Follow Highway 49 for beautiful scenery, picturesque small towns and gold rush heritage
BY PETER ELLEGARD
In search of a truly golden American road trip holiday? Then head for California’s Highway 49, built a century ago this year to link up the numerous colourful communities that were part of the epic California Gold Rush, and connect them with regional port cities.
Otherwise known as the Mother Lode Highway and the Golden Chain, the road – mainly a single-lane in each direction – twists and turns for almost 320 miles along the gentle foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Along the way are delightful small towns that look like they were preserved in aspic; a number even still have wooden boardwalks. Historic markers abound, as do sites and activities that take you back to the mid-19th century. That’s when tens of thousands of fledgling gold prospectors swarmed into this newly-acquired American territory from across the country and far beyond. In the process, the non-native population expanded from a mere 8,000 to 200,000 by 1852, while the native population declined dramatically.
Highway 49 has been described as America’s last great, undiscovered road trip – a journey back through time, away from the frantic freeways and 24-hour diners of modern life. Social media here isn’t faceless online interaction; it’s in cafes and bars, where the locals gather to chat and where visiting strangers are warmly welcomed.
The highway runs from Vinton, north of Lake Tahoe, southward to Oakhurst, close to Yosemite National Park, the final 26- mile section from Mariposa being added in 1971. The far northern section links characterful Gold Rush towns such as Nevada City, Downieville and Sierra City. However, I start my trip in Auburn, near the California state capital, Sacramento, after overnighting at former stagecoach stop Elk Grove. Among Auburn’s attractions are a 22ft-tall sculpture, The Chinese Coolie, depicting a Chinese immigrant gold miner; the imposing hilltop Placer County Courthouse; California’s oldest continuously-operating post office; and a red and white wooden firehouse, dating back to 1891.
Heading south, Coloma’s Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, on the south fork of the American River, preserves the site of the 1848 gold find by James Marshall, which began the Gold Rush. Attractions include a replica of Sutter’s Mill, where the discovery was made, and original buildings used by the town’s 50 resident Chinese miners. During the tourist season you can try your luck by panning for gold in the river.
Next comes Placerville, the western terminus of the famous, if short-lived, Pony Express postal service and home to the Gold Bug Mine, open for hard-hat, self-guided tours year-round. Placerville was known as ‘Old Hangtown’ for the number of Gold Rush-era hangings that took place there. The former Hangman’s Tree Saloon, built over the stump of the hanging tree, is now an ice cream parlour.
I wander the time-warp streets of former mining towns Amador City, Jackson and Sutter Creek – one of the Mother Lode’s best-preserved towns – before stopping at the small Ironstone Vineyards Heritage Museum near the village of Murphys to view the world’s largest piece of crystalline gold, housed in a huge vault. Weighing in at 44lbs (16.4kg) and reputedly worth more than $4 million, it is the pride and joy of octogenarian John Kautz who, along with his wife Gail and their family, owns and runs the winery, one of a number along this stretch of the highway.
The nearby former mining community of Angels Camp was put on the map by Mark Twain’s short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which he wrote while staying in a local cabin during the winter of 1864-65. You can visit a replica of the cabin and, if in town in May, watch – or join in – a jumping frog contest at nearby Frogtown’s Calaveras State Fair.
Next comes former Gold Rush boom town Colombia, where you can take a stagecoach ride, go gold panning and visit the historic buildings in the living history museum, Columbia State Historic Park. There are monthly Gold Rush Days, street dances and an annual parade and re-enactment of an 1852 Gold Rush tent town. Colombia has also been the site of several films, notably the iconic 1952 Western, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper.
Sonora, known as the ‘Queen of the Southern Mines’, is worth visiting for its fine architecture and fascinating Tuolumne County Museum, housed in the Old County Jail. In Jamestown, I stay at the venerable National Hotel, built in 1859 and one of California’s 10 oldest hotels. Owner Stephen Willey tells me about the hotel’s friendly ghost, Flo, but I don’t meet her. Just blocks away, the wonderful old steam locomotives and carriages of Railtown 1897 State Historic Park echo the glory days of the Sierra Railway, originally built to transport goods and supplies to and from this remote area.
By 1855 the Gold Rush was over, leaving only big industrial mining operations to continue extracting the precious metal, with more than 3,500 metric tons of gold pulled out over the next 50 years. In 1919, Highway 49 was built to connect the Gold Rush towns with major inland river ports such as Sacramento and Stockton.
However, many of the Gold Rush miners, known as Forty-niners, decided to stay on and I meet the descendants of some of them in my next two stops. John Shimer, a retired forestry firefighter and president of Coulterville’s Northern Mariposa County History Centre & Museum, recalls how his 21-year-old great-grandfather arrived in the California gold fields in 1849 after a five-month mule-drawn wagon train journey from Cadiz, Ohio, returning later with his young family to work as a blacksmith and to continue searching for gold. And, in Mariposa’s Museum & History Centre, another retired firefighter, Gary Williams, tells me about his great-grandfather, a Cornish tin miner, who switched to cattle farming when he realised he would make more money feeding the miners than trying to find gold. The star of the California State Mining and Mineral Museum, at the Mariposa County Fairgrounds, is the legendary Fricot Nugget. Weighing an impressive 13.8lbs (6.3kg), it was discovered in an El Dorada County mine.
Before setting off from here for Highway 49’s end at Oakhurst, where I visit preserved 1870s buildings at Fresno Flats Historic Village and Park, I ponder if the Gold Rush was so short because it ran out of gold. “No,” says museum guide Randy Bott, “it was simply that the prospectors were going after the ‘lowhanging fruit’, and when that had gone it became more expensive to dig deeper. There is still a lot more gold to be found; in fact, 85 per cent of it is still in the ground.”
Next time I take a drive along Highway 49 I’m going armed with a prospectors’ map, a pickaxe, a shovel and gold pan!
LEARN MORE: Find out more about Highway 49 from the Gold Country Visitors Association (www.visitgoldcountry.com), which includes links to all the counties it passes through.
