Highlights on the History of SCPC

The Sierra Camping and Prospecting Club was started in Sept. 1999. A small printed newsletter was started by its members. SCPC gained many of its quit claims from the Lucky "D" Mining Club with the help of Jim Hopper in July 2000. This provided the club with a total of 6 claims to start off the new season. A 20 acre placer claim was then quit claimed to the club by its members. These seven claims and a strong desire to become successful prospectors allowed the club to grow.

In 2001, The Internal Revenue Service approved our application for tax-exempt status as a section 501 (c) (7) organization. This occured on June 22, 2001.

As membership has fluctuated over the years, the club gained recognition by entering local parades and participated in street fairs. SCPC started giving panning instructions to the public and even held special classes for the Girl Scouts. If interested it setting up a similar event please contact the president.

In 2002, The BLM required us to post a $500.00 bond on one of our claims for potential reclamation costs.

In 2003, We began leasing a placer mining claim with a camping area on Maxwell Creek near Coulterville, CA.

In 2004, Two new 100-acre placer mining claims with two miles of stream were added to our inventory of places to prospect.

Topographic maps were added to our claims guide to help aid members.

In 2006, all claims were closed by the BLM over a paper-work dispute and we had to go back and reclaim all of our mining claims. At the present time, we have 8 placer mining claims on three different streams with over 300 acres of prospecting available.

In 2007, SCPC started off with another first for the club. Our website was launched! Members and general public can find out more information convienently about the club. Club outings are scheduled for March thru October. In June we requested the IRS to change their records to reflect our organization's name change to Sierra Prospectors Association. The IRS approved our name change on November 19, 2007. All mining claims were recorded with the new organization name at the respective County and BLM offices. An end-of-season club raffle took place in November with several nice prizes including a Grand prize of a NEW 2" Proline Dredge.