Cali49

Let's go see what we can find

Hwy49

The California Gold Country: Highway 49 Revisited. Gold Rush Mining Camps in photo and prose. The Golden Chain Hwy through California's La Veta Madre.

California State Highway 49: The Golden Chain

“In the days of old, in the days of gold, in the days of ‘49”

— Bob Dylan

California State Highway 49, the “Mother Lode Highway,” can truly take you back to the days of ’49. The road connects gold rush mining camps, ghost towns and historic sites from Oakhurst in the south, to Sierra City in the north. It’s three hundred miles of beautiful country along the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Twisting mountain roads, sheer granite walls, precipitous drops to swiftly moving rivers. Old buildings, gold mines, forgotten cemeteries. Let’s go see what we can find.

July 16, 2015

Volcano

July 16, 2015/ Elliot Koeppel

Who the first men were to mine this region is not known for certain, but legend has it that among the earliest were members of Stevenson’s Regiment who chanced upon the diggings in 1848. They found the placers exceedingly rich, averaging $100 a day per man, with some spots yielding up to $500. The claims in Soldiers Gulch were paying so well that no one took the time off from mining to build any kind of permanent shelter. So when the first snows began to fly, most of the men packed up their gear and headed for friendlier climes.

July 15, 2015

Jackson

July 15, 2015/ Elliot Koeppel

Empty bottles left alongside a year-round spring located on the trail between Drytown and Mokelumne Hill gave rise to the site’s first name, Bottilleas, most likely an American corruption of the Spanish word for bottle, Botella. That name didn’t last long; however, as by 1849 the small settlement was known as Jacksons Creek, or more simply, Jackson. The camp was probably named in honor of Andrew Jackson, although some claim it was so-called for Colonel Alden Appolas Moore Jackson who may have mined here briefly in 1849, before moving on to the Tuolumne River where he established the mining camp of Jacksonville.

Cali49

Joshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.