Mountain Ranch
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Originally known as El Dorado Camp, the town’s name was changed in 1868 when the post office was moved here from the original Mountain Ranch, which was located one mile away on Whiskey Slide Road.
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California State Highway 49: The Golden Chain
“In the days of old, in the days of gold, in the days of ‘49”
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.
PC - Volcano, Calif 1850s
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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.
Read MoreCalaveritas
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The settlement known as Calaveritas, which means “little skull” in Spanish, was originally two separate camps known as Lower Calaveritas and Upper Calaveritas, located about a mile or so apart on Calaveritas Creek.
Read MoreFourth Crossing
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The rich placers of San Antonio Creek were first located in 1848. Shortly afterwards, David Foreman settled in the area and established a combination trading post, saloon and hotel for which the site was early known as Foremans Ranch. The place soon came to be called Fourth Crossing; however, as it was located at the fourth river crossing on the road between Stockton and Angels Camp. The four crossings were at the Calaveras River, the north fork of the Calaveras, Calaveritas Creek, and San Antonio Creek.
Read MoreAltaville
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Also known as Cherokee Flat, Forks in the Road, and Winterton, Altaville was established on Cherokee Creek, northwest of Angels Camp in 1852. According to legend, the area was a favorite haunt of Joaquin Murieta, the bandit, who supposedly spent so much time here that a mountain northwest of the creek was named Joaquin Mountain. While rich pockets of gold, the "richest of the state," were discovered here in 1854, the gold only lasted a short time. The town was also an important point for supplies and machinery; however, which enabled it to survive even after the gold was gone. The camp eventually became a part of Angels Camp as that town continued to grow and expand into the outlying areas.
Read MoreMurphys
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John and Daniel Murphy arrived in California in 1844 as members of the Stevens-Townsend party, the first immigrant party to bring wagons across the Sierra Nevada to Sutter’s Fort. The brothers made their living as traders for several years, but turned to prospecting after they heard of Marshall’s discovery on the American River.
Read MoreMountain Quarries Railroad Bridge
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Just downstream from the confluence of the North and Middle Forks of the American River stands the Mountain Quarries Railroad Bridge. Constructed in 1912, it was at that time the longest concrete arch railroad bridge in the world. The bridge was designed by John Buck Leonard and built by the Donaldson & Harrelson Company for the Mountain Quarries Company and the Pacific Portland Cement Company, at a cost of $300,000. It was built to haul limestone from a nearby quarry to Auburn, located 7 miles away. The bridge was in use daily until the Mountain Quarries shut down in 1941. The following year, the railroad track along the entire line was removed for the war effort.
Read MorePC - Placer Mining Scars at Dutch Flat, Cal
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This is a colorful card manufactured by the Pacific Novelty Co. of San Francisco & Los Angeles. It's entitled "Placer Mining Scars at Dutch Flat, California." Hydraulic Mining is what caused those "scars." The areas surrounding Dutch Flat were heavily mined during the Gold Rush with hydraulic methods.
Read MoreVallecito
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After splitting off from the Carson party at Angels Creek, John and Daniel Murphy headed east looking for likely prospects. The brothers reached Coyote Creek in October of 1848, and after a few pans showing good color, they set up camp and christened the site Murphys Diggings. The boys worked the stream for a few months and then decided to move on and search for better diggings. They eventually settled down about six miles away, where the y founded the camp now known as Murphys, afterwhich their original camp was referred to as Murphys Old Diggings.
Read MoreDouglas Flat
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Before the Gold Rush, Chief Walker and a tribe of Miwok Indians occupied this placid little valley, their camp located near a fine, clear spring. After the Gold Rush, things changed. With the discovery of gold in Coyote Creek, a mining camp appeared almost overnight, a camp that included a church, post office, flour mill, blacksmith, school, two distilleries, several merchandise stores, and seven saloons. Several thousand miners, a mixture of Chileans, Italians, French, English, Irish, Welsh, Danes, Mexicans, and Americans were working the placers, as well as four major mines. And as the Indians no longer had a place to live, they left.
Read MorePC - Ready to Look for Gold
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Here's an old, real-photo postcard entitled "Ready to look for Gold." The burros are all packed, the prospector looks ready to head for the hills and the guy in the coat and tie could be the man providing the grubstake. I wonder if the photographer just happened upon this scene or if it was staged.
Read MoreCopperopolis
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Hiram Hughes was fed up with the Silver Rush. Leaving the mines of Nevada’s Comstock Lode, he returned to Calaveras County in 1860 and began prospecting for gold along Gopher Ridge. Noticing a resemblance in the rock formations here to those of the Washoe region in Nevada, he staked a claim on Quail Hill that May. Hiram worked the claim, turning up small amounts of gold and silver, and a lot of reddish colored ore referred to by the local miners as “iron rust.”
Read MoreBlack Bart
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On August 3rd of 1877, a stage was making its way over the low hills between Point Arenas and Duncan’s Mills on the Russian River when a lone figure suddenly appeared in the middle of the road. Wearing a long linen duster and masked with a flour scan, the bandit pointed a double-barreled shotgun at the driver and said, in a deep and resonant voice, “Throw down the box!”
Read MoreAngels Camp
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Henry and George Angel arrived in California as soldiers, serving under Colonel Frémont during the Mexican War. After the war’s end, the brothers found themselves in Monterey where they heard of the fabulous finds in the gold fields. The tales proved too strong a lure, so they joined the Carson-Robinson party of prospectors and set out for the mines. The company parted ways upon reaching what later became known as Angels Creek, with the Murphy group heading east and the Carson party continuing south. It was September of 1848.
Read MorePC - Jackson, Cal. - Main Street
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This one is of Main Street, in downtown Jackson, California. I don't know much about old cars, but the ones in this image would lead me to guess the photo was taken in the 1930s. It's a great shot of one of my favorite Gold Rush towns.
Read MoreJohn Sutter
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John Sutter was born on February 15th of 1803 in Kandern, Baden, a few miles from the Swiss border. Apprenticed to a firm of printers and booksellers, Sutter soon found the paper business was not for him. While clerking in a draper’s shop, he met his future wife, Annette Dubeld, and the two were married in Burgdorf on October 24th of 1826. A series of business failures resulted in Sutter’s decision to seek his fortune in America. At the age of thirty-one, he left his wife and four children, a step ahead of his creditors.
Read MorePC - Hangtown (Placerville), Cal
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Within a week in 1848, Dayton and McCoon had extracted $10,000 in Gold from this area and started the feverish rush of miners into "Dry Diggins," the first name given to this community. The name "Hangtown," which still persists as a nickname, was no doubt aqcuired because of the many hangings which took place there in 1849.
Read MoreAlbany Flat
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During 1851, when the placers of Six Mile Creek were proving incredibly rich, a mining camp known as Albany Flat sprang into prominence. Before long an estimated fifteen hundred miners were working the creeks, gulches and ravines in this area, mining great quantities of gold which they readily spent at the stores, restaurants, and saloons that appeared almost overnight.
Read MoreCarson Hill
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The creek, the hill, and the camp were all named for the same man, Sgt. James H. Carson, a member of Colonel Stevenson’s Regiment of First New York Volunteers. Organized to fight in the Mexican War, the regiment arrived in California in 1847, but saw little action and were mustered out of service at the end of the war. As no provisions had been made for their return to the States, the soldiers found themselves stranded in California. Carson happened to be in Monterey when news of Marshall’s discovery reached that town in the spring of 1848. After packing his belongings and buying a few supplies, he set out for the gold fields.
Read MorePC - Real California Gold Nuggets
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Of such as these are Empires built. This is a great postcard, it actually has three small gold nugget flakes in the gold pan. The back of the card reads: The Gold Nuggets attached to this card are Genuine, they were "panned" from streams in ... California's Historic Mother Lode.
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