Rhoads Diggings, about 1/4-mile south of this site, was a rich alluvial placer gold deposit that Thomas Rhoads kept secret and mined successfully. In the spring of 1846, Thomas and his wife Elizabeth, friends of Brigham Young, agreed to bring their 14 children and 12 grandchildren from Missouri to California. After arriving in California, the Rhoads arranged with Captain John Sutter to live on Dry Creek near the present town of Galt. Following a visit with former Mormon Battalion members, Thomas and his son Daniel were prospecting for gold at Mormon Island in March 1848 and camped on a dry hillside in this area, where their experience as miners led them to recognize small gold nuggets in their camp. According to family lore, Thomas and Daniel discreetly gathered gold here for about a year, and the area later became known as Rhoads Diggings. In 1849, at Brigham Young's request, Rhoads and about 45 others left California for Utah. He hid $17,000, weighing 60 pounds, in a buckskin pouch inside a barrel of flour. Later called the Rhoads' Gold Train, he brought 100 pounds of gold with him, including the 60-pound pouch, most of it taken from Rhoads Diggings. This gold was used to establish the Salt Lake Mint and sustain the struggling new Mormon settlement in the West.