First Class Miners (Twentynine Palms)

About First Class Miners (Twentynine Palms)

First Class Miners takes its name from where it started. In 1992 Copper Mountain College offered a course called Desert Prospecting, taught by a Twentynine Palms dentist; it began with 35 students and soon shrank to 20, and in March 1993 those twenty, the first class, formed a club and before long filed their first claim. Z107.7, the Joshua Tree radio station, tells the same story, and the club's motto promises gold to anyone who brings "elbow grease." Today it counts over 150 family memberships and more than 250 members.

In 2003 the club incorporated as a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit, with the goal of teaching placer gold prospecting and mining, the laws that govern it and the history of mining in the West. It began giving gold panning demonstrations at events around the Morongo Basin, and elementary schools soon asked for them as part of fourth-grade California history; the demonstrations now travel with a mobile historical mining museum, and whoever finds gold in the pan keeps it. In October 2026 the club brought its panning and museum to the Joshua Tree Gem and Mineral Show and went to the Twentynine Palms Night Sky Festival, and in 2024 it gave a dry-washing talk and panning demonstration in the Historical Society's Fridays at the Museum series.

General meetings come six times a year, in January, March, May, July, September and November, at 11 AM at the Old Schoolhouse Museum in Twentynine Palms; the weekday moves from one meeting to the next, so check the club calendar. The next one is on Sunday, November 1, 2026, followed by the fall kickoff campout on the shared claims in the Virginia Dale Mining District from November 6 to 8 and the awards banquet on December 5. Renewals open on May 1 and close on July 1, and a paper application is required.

The eight club campouts run from Friday to Sunday at or near the claims, and members may arrive early and stay late. Most gold comes from dry washing and metal detecting, Saturday ends with a potluck and a bonfire where legal, and these weekends are where new members learn how it is done. Since 2003 the Call & Safety program lets anyone heading out tell a club officer which claim they are visiting, who is along and when they expect to be back.

The claims add up to 520 acres. Grizzly 4 lies in the Ord Mountains, with a camp half a mile off the pavement that any vehicle can reach. Rattlesnake Placers, at about 5,600 feet in Rattlesnake Canyon, is the summer retreat, where open fires are not allowed, with the 140-acre Red Cabin claim along its southern edge; the RRR claim sits in the San Bernardino National Forest about three miles away. East of Twentynine Palms, in the Dale mining area, lie the First Class claim, nicknamed Humbug after its mountains and the oldest of all, and farther out the 20-acre Lucky Nugget, where one gully has given up a 2.5-ounce nugget; the two Middle Camp claims are more remote than Humbug too.

Other clubs and places nearby

• Chambless Rock Collecting AreaFree public dig · 42 mi
• Marble Mountain Rock Collecting Area (Trilobites)Free public dig · 43 mi
• San Gorgonio Mineral & Gem SocietyClub · 45 mi
• Yucaipa Valley Gem & Mineral SocietyClub · 57 mi
• Hemet Valley Prospectors (GPAA)Club · 63 mi
• Borrego Rock and Gem Club (BRAG)Club · 63 mi

Where to buy gear nearby

• Hitched4FunOnline shop · 65 mi
• Destination Gold DetectorsOnline shop · 69 mi
• Diamond Pacific Tool CorpOnline shop · 77 mi
• GPAA Store (Gold Prospectors Association of America)Online shop · 77 mi

Sources

• First Class Miners
• First Class Miners: about us
• First Class Miners: our claims
• First Class Miners: membership
• First Class Miners: Call & Safety program
• Z107.7 FM: First Class Miners panning demonstration at the Old Schoolhouse Museum (April 12, 2024)
• Z107.7 FM: Searching for Gold with First Class Miners (December 1, 2023)