This was printed in the January 1976 issue of the PML News.

FOR WANT OF A PROOFREADER
A ROAD WAS MISNAMED
Unknown Author

The name of PML's Nonparcel Way is victim of a harried secretary's typographical error. The intention was to name the Unit four road, Nonpareil.

The Nonpareil quartz mine, as extension of the Two Brothers Mine in Deer Flat, was a good producer in its day. It was founded by the Nonpareil gold manufacturing company in 1862 and was located on the hillside near the old road leading from Big Oak Flat to Deer Flat.

The TUOLUMNE PROSPECTOR of May 4, 1872 reported "The Nonpareil mining company at Deer Flat advertises for proposals for running 200 feet of tunnel. The owners of the Nonpareil are determined to work on it with vigor."

The May 31, 1873 issue of the TUOLUMNE INDEPENDENT described the mine thus: "It is a regular fissure vein located at Deer Flat. The ledge is five feet wide, well defined, with fair supply of sulphurets.

"It has paid well since 1862, averaging $21.62 per ton, not including extraordinary specimens, enabling the proprietors to pay for their mill and other expenses in a short time.

"The primitive mode of working at the commencement was found insufficient and a tunnel was started which, up to last Saturday after the last blast, had reached 272 feet.

"Their tunnel is a fine piece of workmanship, six feet high in the clear, five foot base and four foot top, without a piece of timber, having blasted through solid slate all the way.

"The grade is one foot to the hundred, with iron faced track."

Several relocation claims were registered as work along the vein progressed. In 1882 Frederick Murrow, justice of the 4th district, extended the claim "directly through the house over the windlass shaft on the old works of the Nonpareil and through the whim shaft to an oak tree about 20 feet above the Nonpareil company reservoir above the company's mill."

In 1885 another relocation was recorded by Messrs. McKay and McLean and Justice Murrow, "commencing at a reservoir on the gulch which runs down to the Nonpareil company's mill and running in a westerly direction�"

John Ballentine claimed a water right in 1886 to all water flowing from the Nonpareil tunnel to the extent of four inches, the water to be diverted from the tunnel and conveyed to his residence and land for mining and general irrigating purposes.

In 1903 a newspaper report informed readers that a force of men had been engaged for several days clearing away the results of a small cave-in and were putting things in order for taking out ore. Two months later an item announced that "a 500 ton mill test of rock from the Nonpareil is now on in earnest. Ore is being hauled to the Moody mill and the mill is crushing steadily 12 hours a day."

A subsequent entry reported that a letter received by Mr. Dron, mine superintendent, from the San Francisco owners stated that they were "highly gratified at the showing made at the recent mill test of ore from the Nonpareil mine."

A 1909 booklet produced to promote Tuolumne County expansively reported that they Nonpareil, owned by a Scotch company, had a shaft down 250 feet. "The vein is massive, attaining a width of 40 feet. Crushing is done in a 10-stamp mill."

The Nonpareil no longer produces, of course, but perhaps the typographical error which revoked the intention to commemorate a mine that once held a significant role in the economy of the area can be rectified and new street signs erected to read, Nonpareil.