“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.
Marshall and his men set out for the millsite that September. Their first task was to build a double cabin to house the millworkers and the Wimmers; Peter, Jennie (the camp cook), and their children. Another cabin was then built for Marshall. Some forty local Indians were hired to excavate the millrace and to build the diversion dam. The more skilled men set to felling trees and whipsawing them into timbers for the mill.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
