Ghost Towns Rank High Among Tourist Resorts

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27079, 13 May 1949, Page 11

Ghost Towns Rank High Among Tourist Resorts

By David Briggs, a Reuter Correspondent in Washington

One of the major attractions for tourists in America this year is the * boomed and busted ” Ghost Towns in California and Nevada where celebrations are to be held to mark the 100th anniversary of the fabulous gold rush of 1849. That remarkable period in American history, when hundreds of thousands of gold-seekers flooded into the thinly inhabited parts of the far west, actually began in 1848 when John W. Marshall found a small nugget of gold in the tailrace of Sutter’s Mill in California. The real “ rush ” to the west really got into full swing only in the following year when the “ 49ers ” began their frenzied digging in virtually every small gulch throughout the two States.

Sutter's Mill boomed into a community of 13 hotels and 10,000 miners at its peak, and became known as Coloma. It was just one of a series of similar camp cities. To-day “ Ghost Towns ” by the score, in varying states of preservation, dot this region of Northern California. A variety of fates awaited these turbulent prospecting centres. Many of them have completely disappeared, but the towns in which permanent buildings were set up and, later when the gold supply vanished, deserted to the elements, will hold the greatest interest for tourists. These vacant false-front buildings, tumbled down and silent, lining weedchoked streets once housed thousands of people who lived and gambled there, whose only law was that of their six-shooters as they grubbed for gold. Among the most picturesque features of such places are the names given them by their first settlers, names testifying to the wild and frequently violent life that surged around them. They include: Squabble Town. Jackass Hill, Whiskey Slide, Last Chance, Grizzly Flats, You Bet, Rough and Ready, Second Garrotte, Red Dog, Roaring Camp, Poker, Flat. Growlersburg Volcano, Hangtown, Dry Diggins. and Angels’ Camp. While “ Ghost Town ” fate awaited many of these early settlements, others prospered even after the gold supply was exhausted. Such towns as Placerville, San Andreas, Angels' Camp and Sonora found themselves located on highways whose commerce replaced their original reason for existence. In these towns, modern homes and stores have long since outnumbered the goldrush landmarks. One town which began as a tiny camp in 1848 was known as Hildreths Diggings. Its

growth began in 1850* when a large gold nugget was found there, and its name was changed to American Camp. Within four years, its name had changed' again to Columbia and it had become the second largest city in California with a population of 35,000. It lost to Sacramento by two votes the honour of becoming the new State’s capital. Columbia will be one of the centres of the centenary celebrations, for the California Legislature made it part of a new State Park in 1945 and restored its original gold-rush buildings. Although its population has dropped to about one for each 100 of 1854, the town is now prospering on lumber and quarrying. Other interesting spots which tourists will visit in this centennial year are: Nevada City, which, like Rome, was built on Seven Hills and not in a day—but almost. It was well known in the days of the “ 49ers ” for having the highest-stake gambling houses as well as what was then California’s fanciest bar, known as “Madame Moustache’s’.” Georgetown, known in the 1850’s as Growlersburg, was a town of 10,000 gold-seekers which was destroyed by fire in 1852 reported to have been started by a property owner who had . bad luck in prospecting for gold but good luck in collecting the insurance. The town sprang up again from its ashes as quickly as it had sprung up from the wilderness. Paradise, a California town whose name, according to legend, was originally “Pair O’Dice.” No less interesting will be a series of former mining towns whose names have won a place ; in American literature. Ppker Flat, Roaring Camp, Red Dog, Fiddletown, and Simpson’s Bar ‘have all been recorded as they were in the days of the “49ers” in the stories of Bret Harte. Angels’ Camp, the scene of Mark Twain’s memorable story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog,” will hold a jumping frog jubilee for the benefit of the tourists.