A Golden Legacy

A Golden Legacy

While the boom days of California's 1849 Gold Rush have faded into history, people who believe in Lady Luck still search for the elusive mineral in the foothills around Placerville (pop. 9,610), and occasionally they find fortune.

"I stock fourteen types of gold pans and sell about 100 each month," says Deanna Fausel, who along with husband, David, owns the 1852 Placerville Hardware, the oldest, continuously operating hardware store west of the Mississippi River. "But you never know where gold will turn up. One dad came in and bought a pan, but it was his son, kicking rocks, who came across a quartz piece bigger than a quarter, covered with gold."

Three generations of Fausels have greeted fortune-seekers since David's Uncle George Fausel bought the hardware store on Main Street in 1952. The original store basically "grew up" with the town, which began as a haphazard collection of canvas tents in 1849, a year after gold was discovered eight miles away at Sutter's Mill and miners flooded into the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Today, folks seeking a country weekend mosey around Placerville's Main Street. Antiques, local art, and gourmet restaurants occupy the historic storefronts. Nearby wineries and family-owed apple ranches, many started by the miners, combine old-fashioned hospitality with award-winning vintages and baked goods. The railroad tracks now are a walking/cycling trail that winds along tree-lined Hangtown Creek.

Originally, Placerville was called Old Hangtown after a series of robberies in which the three thieves were convicted and left dangling from a giant white oak tree at the western edge of the mining camp. Other lawbreakers soon met the same fate.

According to local lore, all that's left of the oak today is a stump beneath the floorboards of The Hangman's Tree, a Main Street bar. A mannequin suspended from a hangman's noose above the bar's door further reminds customers that Placerville has a notorious and legendary past.

By 1854, Old Hangtown's population of 5,000 made it the third largest city in California, behind San Francisco and Sacramento. Seeking a more sophisticated image, citizens changed the town's name to Placerville, "the town of gold deposits," which was incorporated as a city in 1854.

"Placer mining—picks, shovels, pans and sluice boxes—coaxed about $1 million in gold from the streams around Placerville by 1852," says Rich Dvoracek, a local geologist and volunteer at the Gold Bug Park and Mine. "Figures run as high as $25 million for the value of gold that ultimately came out of the Placerville mines from the mid-1850s to mid-1870s when hardrock quartz mining took over."

During the peak of the Gold Rush, from 1850 to 1851, Dvoracek estimates 143 gold mines operated in and around Placerville. One mine, dating from 1888, known today as the Gold Bug, now attracts history buffs instead of miners. Part of Placerville's golden legacy is the distinction of being the only city in California to own a former gold mine that's open to the general public for tours.

"We had visitors from 35 foreign countries and 50 states last year," says Bob Hoffman, a city employee who leads tours of the mine. Visitors are asked to don hard hats when exploring the main tunnel, which runs 352 feet into the hillside and boasts a constant temperature of 52 degrees.

Hoffman confesses to never having looked for gold before working at the Gold Bug, but he will admit to having "found a little color now and then. You know, it's estimated that 80 percent of the gold's still in the ground."

Prospectors still look for the precious metal around Placerville, but they're tight-lipped about precisely where they find their gold.

"That's because they still worry about claim jumpers, just like during the Gold Rush," says Charles Stephens, owner of 153-year-old Randolph Jewelers, one of the oldest jewelry shops in the West. "We see all types of miners in here now: hobbyists, people who supplement their day jobs with panning and the professionals who do it full time."

Around the corner at Placerville Hardware, all work came to a standstill in 2004 when a local miner plunked down a 20-ounce gold nugget on the counter. "He wouldn't tell us where he was working, but it sure gave us all gold fever," Fausel says.

Visit www.placerville-downtown.org for more information.

Debi Drake is a freelance writer in Placerville, Calif.

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