Welcome to First Class Miners Inc. A 501C (3) Non-Profit Educational Corporation Dedicated to the advancement of education in placer gold prospecting and mining.

Upcoming ....

Please check Events  Calendar (under club information below) for more information

May 01, 2023  First Day of Membership Renewals:  More info to follow

May 20, 2023. (Sat) TOUR OF RATTLESNAKE CANYON CLAIM

June 02-04, 2023 (Fri-Sun) CAMP OUT AT RATTLESNAKE CANYON

July 16, 2023 (Sun) GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING

July 31, 2023 (Mon) LAST DAY TO SUBMIT YOUR MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

Be sure to check out Club Resources at the bottom of the page.

This includes membership information, previous events and videos.

May 13, 2023 at the First Class Miners meeting our President Ron Matthias presented the coveted “Dowie Award” to FCM Members Harry and Kelly Crawford. Harry and Kelly are the FCM’s “Chuck Wagon Masters”. They have held this job since Jan. 2014 over 9 years.   Each FCM meeting features a Hamburger and Hot Dog BBQ combined with a pot luck.Harry and Kelly shop for and transport food, set up the BBQ and tables and the plates and utensils, Cook, clean up afterward and maintain all the utensils and stock. It is a demanding job which they excel.  They are the modern day equivalents of “Charlie Wooster”, they are able to feed and keep large groups of grubby and cantankerous miners happy. Their award is well deserved!

Ord Mountain Campout, what a Blast! Once again, we invited a few other clubs to join us, not sure how many folks attended over the weekend, but we all had a great time.

Jon & Syndi, what a great job you guys have done on our Annual Coin and Treasure Hunt. This year everything Jon & Syndi buried was found (and coins from past years!) and many great prizes were giving out, the names of the 5 Grand Prize winners are in this newsletter!

Jon & Syndi also buried all 40 of our replica Doubloons and all 40 were found, thus, all 10, 1/4 grams were gifted for a total of 2.5 grams. Myself and Carol simply want to say thank you to everyone who made my term as President of the First Class Miners Club memorable; THANK YOU! The ¼ gram winners were Diane & Craig (2) FCM, Kent Bryant (2) FCM, Ernie Tovar (1) Valley Prospectors, Dakota Herron (1) FCM, 10 years old, Susan & Greg Herring (2) FCM, Mark Hansen (1) PCSC and Keaten Harris (1) PCSC. We had about 30 folks at our pot luck Saturday night and everyone was talking about the coin hunt and panning for gold with the Quartermaster – thank you to Greg & Susan for graciously hosting the pot luck.!  Once again, the bubblegum machine was a huge hit; thanks to Jim & Yvonne Mack for coming up with the idea for our Eagle Mountain event.

The 2023 President's Weekend campout was incredibly successful.  Perfect weather and several gold finds.  Yvonne and Jim Mack sponsored a treasure hunt with quarters being used in a gumball machine with a one in ten chance of getting a trinket with gold inside.  More info will follow.