Kennedy Mine

The Kennedy Mine traces its origins to the late 1850s, when Irish immigrant Andrew Kennedy discovered a quartz outcropping on the hillside east of Jackson. In 1860 he and three partners formed the Kennedy Mining Company and began sinking shafts, though the mine struggled financially and closed in 1878. It was reopened in 1886 by fifteen investors who put up $97,600 to form the Kennedy Mining and Milling Company, and a new East Shaft begun in 1898 would eventually reach a vertical depth of 5,912 feet — over a mile straight down — making it the deepest gold mine in North America at the time.

At the surface, a 100-stamp mill crushed ore with half-ton vertical hammers, while a system of four tailing wheels — each roughly 68 feet in diameter — lifted pulverized waste over two hills to an impoundment basin nearly a mile away in Indian Gulch. Built in response to federal anti-debris laws prohibiting mine waste from being dumped into rivers, the wheels ran 24 hours a day from 1914 until the mine’s closure. Two of the original four wheels still stand at Kennedy Tailing Wheels Park on North Main Street, maintained by the City of Jackson.

The Kennedy is also linked to the worst mining disaster in California history. On August 27, 1922, a fire broke out deep inside the neighboring Argonaut Mine, trapping 47 miners at the 4,650-foot level. For 22 days, up to 200 men attempted to reach the trapped miners through a narrow connecting tunnel from the Kennedy Mine, wheelbarrowing rock and debris through passages too low to stand in. All 47 miners perished, but the disaster led to 17 mine safety recommendations that shaped decades of federal mining regulation. A permanent connecting tunnel between the two mines was installed afterward at the 4,600-foot level.

A 1928 surface fire destroyed most of the Kennedy’s original structures, but the mine was rebuilt with the 135-foot iron headframe that towers over the site today. The mine operated until December 7, 1942, when War Production Board Limitation Order L-208 shut down all U.S. gold mines to redirect labor and materials to the war effort. Though the order was lifted in 1945, extensive water accumulation underground made reopening uneconomical. Over its lifetime, the Kennedy produced approximately $34.3 million in gold — roughly 1.5 million ounces at the prices of the era.

In 1996 the Kennedy Mine Foundation was established as a nonprofit to preserve the property, receiving the deed from the estate of Sybil Arata the following year. Today, 90-minute guided tours run Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from 10 AM to 3:30 PM, taking visitors through the Change House Museum, the steam boiler building, the headframe and shaft area, the stamp mill overlook, an underground foreman’s office, and the 1907 Mine Office Museum — where original 1914 footage of the mine in operation is screened.