the following is an exerpt from the book "Bunchgrass, Gold and Trees" put together by Reiba Carter Smith and Louetta Zumwalt Shaw.... (From the Memoirs of Stewart L Harryman) "Speaking of gold, once an old man who came across to Oregon in a wagon train, told the following story: He said that at that time he was only a boy. Before leaving Farewell Bend, the leaders decided to change their course, due to the Bannock Indian War. So, instead of the customary route, they turned off and came by Old Baldy mountain. They followed the main John Day down the river, he said, they encountered marshy ground. At a small stream where they camped, one of the men picked up some shiny yellow rocks from the stream bed, and tossed them in his wagon. Months later, after they arrived in Oregon City, the man showed the rocks to a friend as he was cleaning out his wagon box. To his amazement, his friend became excited, declaring the "rocks" to be golden nuggets. Asked where he had picked up the nuggets, the man could not recall. However, the train had come down the main John Day, following a course that lay beside Baldy Mountain; also he recalled that someone had thrown away a leaky blue bucket. Since then hundreds of people have tried to find the lost Blue Bucket mine, searching as far off course as the Ochoco Mountains." irma [email protected]