Collection: Directories and Documents

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Title: Historic Context Statement for the City of Grass Valley, Nevada County, California (2010) Collection Type: Directories and Documents # of Pages: 57 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-14 05:48:48 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:18:11 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:18:11

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 57  

II. HISTORIC CONTEXT A. From Mining Camp to Mining Town (1848-1852) The history of Grass Valley is, in part, a story of the pioneers who settled in the fledgling mining camp during the gold rush and whose contributions are recognized in economic growth, but also in the area’s built environment resources. Prior to the creation of Grass Valley as one of the most important gold rush mining communities in the Northern Mines, the natural features of the region attracted Native Americans. Grass Valley is located squarely in the territory occupied in aboriginal and historic times by the Northern Maidu. Their territory extended from the Bear River north to Eagle Lake and Lassen Peak and abutted the territory of the Foothill Nisenan to the south. Fundamentally, both the Northern Maidu and the Foothill Nisenan shared many cultural traits and intermarriage was common.’ The Northern Maidu were very adept at weaving intricate baskets from locally obtained plants, including willow and redbud, as is depicted in Figure 2. In Hugh W. Littlejohn's unpublished manuscript “Nisenan Geography (1928),” he notes that the Nisenan had names for every mountain, hill, flat, valley, canyon, spring, creek, and river. Rivers played an important role for the Nisenan, not only as territorial boundaries, but also as areas to procure food, such as salmon. The Nisenan called the North Fork of the American River "Yo dok im se o," the Middle Fork of the American River "Ko a ba," where the Middle and North Fork of the American River meet "Chul ku im se o," and the Bear River "Ku mim se o." 4 The permanent villages of the Northern Maidu and Nisenan were _ generally located in the Foothill Belt or the lower Yellow Pine Belt, at elevations between 1,000 and 4,000 feet. Winter village locations were found on knolls or in valleys with good southern exposure and adjacent to springs or other permanent sources of water. At the principal village, common structures included family dwellings, acorn granaries, bedrock mortars, a sweat house, and a dance house.° Figure 2: Northern Maidu basketweavers at the Greenville Indian School (courtesy CSUS, eGuide, “Enduring Traditions: Baskets in Native California Ethnographic Documents and Abstracts”) 3 Francis Riddell. “Maidu and Konkow,” in Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1978, p. 370. * Hugh W. Littlejohn. Nisenan Geography. Berkeley: University of California, 1928, p. 54. 5 Littlejohn, 1928.