Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Volume 060-2 - April 2006 (8 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 8
In The Beginning
oo by Edwin L. Tyson
. eatin THE VERY FIRST SETTLEMENT IN WHAT
ao is now Nevada County was located between Anthony
— House (Lake Wildwood) and Bridgeport and called Rose’s
«>» Corral from the trader who built an adobe building there in
the suminer of 1848. Dr. A. B. Caldwell, our county’s earliest entrepreneur, soon followed and established stores at
different locations along Deer Creek when he realized exploratory mining was occurring in rivers, creeks and
ravines in this part of California.
In September 1849, a party of gold seekers led by Captain John Pennington and including Thomas Cross and William McCaig, worked their way up Deer Creek from Rose’s
Bar and found rich placer where Gold Run enters Deer
Creek, just east of the present Pine Street bridge. Here the
party settled and built a log cabin, the first permanent building within the present boundaries of Nevada City.
The Pennington group became regular customers at the
store Caldwell had opened at Beckville about four miles
downstream from their location. The good doctor, whole
curiosity was aroused from the quantities they were purchasing from him, decided to investigate. He was interested
in the exact location of their mining activity and the quality
of their strike.
Accordingly, he decided to explore Deer Creek above his
store. As he moved up the creek through the willows, the
brush, and the rocks, he reached a point where the water
was no longer clear; it was muddied by tailings from a
hard-worked sluice box. They were digging and sluicing
and panning in a small tributary to Deer Creek. Above
them, on a high bank, was their cabin. Beyond the mouth of
the tributary, the water ran clear again.
As Caldwell approached the men, they made an attempt
to conceal the amount of gold in their pans, but aware that
he had been observing them for sometime, they greeted him
“om
a »
Nevada County Historical Society
Bulletin
VOLUME 60 NUMBER 2 APRIL 2006
cordially and showed him the true richness of their strike
from the little tributary they had named Gold Run. Caldwell’s realization that the news of the Gold Run strike
could not be kept secret and that a teeming mining town
was imminent, decided to establish another store near the
site. The new camp would need all the supplies he could
pack into the place before the rains came. He selected a
place for his building a few hundred yards above the Pennington cabin, approximately where the Charles Marsh
house stands today at the corner of High and Nevada
Streets. Caldwell’s Upper Store became the name of his
latest enterprise and also served as one of the names given
to the new settlement.
To obtain necessary supplies John and Herbert Bowers
were commissioned to take their pack mules to Sacramento
and purchase two freight wagons which they filled with
merchandise Caldwell ordered for the store. When they returned they staked out claims along the creek upstream from
the bridge Caldwell had constructed, and built a house nearby.
By early October 1849, Caldwell’s Upper Store was open
for business. Shortly thereafter John Truesdale built a cabin
on Broad street, and later a few other cabins were built.
Later canvas tents and brush shanties were erected in great
numbers by miners drawn to the site by reports of the fabulous richness of the diggings along Deer Creek and Gold
Run. The place became known, besides the name previously given, as Deer Creek Dry Diggings.
By mid-October 1849, miners were
working on both sides of Deer Creek; at
Gold Run the Pennington party had installed a most ingenious arrangement of
sluice boxes, including the first long tom
to be used in the Northern Mines. A man
named Stamps arrived on the scene with
his wife, her sister, and several children,
and built a cabin on the Coyote Trail just
off Main Street. These were the first two
women to appear in the new town.
Madam Penn was the name of another
woman who wintered here during the
W. Pearson drawing of Nevada City in
late 1850. (California Historical Society)