Visit Agua Fria's Historic Sites
It’s difficult to imagine what Agua Fria must have looked like
during its peak, when a dozen stores, numerous monte and faro banks, a
billiard room, bowling alley, and hotel provided for the needs of the
hundreds of miners who once swarmed over the land in their search for
gold. According to an eyewitness, miners were “camped in every direction
for five miles from the common center...in tents and huts of every
description.” It’s difficult to imagine because nothing remains from
those days, even though the camp served as the first county seat of
Mariposa County from February 18 of 1850, to November 10 of 1851, a sign
of its early importance.Discovered by Sonoran miners in the early summer of 1849, Agua Fria
was one of the earliest settlements on Frémont’s Las Mariposas grant.
Named for two springs of cold water located at a bend of the creek, the
placer deposits of the area were rich, but like most of the placer camps
in the region were soon worked out. As the miners drifted off to other
camps, Agua Fria’s importance dwindled, and in 1852 the county seat was
moved to Mariposa as the result of a county-wide vote, after a mandate
by the State Legislature required all county seats to be determined by
the registered voters of that county. Thereafter, the town vanished as
rapidly as it had appeared, eventually leaving no trace of its
existence.Agua Fria is located four miles out of Mariposa via Hwy 140.