The Mining Camps

Prentice Mulford, an early participant of the California Gold Rush, wrote "The California mining camp was ephemeral. Often it was founded, built up, flourished, decayed, and had weeds and herbage growing over its site and hiding all of man's work inside of ten years." And that was true. Once the gold played out, there was usually no reason for anyone to stay, and the buildings and camps were deserted, left to the elements and the stray ghost or two. But if a mining camp happened to be located on rich gold deposits, or had some reason other than gold to exist, it may have been able to maintain a continuous existence and have survived to this day.The mining camps on the map below are such towns, survivors from the days of gold. Click on a town to start your journey and visit often. The history text and photographs are taken from my book, The California Gold Country: Highway 49 Revisited, which goes into more detail than the information on this website. The links will be updated as often as possible, to provide up-to-date information for Hwy 49 travelers.