Mercuryville, California become a ghost town. One of the last remaining large mine buildings was burned in wildfires in the mid-1970s, although some concrete structures and metalwork from the mines remain. Mercuryville, California Mercuryville, California is a ghost town in the Mayacamas Mountains along The Geysers road. Mercuryville was founded in 1874, after cinnabar, a mercury bearing ore, was discovered in eastern Sonoma County around 1870. Mercury is a dense liquid metal that can be used to separate gold from other less dense materials and the California Gold Rush, which had begun only 20 years earlier, increased the demand and price of
Glassworks Museum of the Ore Mountains in 1750, of Purschenstein Castle was placed under protection. Through grants the house, which is owned by the parish, was refurbished and, with the help of the local branch of the Ore Mountain Club, turned into a museum. In May 1996 the Ore Mountain Glassworks Museum ("Erzgebirgische Glashüttenmuseum") opened its first exhibition. It contained pieces from the roughly 800-year-old glassmaking industry in the Ore Mountains. The exhibition focusses particularly on the history of the Heidelbach Glassworks from 1488 to 1827. Since opening, the museum has also been enhanced by the replica of a glass melting furnace in an adjoining building,