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When James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill almost exactly 170 years ago, on Jan. 24, 1848, the area now known as Amador County was home to a few bands of Miwok Indians and little else. By 1860, just 12 years later, almost 11,000 Americans populated the newly christened county. They brought with them stately courthouses, grand hotels and elegant multistory homes.
The Gold Rush shaped California, of course, and the foothills from Coloma down to Yosemite boomed as 300,000 prospectors descended upon the state. Amador County’s prime location on the Mother Lode — the 120-mile-long seam of gold deposits that attracted these fortune seekers — made it one of the busiest corners of the newly minted Golden State.
Gold fever attracted all types to Amador. Leland Stanford, the future governor and senator, earned his fortune investing in a mine outside Sutter Creek, a sum that allowed him to help found the Central Pacific Railroad and his eponymous university. Immigrants from around the world, including thousands from China, settled along the creeks near Amador City, while the area’s original residents — members of native Miwok bands — were forced farther afield. All told, hundreds of millions of dollars of precious metals were hauled from the county, which, at just 600 square miles, is the sixth smallest in the state.
But while the mines have closed and most Gold Rush epicenters, like San Francisco’s bawdy Barbary Coast, are just memories, the historical experience is preserved in the small towns and back roads of Amador County. “You feel like you’re living history here,” says the head of the local council of tourism, Maureen Funk. In the gentle slopes off Highway 49, you can find some of the oldest structures in the state, explore native history or start your own mining adventure.
The Gold Rush has long since subsided, but its imprint on the land is apparent even today — if you know where to look. Here are the best ways to reach back into Amador’s rich mining history.