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Lost Grass Valley Gold Rush History of the Wilhelm & Binkleman Pioneer Families by Waldo C.F. Potter (2024) (374 pages)
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Page: of 374
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iy meal pa
ig conre;
5 of
for th rusles, and confounded worve tho
‘aver the Tsthowns was mecesynelt
‘aithongh vome fouriven ‘carriages far the adtright
pasrage
os
of passengers were realy, te road for soase fetty or Siky salle
Previous confusion.
‘The fret
travellers; whide the
on male
. nace of
showing the different Routes
ACROSS THE ISTHMUS
To
CALIFORNIA,
ge tn the Conteapoalcon. some forty rilles from
ere the cveriage road bogian They werv itediaely. fled the alt with
‘euploge: *
t a
“MAP showing the different Routes ACROSS THE ISTHMUS TO CALIFORNIA” from New York to San
Francisco.
The great California Gold Rush of 1849 brought the Binklemann family to California. The Gold Rush
started with the significant placer gold find at Sutter’s Mill, Coloma, CA. Coloma is about thirty-five
miles “as the crow flies” south and downstream and at a lower elevation than Grass Valley, Nevada
County, CA. According to historian Erwin G. Gudde, following the discovery of placer gold in the valley
that is now Grass Valley, a sawmill was erected in the fall of 1849, and Scott built the first cabin. The
first family to settle in Grass Valley was reportedly Mr. and Mrs. Scott in the summer of 1850. Still, by
1851, Grass Valley remained a loosely knit mining camp with a handful of families and many more
transient miners. Besides mining, many of the camp’s early inhabitants were engaged in trading
merchandise. The following year, quartz containing gold was discovered. The mining town was named
Boston Ravine briefly but became known between 1851 and 1852 as Centerville, the name adopted by
the post office in the fledgling mining camp. Centerville developed near the intersection of Main and
Mill Streets. The original name was chosen because the post office sat between Marysville and Nevada
City on the new postal route. Alonzo Delano described Grass Valley in 1851 as “a little valley among the
hills, whose verdure, surrounded by the red, dry mountain earth of the region, suggested for a name to
the first discoverer, that of “Grass Valley.” In Ralph Mann’s After the Gold Rush, he describes Grass
Valley as originally having “waist deep grass.” The valley was on the customarily used trail from Truckee
to Sacramento then. On August 20, 1852, the name was changed to Grass Valley. The city was finally
incorporated in 1860. Placer gold was found in Wolf Creek near Grass Valley, and very rich placer gold
near Nevada City, just three miles north of Grass Valley. The Wolf Creek watershed, in Grass Valley
and Nevada City, became famous due to its gold deposits discovered as Mother Lode formations in the
heart of the Banner Mountains, Nevada County, CA one year after the Sutter's Mill discovery. Following
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