I’m reading a great book “Gunfighters, Highway Men and Vigilantes” all about two of the most famous and most notorious western gold and silver mining boom towns - Aurora, NV and Bodie, CA - in the mid- to late-1800s. Really enjoyable and highly recommended.
I’ve seen YouTubes showing detectorists around those towns. They say the best places to find gold is in places it’s already been .found. The old timers went after the biggest and easiest to find and cheapest to mine deposits. But vastly improved detector tools and vastly higher prices increase the allure of gold. Nevada still has a lot of it.
We’ve been to Bodie. One of the best-preserved ghost towns in the entire Western USA. Well worth a day’s visit if ever you’re in the region.
It is a California State Park, and they’ve done a great job preserving it.
https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=509