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Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
An Illustrated History of California's Gold Rush by Wells Fargo Bank (PH 1-27) (34 pages)
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Page: of 34
' Historic St. George Hotel
Main Street, Volcano.
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VOLCANO Off a modern highway which runs east
from Jackson you will find the little town of Volcano.
Don’t miss it. It is one of the highlights of a tour of
the Gold Country. During its productive period
more than $90,000,000 in gold was taken from the
hills and gulches around Volcano. And this gold was
poured into the United States Treasury at a critical
time during the Civil War. In fact, this little town in
the Sierra foothills may have been one of the major
turning points in the war between the states.
The division of opinion about slavery was not limited to the eastern seaboard. There was a faction on
the west coast which also held that a state should
have the right to decide. That faction was quite
strong in the area around Volcano. And so an incident arose between the miners who were for states’
rights and the miners who were for abolishment of
slavery. The issue was whether Volcano’s gold would
go to the North or the South. Volcano was held by
the Abolitionists only by virtue of the fact that they
had “Old Abe”—an ancient cannon which would
have been more effective if it had had any cannonballs to go with it. Realizing this was a shortcoming,
the miners of Volcano gathered round stones from
the riverbed. Under the circumstances, it seems likely that “Old Abe” would have been more dangerous
to the defenders of Volcano than to the attackers.
But fortunately the matter never came to a test. The
sight of the redoubtable “Old Abe” sufficiently cooled
the burning ardor of the Southern sympathizers that
they retired from the field, and the Union forces
gained a bloodless victory. This little affray has
19