California - 2008 Official State Visitor's Guide and Travel Planner - (Page 138) FROM LEFT Ride a stagecoach in Columbia State Historic Park; bite into a candied apple in Placerville; taste wine at Sobon Estate; splash into the South Fork of the Yuba River near Grass Valley. gold country RAFT A RIVER • PAN FOR GOLD • SIP A ZIN DRIVE HIGHWAY 49 • BOO A MELODRAMA VILLAIN • DELIGHT IN DAFFODILS N 0 30 mi SHASTA CASCADE REGION Northern Mines District Nevada City N E VA D A Grass Valley Auburn CALIFORNIA GOLD COUNTRY REGION (3 districts) Angels Camp CENTRAL VALLEY REGION Sonora HIGH SIERRA REGION Southern Mines District 138 visitcalifornia.com From left: Nik Wheeler; Toni Zernik; Jenny Pfeiffer; Rob Brodman Capitol District Placerville Folsom Sacramento Jackson is everywhere in the centrally located Gold Country. Tour the historic district of Old Sacramento (aka Old Sac), which sprang up almost overnight after the discovery of gold in the nearby foothills in 1848. Or descend on Angels Camp, perhaps most famous as the setting of Mark Twain’s 1867 short story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Here locals and visitors celebrate this literary heritage with a festival and frogjumping contest every May. In fact, you’ll find some sort of festival commemorating the region’s Gold Rush history throughout the year. Highway 49, which zigzags along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, leads to some of the Gold Country’s oldest and most picturesque towns. Among them are Coloma, site of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park; Sutter Creek, with good choices for dining and shopping; and the little mountain town of Downieville (founded in 1849), with Gold Rush–era buildings lining the boardwalk along Main Street. Another Main Street worth a visit is in Jamestown, home of the 1859 historic National Hotel, which offers bed-and-breakfast lodgings in only nine rooms but dinner to all comers. And if the town’s old steam locomotives look familiar, perhaps it’s because you’ve seen them in movies like High Noon. California’s past http://www.visitcalifornia.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.