Page 166 - 2015 Travel Guide to California

GOLD COUNTRY
The land of the “Mother Lode,” source of California dreams
B Y J O H N F L I N N
TOP CITIES
Sacramento, Sonora, Placerville, Auburn, Downieville,
Sutter Creek, Nevada City, Jackson, Columbia, Murphys,
Jamestown, Angels Camp
INTERNATIONAL GATEWAY
Sacramento International Airport (SMF), 13 miles (21 km)
from the city center
TOURISM WEBSITES
discovergold.org
visit-eldorado.com
visitsacramento.com
POPULATION
650,000
GOLD
COUNTRY
It was a flash in the pan—literally—that changed world history. The glit-
tering gold nugget that caught the eye of James W. Marshall as he tended
a sawmill in the Sierra Nevada foothills in January 1848 set off a gold
rush that drew more than 300,000 would-be prospectors the following year
from the eastern U.S., South America, Europe, even China. They were known
as the 49ers.
Overnight, the Gold Rush transformed San Francisco from a sleepy port to
a rollicking city and persuaded Congress to put California—wrested from
Mexico by war just two years earlier—on the fast track to statehood. Most of
the gold was found in a 300-mile belt that extended through the Sierra
foothills, from Downieville in the north to Coarsegold in the south. Miners
called it the “Mother Lode.”
In a state working tirelessly to invent the future, the Gold Country remains
the most visible manifestation of its not-so-distant past, with towns sporting
wood-plank sidewalks, swinging saloon doors, hitching posts and red-brick
buildings. (You’ll quickly discover that the best preserved of these belonged
to Wells Fargo and, oddly, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.)
Today you can still pan for gold—it’s often said there’s more left in the
ground than the original 49ers ever took out—but you can also raft some of
California’s frothiest rivers, explore caverns and sample Chardonnay and
Syrah in a number of uncrowded, up-and-coming wineries.
164 2015 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A
ERSLER DMITRY/SHUTTERSTOCK; OPPOSITE: ALAN BEYMER/GOLD COUNTRY VISITOR’S ASSOCIATION