The children of Long Valley School, Placer County, 1890

This photo from the Placer County Museums is full of personalities who once inhabited Long Valley, with a population of around 60. We see kids from the school enjoying their lunch around the school well. The teacher, looking very professorial, is enjoying a drink of that cool Long Valley water.

The fun is taking a closer look at the photo and the kids. You’ve got the older boys looking mischievous at the right while numerous younger kids look like they will burst out laughing at any moment. Be sure to check out the old-school lunch/water buckets.

One resident of Long Valley, born in 1893, was Clark Ashton Smith, writer and artist most famous for his fantasy writing along the vein of H. P. Lovecraft. You can read more about Smith here.

Long Valley was located on the Auburn Sacramento Road, a mile or so south of Auburn. Leaving Long Valley heading south on Rattlesnake Bar Road, you would have crossed the old Rattlesnake Bar Bridge, which we have written about before. Long Valley School still stands at the corner of Auburn Folsom Road and Rattlesnake Bar Road and is used as a community hall.

I’ve posted a map, The Georgetown Divide in 1873, and marked where the town was. To see the complete map go here.

1873 Map showing Long Valley and the Rattlesnake Bar Bridge site, Click map for closer view.

Georgetown Divide History Tour, Part 2

Our next stop on our tour of the Georgetown Divide is the 1855 Meyer's Dance Hall and Saloon, just up Beach Street from the site of the old bridge at Lotus. You can read about the old bridge crossing at our first post of the tour here. Following the map and turning around in the church parking lot, we head back towards Highway 49, where we find the ruins of the old hall on the left.

Before the town was named Lotus, it was known as Marshall, named for the discoverer of gold. In 1850 the name was changed to Uniontown in honor of California's entrance into statehood. The name of the town was changed again to Lotus in 1881. This road was the old route from Sacramento to the goldfields, and many would pass this business. Dancing was quite the entertainment back in the days before electricity, and this spot was known as a "miners delight."

Now we head back towards Highway 49 and turn left onto Highway 49, but the old road went straight, behind Marco's Restaurant and back out towards Highway 49. You can see the old route as a green line on our maps. It's good to know the old way as the descriptions of various features often relate to their location with "the road," which usually implies the historic route, not the road we travel on today.

The Georgetown Divide History tour

Just a short distance to the north we will arrive at the site of the long-gone town of Michigan Flat, the place where the Stanford Brothers, Leyland, and Thomas, laid the foundations for their great wealth as proprietors of a general merchandise store.

We’ll talk about that place with our next post.

Damascus, a ghost town in Placer County

It’s 1885, and The Damascus Brass Band has come to play a tune. Many small towns hidden in the foothills and mountains had brass bands. Some locations even had more than one band with the Italian, German, and British sometimes fielding their bands. If there was competition, it seems it was a friendly sort, with the Fourth of July, and other celebrations an occasion to “strike up the band!”

Damascus, Placer County.

This photograph shows the town of Damascus, in Placer County. It was located about seven miles south-east of Dutch Flat in a very isolated part of the county. The area started drift mining in 1850. In 1875 the Hidden Treasure Mine was discovered and worked until the mid-1930s.

You have to look closely to see these homes in Damascus.

Formerly the town was known as Strong’s Diggings after the founder of the town, Dr. D.W. Strong. In 1856 the post office was established, and the name Damascus chosen. Why they chose this name is a mystery, as the older town of Damascus is in the country of Syria. I’m guessing the town got this name the same way the town of Timbuktu, in Yuba County, garnered it’s. These towns were so far “out there” from anything else exotic names like Timbuktu and Damascus represent unusual out of the way locations.

A nice clear photo of Damascus in 1905. Mining was still taking place, but a bit more limited than during the Gold Rush and later 1800's.

The above map shows the location of the town. If you would like to check it out on Google Earth and see the relationship with the other towns, follow this link.

Iowa Hill baseball team and a surprise.

The Iowa Hill baseball team in the late 1800s. A typical small-town baseball team, with a couple of young kids hiding behind a tree. At one time, Iowa Hill was a prosperous mining town that was producing $100,000 a week in the mid-19th Century. Fielding a baseball team to play the other gold mining towns was the regular practice, as baseball was the pastime sport of choice in those days.

You never know what you're going to find out when we post these photos. We heard from a person who is the keeper of Iowa Hill's memories, and she related this story. "Native son and big-league baseball champion William "Seattle Bill" James was the waterboy--he is the child behind the tree. He returned to his home town for a visit in October 1914 following the World Series win of his Boston Braves against the "unbeatable" Philadelphia Athletics, largely due to Bill's pitching."

Wow, that young boy's fascination with the team grew into a career that took him far away from this old mining town. You never know what you'll find out with these old photographs from a time gone. Above is a photo of William pitching for the Boston Braves.

Photos: Placer County Museums

Iowa Hill Baseball Team

There was a time when baseball was America's favorite pastime, and every town tried to field a team. Iowa Hill, located in an isolated area between Foresthill and Colfax, was no exception. Of course, they didn't necessarily have to travel too far as there were other isolated gold hunting communities in the hills that also had teams.

In the photo above the catcher shows off the tools of his position, a catcher glove, and what looks like a homemade chest protector. The man at far left has a glove that doesn't look much bigger than an oven mitt, while the ball seems to be about softball size.

There are a couple of photo bombers in the above picture. A couple of kids sit in the background near a tree. One has a watering can. All the people in the photograph have identifying numbers, The town, and these people are long gone, but not forgotten.

It’s said that on summer evenings when the air is very still, you can still hear the cry of “Play Ball!” echoing throughout the hills and ghost towns of Placer County.

All photos: Placer County Museums.

Deadwood, Placer County

This is the first post of a new series we are going to run titled, Ghost Towns of Placer County.

Deadwood seemed a popular name back in the day. We were pretty familiar with Deadwood South Dakota due to the TV series a few years ago. What most don’t know is there was a Deadwood in Placer County. This Deadwood got its start in 1852 after gold was discovered in the nearby vicinity. At one time, Sam Colt, the gun manufacturer, lived here.

The outside of the Deadwood Hotel, 1910.

Seems the gold started to run out around 1855, but with modest returns on their diggings, people hung around for many years after. It seems that is the way with so many of the ghost towns in Gold County, find gold, build a city, gold runs out, and people hang around making some living. They either stay and make a long term run for it or in the case of these very far out places, disappear into the history books, or not.

Deadwood Hotel, operated by the Ferguson’s.

The inside of the Deadwood Hotel, 1911.

The Deadwood school house, 1896.

Deadwood is all gone but for it’s cemetery and a couple of old wells. Here is a Google map of the location. Click the map for an interactive version.