The Arrastra on Plaskett Creek
Built by William Lucas Plaskett about 1885 and turned by a water wheel on the creek, the family arrastra ground the Western Star's gold ore — and its timbers, iron and basin are still there.
Hidden in the redwood canyon of Plaskett Creek stand the remains of an arrastra — one of the oldest and simplest machines ever used to win gold from hard rock — and this one was built by the family patriarch himself.
Mabel Plaskett recorded the story in The Land (June 1960). The first mine on Plaskett Ridge was the Western Star, discovered and worked by brothers Reason and Marion Plaskett. They dug the gold-bearing ore with pick and shovel and hauled it down in large canvas sacks, on sleds drawn by a stout mule, to an arrastra built by their father — grandfather William Lucas Plaskett — about 1885, above the old orchard that is now part of Plaskett Creek Campground.
The arrastra is an ancient design that Spanish miners carried to the Americas: a shallow, stone-floored circular basin in which heavy drag stones, pulled around from a central pivot, slowly crush gold-bearing rock to powder so the gold can be washed free. Most arrastras were turned by a patient mule. The Plaskett arrastra was grander — driven by a water wheel, powered by Plaskett Creek itself. Water diverted from the creek turned the wheel, and the wheel dragged the grinding stones around the basin: a self-running mill in the middle of the forest.
It was the practical answer for coast miners far from any stamp mill. Just over the ridge, the Los Burros Mining District boomed in the 1880s, and claims on Plaskett Ridge between Plaskett Creek and Willow Creek kept producing for decades. Here, a family could build its own mill from redwood timbers, creek water, and stone — and grind its own ore where it was dug.
What survives today tells the story. Massive hand-hewn redwood beams, their iron drift bolts still seated after nearly a century and a half, mark the frame that carried the works. Heavy iron bearings and collars from the drive machinery lie where the wheel once turned. The round basin itself is still there beside the creek, now sheltered under a protective wooden platform. And Plaskett Creek — the mill’s engine — still runs past it on its way to the sea.
The family record
The arrastra’s story as the family has always told it, in the words of the record Mabel drew on for Pacific Valley Gold Claims Still Producing (The Land, June 1960):
“The first mine on Plaskett Ridge was ‘The Western Star,’ discovered and worked by Reason and Marion Plaskett. They dug out the ore with pick and shovel and hauled it in large canvas sacks on sleds drawn by a stout mule to an arrastra built by grandfather William Lucas Plaskett about 1885. The arrastra — a circular device to grind ore using a heavy rock attached to a shaft dragged around by a water wheel — was built above the old orchard, now part of Plaskett Creek Campground.”
Finding it again
The site is not marked and the orchard is long gone, but the arrastra is still there. On a walk up Plaskett Creek in 2026, Bill “Bull Plaskett” Alderson found the remnants and photographed them: the hand-hewn redwood beams with their iron drift bolts still seated, the heavy iron bearing castings and pipe collars from the drive works, and the round stone-lined basin itself, now sheltered under a protective plank platform beside the creek. The photographs below are that visit.
What his great-great-grandfather built to grind his sons’ ore, four generations later, is still holding its shape in the redwoods — and the creek that powered it still runs past on its way to the sea.
Compare the Grizzly Mine’s water-wheel arrastra, photographed about 1900, for what this machine looked like when it was turning.
