Richard Keys
Richard Keys (also spelled Keyes) was a prospector whose 1853 gold discovery on the Kern River launched the Kern River gold rush in Southern California. The camp of Keysville, founded in 1854, and the Keys Mine both bear his name; little else about his life is recorded.
Biography
Richard Keys — his surname also appears as Keyes, and he is sometimes recorded as Richard M. Keyes — was the prospector credited with the 1853 gold discovery on the upper Kern River that set off the Kern River gold rush, one of the first major mining excitements in Southern California. Thousands of hopeful miners streamed into the rugged canyon country of the southern Sierra Nevada, most of them to be disappointed by diggings far poorer than the rumors promised.
The camp that grew up around the discovery was founded in 1854 as Keysville (also written Keyesville), and the Keys Mine on the slope above continued to be worked intermittently for decades. Keysville is today a California registered historical landmark. Beyond the discovery itself, however, records of Keys's life are thin: his origins, his later movements, and his dates of birth and death are not reliably documented.