Soaring price of gold reopens mines in Arizona

The glory days of the Gold Rush may be history, but the lure of gold is bringing fortune hunters back to Arizona's mines. With the price of a gold at just under $900 per ounce, weekend diggers and mining companies are returning to Arizona's mines, reports Max Jarman of The Arizona Republic. (Dale Enloe shovels dirt, which he'll sift using a machine called a highbanker; Republic photo by Pat Shannahan)

"Investors increasingly have looked to gold as a haven because of falling stock prices and the real-estate slump," Jarman writes. "Demand has pushed up the price of gold as much as 45 percent in the past 12 months and brought a dozen or so mainly Canadian mining companies into the state."

The last Arizona gold mine closed in 1998, but companies are working to reopen mines, especially in western Arizona. The state expects to bring in $300,000 this year from mineral exploration permits, up from $96,000 in 2006, Jarman reports. At the same time, more and more people are spending a weekend gold-panning. A weekend of prospecting can bring in $1,000, one gold-panning club leader told Jarman. (Read more)