overwhelmed to see my blooming collection now.

Oxalis has vastly expanded in my yard, and once I was pulling the loosely attached plant to no avail as the bulbs stay under, so I just let them have their way, along with bright yellow gazania and yellow dandelions. I have interesting gold-and-green aliens instead of alien grass even though they all go late-summer-brown. I would welcome natives if they were as versatile, but without water, they all falter, in drought's slaughter.

Part of the golden reputation acquired by Oroville is extended to the top of nearby Table Mountain in early spring when the vast flower fields erupt on the rocky mesa. The grand display has a weekly star species taking its turn, starting mostly with yellow expanses of Goldfields and Valley Carpet in March, later blending with the blue Sky Lupine The spectacle is a wonder to behold. Imagine fields of golden flowers scattered among stones under spacious skies along with a couple hundred other species and you are seeing paradise.

Amid the golden trove is a rare yellow species; the Golden Clover (Trifolium barbigerum), found along Cottonwood Road and on the western edge of Table Mountain usually in April.

Stir the sand in the sandbars along the river and you will see bright yellow flashes glittering in profusion. Eureka! I have found it! However, all that glitters is not gold as we know. The small flakes are mica chips that must have fooled rookie miners from the east.

But the real “fool's gold” is the heavier pyrite. It is found throughout the Mother Lode, often in pegmatite pockets rich in other minerals, too, including garnets, quartz, and rarely gold. The brassy-looking pyrite cubes are brighter than gold and command a lot of attention. I found such specimens on the boulders fronting Oroville Dam, and was indeed fooled until I used my magnifying glass.

I once found the “Lost Pegleg Mine” near the Diversion Pool, and in the hidden white quartz pile, a depression suggested the mine entrance that had been allegedly dynamited shut. All around the site were rocks sparkling with yellow flashes, and I was once again momentarily 'fooled' by pyrite. We have samples from Pegleg's mine-dump at the Feather River Nature Center. Watch!

“Obviously you cannot rely on a plan that involves sprinkling water forever on tailings to control gold dust.”

--Huge Lapointe

“Nature's first green is gold,/Her hardest hue to hold./ Her early leaf's a flower,/But only so an hour./Then leaf subsides to leaf,/So Eden sank to grief,/So dawn goes down today,/Nothing gold can stay.”

--Robert Frost