The Legend of Oregon’s Lost Cabin Mine

Part I: Where the Story Begins

Some legends begin with a single remarkable event...

Others emerge slowly, shaped by newspapers, personal recollections, forgotten journals, and stories repeated around campfires until no one can say exactly where fact ends and folklore begins.

Oregon’s Lost Cabin Mine belongs to the second kind.

For more than a century and a half, prospectors, historians, treasure hunters, and curious travelers have searched for the cabin said to stand somewhere within the rugged mountains bordering Southern Oregon and Northern California.

Numerous versions of the story survive today, each preserving pieces of what may have been a much larger historical event.

Like many old legends, the story changes depending on who tells it.

Names appear and disappear. Locations drift. Timelines overlap. Entire episodes seem to move from one account into another. Yet beneath those differences, a surprisingly consistent thread begins to emerge.

That thread is the subject of this investigation.

Rather than repeating a single version of the legend, this series follows the historical record chronologically. It compares original publications, newspaper accounts, historical references, geography, and later recollections to better understand how the story developed and whether several seemingly different legends may describe the same remarkable discovery.

The Earliest Searchers

One of the earliest detailed historical discussions appears in the appendix of The Hermit of the Siskiyous, where the author recounts a search conducted by Colonel Samuel C. Hall after arriving in Trinity during the summer of 1852.

According to Hall’s account, three miners descended from the mountains carrying an unusually large quantity of gold dust.

Among them was D. V. “Verinle” Thompson, who explained that he and his companions had discovered an exceptionally rich deposit, constructed a cabin near the workings, and left their tools behind before returning to civilization.

Hall recorded that Thompson claimed written directions identifying the location had been left inside the cabin, should the miners ever wish to guide others back to the discovery.

(The Hermit of the Siskiyous, Appendix.)

Intrigued by both the quantity of gold and the confidence of the men describing it, Hall organized a search almost immediately.

Following the directions as accurately as they could, Hall’s party traveled north while remaining “within hearing of the ocean.” They searched the heavily forested country of the western Siskiyou Mountains throughout the summer.

They failed to relocate either the cabin or the rich diggings described by Thompson.

Their failure did not end the story.

It began it.

A Legend Takes Hold

By the winter following Hall’s expedition, news of the missing cabin had spread rapidly throughout the mining communities of the Pacific Coast.

The appendix reports that parties from California, Oregon, and even Washington Territory joined the growing search. Newspapers discussed the mysterious Lost Cabin. Prospectors abandoned their own claims to pursue rumors of extraordinary gold hidden somewhere beyond the settled country.

(The Hermit of the Siskiyous, Appendix; Del Norte Record, January 18, 1883.)

Hall later wrote that “the story having gradually leaked out, other parties started in pursuit of what had become known as the ‘Lost Cabin.’”

His account describes a level of excitement that extended well beyond the immediate mining camps.

That distinction is important.

The Lost Cabin legend was not invented decades later by storytellers looking backward. Historical accounts indicate that people were actively searching for it while many of the original participants were still alive.

Set Em Up

Not long afterward, another figure entered the historical record.

His real name has been lost.

History remembers him only as Set Em Up.

According to Oregon historian Ruby El Hult, Set Em Up arrived in the mining town of Yreka carrying an unusually large amount of gold.

Rather than quietly guarding his wealth, he became known for generously buying drinks for nearly everyone around him. The habit earned him the nickname that eventually replaced his identity.

(Hult, Lost Mines and Treasures of the Pacific Northwest.)

When asked where the gold had come from, Set Em Up reportedly claimed that he had a cabin in Oregon with gold “all around.”

That wording deserves careful attention.

The earliest versions do not describe a cabin filled with treasure. They describe a cabin surrounded by exceptionally rich gold-bearing ground.

The cabin was the landmark.

The gold was in the earth surrounding it.

Set Em Up reportedly returned toward the mine and was never seen again.

Whether he became lost, was killed, or simply disappeared into history remains unknown.

His disappearance transformed an exciting mining story into one of the Pacific Northwest’s enduring lost-mine legends.

More Than One Story, or One Story Told More Than Once?

Viewed independently, the accounts involving Hall, Thompson, Set Em Up, the Grizzly Bear Mine, and later stories preserved in The Hermit of the Siskiyous appear to describe separate discoveries.

Viewed together, something unexpected begins to happen.

The stories repeatedly return to the same border country between Southern Oregon and Northern California.

They describe cabins built beside extraordinarily rich gold deposits.

They involve miners arriving in Yreka with remarkable quantities of gold.

They tell of abandoned workings that could never again be found.

They preserve nearly identical themes despite appearing under different names and in different publications.

None of these similarities proves that the stories describe the same event.

They do, however, raise a question worthy of careful historical investigation:

Could these accounts represent different perspectives of a single discovery that gradually evolved into several regional legends?

Following the Evidence

That question forms the foundation of this series.

The articles that follow will examine each source individually, beginning with Set Em Up before comparing the Grizzly Bear Mine, the Hillman Expedition, the Jacksonville Eleven, The Hermit of the Siskiyous, Hall, Thompson, and other historical accounts that appear to intersect with Oregon’s Lost Cabin Mine.

Some connections are well documented.

Others remain speculative.

Where evidence exists, it will be cited.

Where uncertainty remains, it will be identified as interpretation rather than fact.

History rarely survives as a complete story.

More often, it survives as scattered pieces waiting for someone willing to place them back on the table.

This investigation is an attempt to do exactly that.

References

Hall, Samuel C. Account reproduced in the appendix of The Hermit of the Siskiyous. 1887.

Laurenz, Henry. The Hermit of the Siskiyous. 1887.

Del Norte Record. January 18, 1883. Quoted in the appendix of The Hermit of the Siskiyous.

Hult, Ruby El. Lost Mines and Treasures of the Pacific Northwest. Binfords & Mort