...sometime in the late 1800's or the early 1900's, our County Supervisors, then known as County Commissioners, purchased a mineral exhibit, which consisted of gold nuggets, gold ore and gold laden quartz, for about $2,500.00. Our nation was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty of 1803 thus giving the 1904 World's Fair the name of the "Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The 1904 World's Fair was held in St. Louis, Missouri.

Exhibits of all kinds, and from countries all around the world, were taken to the World's Fair. The Nevada County Commissioners paid $2,500 for a mineral exhibit and had it sent to the 1904 World's Fair. Mr. James D. Hague, owner of the North Star Mine, saw the Nevada County gold exhibit. He told County Commissioner Sam Butler that if our exhibit won first place at the World's Fair that he would send gold from his North Star Mine to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in order to have our medal made out of Nevada County gold. Newspapers reported that Nevada County won the Grand Prize, and Mr. Hague kept his promise.

In 1983, shortly after I had been sworn into office, I found the gold medal lodged in the far reaches of my desk drawer. The medal was in its blue leather box which was lined with blue velvet and blue satin. The blue leather box was wrapped in a clear heavy plastic pouch. The desk had belonged to my predecessor, Marcella J. Carson, as it had

belonged to her predecessor, Lee Twitchell. Marcella Carson recalled the medal and said the last time she had seen it was when Mr. Twitchell was in office just before his unexpected death. Twitchell had shown the gold medal to Carson, then he dismissed her from his office, therefore she did not know its whereabouts. The medal was inventoried back into the County's control within days of its re-discovery.

The medal is stored inside of a safe in the treasurer's vault and is inventoried regularly. At the turn of the millenium, when the medal would soon be turning 100 years old, I asked Rick Haffey, the County Administrative Officer, for his approval to pay for research and to have a mold made from the medal. He approved and thus deputy treasurer & tax collector, Cheryl Nilsson, began her research. It had been hoped that the results would provide facts which could be used on the 100th year to celebrate.

Due to a lack of concrete evidence to validate the legend of Nevada County having won the Grand Prize Gold Medal at the World's Fair, our research ceased. There are local newspaper articles that claimed Nevada County had won the Gold Medal; however, the World's Fair Society could not validate those claims. Still we wonder: Did we, or did we not, win the gold medal at the 1904 World's Fair? Our records are available on this website for others to use.

2004 - the hundredth year celebration of the year Nevada County won the gold medal at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri for the best mineral exhibit from any one county! We have begun the task of trying to uncover as much information as possible concerning the 1904 World's Fair gold medal awarded to Nevada County and to be creative in ways to inform the public about the history of the medal. Some ideas include a reproduction of the medal for display and also smaller reproductions for souvenir pins, tie tacks, commemorative coins. A larger reproduction could be used as a centerpiece for the 4th of July county float and the Constitution Day parade. Contacts will be made with photographers to get prices on 8x10 glossies, posters, and post cards. Other ideas could be T-shirts, or caps with an image of the medal.

Research, research, research- the first place to look is old newspaper articles from 1904. The Union newspaper had a daily edition called "The Daily Morning

News". It is on microfilm at the Doris Foley Historical Library. A couple of hours browsing the old editions uncovered several articles about the mineral display and the final article declaring that Nevada County won the gold medal, dated October 21, 1904.

Wayne Miller, goldsmith, with Gold Ventures has agreed to make a wax casting of the medal. Once a casting is made, the medal can be reproduced at actual size and can also be enlarged or reduced.

Chris has found several websites that have general information on the 1904 World's Fair. There are some promising books that may have the information we seek and so an order is being placed.

Chris has contacted Max Storm with the 1904 World's Fair organization. He provided some interesting history on the medal. "Tens of thousands of medals were awarded at the 1904 World's Fair -Grand Prize, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and commemorative. All of them were made

with the same alloy and were all the same color. They had different shapes but all contained the same information in the circular center part. (Except it would say Gold Medal, Silver Medal, etc) They were mailed to the winners in a well-marked small rectangular tan colored box. The medal was contained in a velvet lined square box with gold lettering on the lid. Most medals were accompanied with a very large certificate - often framed by the winners. The Medal that you have containing Gold would be a reproduction of the Official Gold Medal. The Official Medals were not marked on the edges. If you were to find a loose Medal, you could not tell who won it. If you are only going to produce a few of the medals, it may be cheaper to buy the actual medals. You can often find them on eBay. I have seen several that the owner had gold plated or silver plated."

February 26, Wayne has returned the medal and the casting. He will provide an estimate for reproduction costs.

March 1-The Union newspaper has run a front page story of the metal and our quest for information concerning the mineral exhibit that won the award. Great coverage from The Union and reporter Millete Birhanemaskel. The article has generated some phone calls from people with information on the Hagues. A few people have suggested other people to contact for information. All leads will be followed up. Still no information on the exhibit itself.

Georgia Martinson with the Board of Supervisors office has discovered old board minutes that discuss the mining exhibit. She will make copies. They provide much information on the Promotion Committee, the funds allocated for the exhibit, etc. Very helpful-thanks Georgia! One of the entries made in April 1907 state that the Supervisors approved funding of a gold quartz monument to be built in Colfax to advertise the county. A picture of the monument is part of an old postcard collection belonging to my family! I often wondered why such a monument would have been built in Colfax, Placer County. Now it makes sense!

Two photographers came by this week with samples of their work and some creative ideas on the best way to

feature the medal, Jim Beckett with Sugar Pine Studios and Frank Pedrick. A deadline of March 12th was established for all estimates to be submitted.

March 11, 2004 I have taken a trip to the California State Library in Sacramento to do further research. There is an extensive newspaper collection there as well as a few books on the 1904 World's Fair. Parking was illusive but information was not as I found some very interesting articles. In the Evening Bee, an earlier version of the Sacramento Bee, dated November 2, 1904 I found an article that confirmed the awarding of the gold medal to Nevada County. Many articles were found in a publication called the Foothill Weekly Tidings. These articles describe the exhibit, which mines contributed ore and many other interesting facts. The exhibit used a cabinet being built by J. H. Rogers of the Nevada Planing Mill. The cabinet was intended to contain a permanent exhibit of the mineral exhibit of the county in the ground floor hallway of the courthouse. There was also mention of a loving cup trophy from the 1890's that would be housed in the cabinet.

I have been trying to find out what may have happened to the cabinet that housed the exhibit. Went to the courthouse to look at the different displays of trophies, etc. to find anything pertaining to the World's Fair and to find the loving cup mentioned above. The loving cup is in a display cabinet behind the security guards station at the entrance to the courthouse. Seems to be a much lighter version than a true silver cup would be. Very lightweight……In another display cabinet there is a red box that says "Lewis & Clark Exposition 1905". I know from another newspaper article that the same mineral exhibit was entered into the Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland, OR the following year. The exhibit won a silver medal. Nick from Buildings and Grounds opened the cabinet for me. But when we opened the box, it was empty! Also, there was another smaller box in the same cabinet. Couldn't read the writing on the box but it was definitely a box that contained a medal of some sort. When we opened that box, it was also empty. Disappointing afternoon. I looked at some of the other cabinets that line the hallway. They are all smaller than the description of the mineral cabinet. Nick suggested that the butterfly collection might have been housed in the old cabinet but it was moved to Truckee.

E-mail from Missouri Historical Society arrived. I had requested from them a list of the medal winners and any photos of the exhibits. The email stated, " I searched through our materials on the 1904 World's Fair but did not find any mention of the Nevada County mining exhibit. I was able to find information on the other mining exhibits but there no mention of Nevada County. In addition, I searched the list of exhibitors for the Mines and Metallurgy Department and it was not listed there either." It has been a frustrating search for us to uncover any information on the exhibit. The medal is proof we received an award and the newspaper articles describe the exhibit in great detail. But it's as if outside this county there was no recognition of the exhibit or

award. Even inside this county the number of people who know of the existence of the medal are very few. It's important to give people this information and to show how universally recognized Nevada County was for it's important resource.

I had a meeting with Pat Dyer from Utopian Stone. He had some useful suggestions on how to proceed. He thought the better option for dupl.icating the medal was to contact the Philadelphia Mint and to have them make some duplicate copies. Copies from their die would be the best quality. There will be significant loss of detail and loss of size with the process we are pursuing.

The copy will degrade every time it's reproduced. Smaller versions could

The copy will degrade every time it's reproduced. Smaller versions could be minted through the Nevada City Mint and he suggested contacting Don Schmidt. A die will have to be made whether larger or smaller versions of the medal are made. There is a minimum price of $1000 to make the die. He explained briefly a three-dimensional panagraph to make smaller versions from a clay model. He volunteered his services if we need community members to help with the project and suggested some other contacts, Ron Sturgill and possibly Ed Scofield to see if there are any old photos from the county fair that shows some of the magnificent exhibits that used to be displayed at the fair.