Visit Date: July 5, 2021
In my attempt to find and record these old stone buildings along Highway 49, I get to travel the Gold Country. I'm often shocked at how many spectacular buildings still exist. I’m especially impressed with how many of the Gold Rush towns are still charming and awe-inspiring. Some of their main streets are a step back in time (Visit Murphys if you want to see what I mean). One of the most popular towns to visit along Highway 49 is Sutter Creek in Amador County. The town is a haven for antiquing. Knowing that, I cannot understand how the authors of the Highway 49 study photographed 3 buildings for the Sutter Creek entry and not one of them was from the charming core of the town. Instead, we get two buildings in the foothills to the east and the Botto Granary, just south of Sutter Creek, which is documented here.
I shouldn't be too harsh on the Botto Granary building. It's not the building's fault that there are much nicer, sturdier, and still in use structures less than a mile away, lining the main street in Sutter Creek. Maybe in 1948 it was an excellent representative of Gold Rush architecture, more so than those buildings. I'll give the Division of Mines survey authors’ credit though, once again they sought out and photographed a former bar, which seems to be a theme for the buildings they recorded.
In the 1948 survey the building was described as: "Across the highway from the Central Eureka mine on the crest of Sutter Hill is the Botto Granary built in 1869. It is of dressed field stone (andesite breccia) obtained in the property. With its iron doors and plastered interior, it stands as an excellent example of the enduring architecture of the Mother Lode." So apparently, I'm not much of an architectural historian. I was rather unimpressed with the granary. However, note the iron doors below. I guess they are pretty nice(?)
This site visit unfortunately did caused me to violate my one cardinal rule: Stay off of private property. The entry in the guidebook had two images, the one at the top of this post and the one at left showing detail work of the stone construction. I tried to re-photograph this but I wasn't able to find the pattern shown on the front of the building. Can you? Please let me know if you can find it in the image below.
Because I couldn't find this pattern of stones in the front of the building, I assumed it had to be in the back. To check this out I had to walk onto the porch of the house next door. The house is beautiful and looks exactly like a B&B, including a welcome sign on the wrap around porch. Long story short, the angry dogs barking inside the house were mad at the guy just outside of their private residence, which is definitely not a B&B. It kinda ended like "Oops. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to trespass. But do you mind if I look around back? What's that? Of sure, I'll leave now. Have a great day."
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Visit Date: November 6, 2021One of my best excuses for visiting the Gold Country and tracking down the historic stone and brick buildings ended last weekend. My son's high school cross country season finished. As he was a senior this was the last time I would get to use his cross country meets was a reason to head for Highway 49. This meet was at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds in Angels Camp, Calaveras County. Making for a nice quick stop on the way there was San Andreas and a photo of the IOOF Hall on Main Street. This building is old by the standards of this study, having been constructed in the 1856. According to one source, the Old Fellows used the top floor while the lower level served as an armory for the local militia unit, the Home Guard. Curiously a quick scan of the buildings found in the 1948 Division of Mines study, I could only find five Old Fellows Halls, one shared Odd Fellow and Mason Hall, and no strictly Masonic Halls. Seems like the Masons would have been better represented in the a study on stone and brick buildings. Curious? Unfortunately I think that San Andreas is unexpectedly going to be a bust for me in my quest to re-photograph that buildings from the 1948 Division of Mines historic building survey. There are four San Andreas buildings featured in the study, one of which was already listed as destroyed in 1948. (WHY EVEN INCLUDE IT!) However there are a number of other really interesting buildings in San Andreas that make the town worth stopping to visit. Right next IOOF Hall is the old Hall of Records, an amazing looking building. It was built well after the Gold Rush so it did not qualify for the Division of Mines survey. I wonder if I did a search if I would learn whether Hollywood has ever used it as a stand in for the Hall of Records in Anytown USA? Today it houses the County Museum and Historical Society. Seems appropriate. Just two buildings east of the Hall of Records (the Saloon in front of the American Hotel on the Sanborn map) is the current County Archives. I want to work there!
Visit Date: February 29, 2021Sure, sometimes I complain about the drought and how it's effective this project. Take a look at the smoky images from my visit to French Corral. Not to mention the potential for like ALL of these buildings and structures to be impacted (i.e. burned) by the drought-stoked fires. There is one small benefit though and that's that I can travel to and photograph these sites just about anytime and not be interrupted by the weather. Take for example when I visited the I.O.O.F. Hall in Copperopolis, Calaveras County, on Leap Day, in 2021. No clouds or rain to ruin my day. [Note: I liked it better when it rain season was rainy in California.] You don't need a sharp eye to notice that these photos were taken at different angles. My goal for this project has been to taken the repeat photograph from the exact spot where the authors of the Division of Mines survey did in 1948. In this case, a new fence (new since 1949), a temporary building, and a CDF station that sits in front of the IOOF Hall made it impossible to actually get to the spot that I needed to. As you can at right when I did try to get the right angle, these obstacles came into play. I did however get a really great photograph of the back of this day care building. If your first thought was that this building must be a church, it's because you are a very observant person (and probably good looking too!). While the authors refer to the building as an Odd Fellows Hall, it was constructed in 1866 as the Congregation Church for Copperopolis. The 1860s were the heyday for Copperopolis. The town boomed during the Civil War when there was a need for copper for war efforts. Later the church was sold to the Odd Fellows in 1903, who used it as their hall until 1939, when the community took it over. It continues to be used to today as a community center. It was nice to be able to drive up and park right at the building. I had free range to explore the grounds and walk right up to the building. Thankfully it is in remarkably good condition, despite the passage of 150 years since Copperopolis's peak. It's weird though I did keep expecting church bells to toll throughout my visit.
Visit Date: May 16, 2020I really enjoyed visiting Murphys in Calaveras County. The number of historic brick and stone buildings is unparalleled in the Gold Country, IMO. I previously wrote about the Compere's Store which is on Main Street. While Main Street has most of these fantastic buildings, sitting on a knoll above Main Street is wonderful structure that is still in use. The St. Patrick's Catholic Church is a two-story church that looks an awful lot like it did in 1948 when the Division of Mines survey was completed Murphys has a quality found in many of the Gold Rush towns and that is it built a number of impressive churches. (Check out the Red Church in Sonora if you wan to see a beautiful old church!) In addition to the St. Patrick's Church, Murphys also has the First Congregational Church of Murphys, which was built in the 1890s. The current St. Patrick's was opened in 1861. It replaced a previous church, which you may have guessed was destroyed by fire. For fun, google "Gold Country St. Patrick's Church". There are a few of them The church is a little ways off the road and hidden by pines and oaks. But I had a siren call to find it. Nearing the church I could hear a sad but beautiful wailing. Only as I drew closer to the sound, did I began to figure out what it was. Bagpipes! A lone bagpiper was practicing his hobby with some friends in the parking lot of the church. As it was peak Covid, there was no one else around until I drove up. Murphys is full of charm and charming people. I assume the neighbors have grown accustomed to this musical treat.
Visit Date: August 7, 2021The buildings in the Highway 49 survey have faced many challenges to last this long. These buildings, some as old as 170 years, having weathered the elements, withstood the neglect of owners, and even survived inexcusable vandalism. I guess that's why I am so interested in tracking down these structures. I want to know if they have they survived? What's their current condition? Are they going to be around for another generation? In visiting the "Wells Fargo" store in French Corral, I found that there is another element that makes me want to rush out to find these building sooner rather later. As we know, 2021 seems to be the year of the wildfire, with many of them threatening a lot of these old brick and stone buildings. French Corral is pretty far off the highway. At least that's how it seems. The guidebook says it was only 4 miles from Highway 49 but it certainly feels farther and more backroads. These are the towns where I wish I wasn't driving our Camry and instead had a jacked up Chevy Silverado with a Trumper flag in the back. I'm pretty sure I'd be invited to take all the photos I wanted, but as it is I'm the flatlander not to trusted. All that said, I love going to these places that require you to work a little harder to find. The drive to French Corral though was dominated by one aspect: Smoke. This trip was during the peak of the smoke from the Dixie Fire. Every mile I drove north from Sacramento I saw the air getting worse and worse. Believe me the photo to the right (showing the canyon below French Corral) does not do justice to how bad the visibility was. A better sense of the density of the smoke is in the image below. The famed Bridgeport Covered Bridge is only about 400 feet away. BTW, the covered bridge is worth driving to see, although State Parks is currently rebuilding it. Look close, you can see the workers. I think that the building visited for this post is an example of one of the problem with these wildfire. In the 75 years since the survey was published that amount and density of vegetation has increased tremendously and dangerously. If you flip through the guidebook, and look for it, you'll soon realize how many formerly open spaces have filled in with oaks, pines, and shrubs. The volume of flammable material is so dense at this point that it is little wonder that these fires take off so quickly. Take a look at the before and after photos above, you'll begin to see it. This photo of the building was taken a few years before the 1948 survey, but it give a much better example of how much more open land there was 70 or 80 years ago, let alone 170 years ago. Our wildlands are probably now much better described as wildfirelands. A somewhat similar view (below) of the same building was taken from my car as I was leaving French Corral. The other shows more growth along the north side of the brick building. As these fires burn through the foothills and Sierra Nevada, I wonder if I should just take the time now to try to visit and photograph the old buildings. Part of the reason that people turned to brick and stone buildings was because they could withstand fire, but it seems likely that the damage of these ultra hot wildfires may cause more damage than they could not recovery from.
Visit Dates: May 31, 2021 & August 15, 2021
I hate trying to track down old stone and brick buildings that may or may not still exist. It drives me bonkers trying to figure out if the buildings are still standing, where they might be or where they were located, and when they may have been destroyed. I'll confess that when I can't find the structure I'm never totally confident that I've looking in the right spot. I'm pretty sure that the two buildings in this (and previous) post have been destroyed and have left no trace. Remember in grade school when you had to show your work in math class? Well, this post (and Part I) is my attempt to show my work in trying to locate these buildings and also explain what may have happened to them.
In the previous post we talked trying to find anything we could about the buildings and their possible location. I had searched General Land Office plats, USGS topos, and railroad maps from the 1850s through the 1950s but still found no definitive proof that these building even ever existed. As a reminder the 1948 Division of Mines bulletin described these buildings as being west of Shingle Springs. The first building (Fig. 128) was described as "Just west of town near the railroad crossing, a well preserved house of meta-andesite fieldstone, talc schist, and white quartz float laid with mud-lime mortar can be seen." While the second structure (Fig. 129) was south of there, just "a few hundred yards on the French Creek road are two old building ruins made of meta-andesite and serpentine." The map below is the general location of the site. Note: Lots of modern buildings, not many cool old ones.
One of the last maps we looked at on the previous blog post was a 1911 map of the Southern Pacific station and rail line near Shingle Springs. As one of the buildings was close to where the railroad crossed the Placerville-Sacramento Road, I though we might find something but like the other maps it was a bust. However the following year, a new entity gave me more hope in documenting at least one of the buildings. See that "County Road" in the SP Station Plat at right? It was about to figure more prominently in the search.
I had hopes that the Highway Commission would provide a clue to the buildings because on November 18, 1912, they directed the Highway Engineer was to "cause the necessary surveys, plans and estimates be made to the portion of Route 11, beginning at Folsom and extending via Clarksville, to Placerville to connect with the State road there." Route 11 was the what would become Highway 50, and guess what it would go right through Shingle Springs on the previous Placerville-Sacramento Road. Probably great news for Shingle Springs but bad news for our buildings.
A month before the Highway Commission's vote took place, a preliminary reconnaissance report was submitted to the State Highway Engineer with a recommendation on the best route between Folsom and Placerville. The surveyor located 2 potential routes. The first went by way of Green Valley, which be north of the Placerville-Sacramento Road, and pass through the town of Rescue. This route would be exceedingly hilly necessitating a great deal of bridging but would only be a distance of 24.8 miles. The other route was would leave Folsom, pass through Clarkville, then cross rolling hills to Shingle Springs and El Dorado before crossing the problematic Webber Creek and entering Placerville. The distance was estimated as 26 miles. For the next 30 years, these 2 lines would be contested as the best route between Folsom and Placerville. The surveyor did "not hesitate to recommend the route be way of Clarkville" since it be cheaper to build and accommodate more people and towns. Score one for Shingle Springs, I guess.
With the route selected, the alignment would follow the Sacramento-Placerville Road, which was incorporated into the state highway system. The Division of Highways (today's CalTrans) now began looking to improve the road. In February 1916 another preliminary report was submitted on the route between Shingle Springs and the Sacramento County line. The report came close to giving us some information about Fig. 128, the railroad crossing building. Near the crossing, the report noted that there was an obstruction but that was the old Planters Hotel not our building. Still looking for a clue as the site of this building.
Those people in Rescue though would not give up on having the route altered to travel through their part of the county. They again agitated for a new routing through Green Valley as it would be shorter and more scenic. The Division of Highway noticed their efforts because a few years later a new survey of Route 11 was undertaken by the Division. A 1932 report on finding a permanent route from Sacramento to Placerville included the map above, with a strong nudge towards Route 2 which would bypass Shingle Springs. This came after a 1930 recon report that also noted that the most feasible route would be through Green Valley since it was shorter and had a better alignment. So close to moving the road north, however the original route persisted.
A follow-up report was completed in 1938 with additional information about traffic (it was really increasing) and economics (it costs a lot to build an entirely new road). They finally settled on the upgrading the existing route. In the map below, they recommended the E P R S T L M alignment.
Okay, why is this all important? What's the big deal with the Green Valley route? Why do I care that the Division of Highway's didn't change the route despite plenty of instances to do so. Because if they had re-routed Highway 50 to the Green Valley alignment, then one, if not both, of the buildings may have been saved. By keeping the highway going through Shingle Springs and the Division of Highways and CalTrans continued to try to improve it though re-aligns and relocations. I think that at some point this lead directly or indirectly to the destruction of the building(s). Don't believe me. Take a look at these sketches of proposed re-alignments from the 1940s and 1950s. At some point these buildings didn't stand a chance. In particular the image below left was from a proposed 1953 relocation of the highway. Lots of road work right through the area of our concern. I believe that at the latest the end came in the early 1960s when the highway was moved to it present location a few hundred feet north of the old highway through Shingle Springs.
So how did I do, teach? Does my work check out? I wish there was a better answer to my questions about these buildings. As always at least I got to make a nice drive to the foothills for this project. The best I was able to do on one of visits was to get a picture of these rocks near the railroad crossing and the old highway. Maybe they could have been from one of the buildings? Maybe? So what sits at the site today. Check out these photos below.
And how about a "few hundred feet (south) on French Town road"? Definitely not an old stone buildings.
Visit Dates: May 31, 2021 & August 15, 2021
This post is a week late. Sorry. Please excuse the work in progress. Here is the thing. I just can't figure out if these two buildings still exists, where they were located, or when/if they might have been destroyed. Figuring out these details is absolutely locking me up. Maybe if we didn't have Covid, and if I was retired, and if I had time to visit the State Library and El Dorado County Archives, then maybe I could feel like I've exhausted all my resources. As it is here is my best attempt to document the sad story of these two buildings located just west of Shingle Springs in El Dorado County.
This post is a double double dip. First, it's part one of a two-part discussion. Also its about not one but two sites from the 1948 Division of Mines building survey, although their story and my research are so similar that I've chosen to combine them. The first building (Fig. 128) was described in the survey as "Just west of town near the railroad crossing, a well preserved house of meta-andesite fieldstone, talc schist, and white quartz float laid with mud-lime mortar can be seen." While the second structure (Fig. 129) was south of there, just "a few hundred yards on the French Creek road are two old building ruins made of meta-andesite and serpentine." So there were a few clues to the location: west of Shingle Springs, near the railroad crossings (Fig. 128), and a few hundred yards south on the French Creek Road (Fig. 129). So let's take a look at what that looks like today.
In the map above, the railroad crosses the old highway roughly at the "M" in Mother Lode Drive. Fig. 129 was probably located somewhat near that vicinity. My google map search, drive-by windshield survey, and field work on the ground recon (I walked around) on both sides of the road, though left me still searching for Fig. 128. A similar search along French Creek Road revealed nothing as well. Fig. 129 was probably somewhat near the words "French Creek Road," which is about 600 feet south of the intersection with Mother Lode Road.
So where are these buildings? Sadly, I feel comfortable in saying that they have not survived the nearly 75 years since the Division of Mines building survey. It's likely that their deteriorating condition as seen in the original photos above and the location near the old route of Highway 50 were their downfall.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s the US Geological Survey released many of their 7.5 minute series maps for the Gold Rush Country. These maps are really really helpful in determining what might have been on the ground at that time, including existing buildings and the routes of the roads and highways at that time. At left is the 1950 Shingle Springs map. French Creek Road is the line running south below (BM 1423), while the railroad crossing is shown to the left of BM 1423. The map shows no showing buildings in the places you would expect our buildings to be based on their description. Note: the road running east-west through Shingle Springs was Highway 50, which is now routed about 200 yards north of the Mother Lode Road (Old Highway 50).
A less detailed map than the one above was a Placerville plat originally drawn in 1893 and updated in 1947 by the USGS. This map does suggest that possibly one of our buildings was on the southwest corner of French Creek Road and the Mother Lode Road. Mother Lode Road was known as the Sacramento and Placerville Road at the time the map was drawn. The scale of this map was such that it is difficult to know if the shown building is merely a representation of Shingle Springs or the location of an actual building, let alone one of our buildings.
The 1950 map above shows a dotted line running north-south close to our area of interest. This line is the General Land Office survey line between section 1, Range 9 East, Township 9 North and Section 6, Range 10 East, Township 9 North, Mount Diablo Meridian. The surveys of these lines were done in the 1850s and 1860s, and I hoped the plats would possibly show either of our buildings due to the date of buildings and location of the survey.
It was lucky that the surveys went directly through Shingle Springs, but you can see that neither of the plats show any structures to the west of town. The plat on the left would have been the one most likely to have shown one of the buildings. All hope though was not lost. The surveyors also include field notes for their land survey. Maybe they would mention some features not shown on the map. The field notes for section 1, T9N, R9E held the most hope.
Surveyor David Douglass's notes from his March 1859 survey provide one of the few potential details of one of our buildings that I could find. On page 27 of his field book, Douglass noted features he came across as he moved north along the line between Townships 9 and 10. At 5.50 chains north of corner between sections 1 and 2, he found "A board fence" running east-west, and at 27 chains he crossed a similar fence, but at 40.00 chains he put a charred post in the ground for a quarter section corner, "from which the house of B.T. Hall, bears W(est) 10 ch(ain)s dist(ance)." And then at 40.25 chains he came upon "A road from Sacramento to Placerville, Course E.&W." (A chain length is 66 feet.) So according to the surveyor there was a house south of Shingle Springs and about 650 feet to the west that existed in 1859. I wish there were more details about B.T. Hall's house, which could easily have been building in Fig. 128. (Yes, I know. I know. It is a long shot, but conformation bias is my religion.)
A similar survey was run in the spring of 1865 by James Freeman. Freeman also headed north along the same line. At 34.35 chains he found "A number of houses in the town of Shingle Springs on line." At 40.00 chains he reached the center of principal street through Shingle Springs. So roughly 400 feet south of Shingle Springs were a number of houses. I'm going to speculated (hope really) that one of these was the stone building in Fig. 129.
So by 1865 the railroad ran through Placerville. Maybe that was something I could use. The Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad was surveyed in 1865 and filed a map of their line with the Secretary of State in 1867. The map has a lot of detail, just not any of the ones that I needed. While it shows the town of Shingle Springs, even its streets; there were no buildings found along their alignment. Like Gob says, "Come On!"
Okay, let's not give up on the railroad angle. In 1911 the state Railroad Commission required all the railroads in the state to submit alignments and profiles of their lines, as well as the plats of their stations. No doubt this would have the information needed to identify at least one of these buildings, in particular Fig. 128, which was near the railroad crossing. So let's take a look.
By 1911, the Southern Pacific Railroad had purchased the line. But when it came time to submit the station plat the only one on hand was a blueprint from 1898. Unfortunately our buildings were not close enough or significant to to show up on the plat, although they did draw a few structures near the railroad-county road crossing.
The alignment of the entire line would also have to show the area west of Shingle Springs. So there was a chance we might be a glimpse of the buildings, or may have a good clue. These buildings though are elusive, so guess what. The map furthered my frustrating search as you can see in this map below. Lots of detail about deeded lands but not about structures sitting near railroad line. No wonder no one liked the SPRR.
In the next post we'll conclude with a dive into the highway construction and alignment and how a different routing might have saved 2 old stone buildings.
Visit Date: November 9, 2019In a previous post, I discussed the amazing day I had visiting the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp. The day was fantastic but not all of the buildings I saw that day were. The Angels Hotel is still in superb conditions, still being used as an active business as well as having an owner who is actively maintaining it. In contrast, just prior to photographing the hotel, I visited a structure in absolute dire need of repair, if that is even possible at this point. The Romaggi Fandango Hall in Albany Flat, Calaveras County needs help now! The Romaggi Fandango Hall was been in a state of disrepair for many years. The building seems to have really suffered since 1948 when the Heizer and Fenanga in their Highway 49 building survey wrote that "Few buildings in the entire Mother Lode can match this for size, excellence of construction, and elaborateness." However by 1961, one historian noted that the while walls of the main building were still solid, the side walls were in ruins. The structure though was still notable enough that it was specifically identified on the 1962 USGS Angels Camp topographical map. It's actually surprising that the building even still stands. In the 1930s the Historic American Buildings Survey visited and documented the "James Romaggi Fandango House". The photos from this survey are available online from the Library of Congress. Those photos are shown below. Note the condition of the roof in these photos, but more importantly, look how close to Highway 49 the building sat. How did someone not plow into the house after after having a few too many on a Friday night?
Every passing year without repair makes the job of saving the building that much more difficult. As you can see in these 2019 photos. I do hope that they are able to save the building. I just don't want to get to the point where I say that I am happy I visited in 2019 because it no longer stands. Too many of these building save disappeared already. I wish this building had the love of the Angels Hotel. Site Visit: November 9, 2019Have you ever had a really great day? Everything seems to go just right. People are nicer. The food tastes better. The weather is ideal. Well, the day I made this visit was that type of day. I like any day I get to drive through the Gold Country, but this was better than most. I headed first for the Calaveras County Fairgrounds (where they annually hold the best named county fair, Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog Jubilee!) to see my son complete in the high school cross country sectional finals. While the day didn't go too well for him that morning, after a really nice deli lunch I was left with all afternoon to track down old buildings, including the Angels Hotel, Angels Camp, Calaveras County. This building is fortunate. It has an owner who is continuing to care for it. During my visit, the building was in the middle of having a new façade added to it. It seems that only a few years of neglect, deferred maintenance, or even mild disinterest is the death knell to these buildings. Once they start to deteriorate, it's so hard to reverse the process by doing the needed repairs and maintenance, while keeping their historic character. By selecting to write about this building, I believe am required to inform you that during a visit to the hotel in the 1860s, Mark Twain he first heard the story that he would go onto write as "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Needless to say, the building is old. Starting as a simple wooden structure erected in 1851, by 1857 it was re-constructed as a two story building which is partially obscured in the center of this 1857 bird's eye view drawing of Angels Camp. I think this is the oldest image I have found of one of the buildings from the 1848 Building Structures Survey. In the 1850s, the building was known as Lake's Hotel. C.C. Lake though wasn't completely sold on the idea of running a waystation. In 1855, prior to re-building as a stone structure, he put the operation up for sale and planned to leave the state. I guess he couldn't find any suitors for "so desirable a property", because a year later he hosted the New Year's Ball, which celebrated the opening of "his new Stone Hotel". The day was amazing but it wasn't perfect. Trying to get a clear view of a building when shooting across Highway 49 was a real challenge. Check out all these people who had no idea that they were going to end up on the internet when they got in their cars that day.
Visit Dates: May 31 AND July 23, 2021
Sometimes (often?) I run into problems finding these old buildings. Despite the picture in Geologic Guidebook, use of old maps, internet searches, and the like, I just can't always find the old structure. Usually this happens when searching out in the countryside, where the survey authors might describe the location as a half-buried stone house that sits just past a grove of oak trees about a mile and half north of town sitting on the left side of some long ago re-routed side road. The buildings in town are almost always easier to find. That said, I didn't think I would have such a problem finding the Wilcox Warehouse in Placerville.
Surprisingly, despite there being photos of over 100 buildings in the 1948 Building Structures Survey, there is only one image for Placerville. In the authors' description of Placerville, they mention the town's many fine brick buildings and houses, a quarry, and they even call out the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce building which was an excellent structure "made of dressed blocks of rhyolite tuff." However they judged the Wilcox Warehouse as "the nicest of the old buildings...built of carefully selected blocks of andesite conglomerate and schist." Sounds like a really great building, however I'll never know. It seems to have been torn down in the late 1980s or 1990s, to make way for a super great office/retail building, which you can see above. A building that I am sure people will be writing about 100 years from now.
Unfortunately the inventory was just the start of my confusion about where to find the warehouse. The City of Placerville was probably too busy trying to work out that whole "Old Hangtown" issue to notice that the Wilcox Warehouse was on the south side of Hangtown Creek (approximately where "Takeout Delivery" appears on map below) and near where the lost marker had been placed. And the Blair Lumber Company was at a completely different location altogether. On the map below, I believed the Wilcox Warehouse was located at corner of Washington and Spanish Ravine, kitty corner from the Placerville Police Station, while the Thai restaurant is at the corner of Broadway and Mosquito.
Anyway I took my photo of the location that the city told was correct and assumed the building was destroyed and at the location was where they said. However in putting together the post, I did a little more research on the building and found out I was in error about my discovery, as well as confirming that the City had bad info about the location of the building noted in their inventory. But I was just as wrong as the City. Trying to place the building by using an 1910 Sanborn Fire Insurance map, it just did not make sense. The building at the inventory's location was made of brick (red) and used for fuel wood storage. The white building above I figured out was facing completely the wrong direction. Through more digging, I determined that the Wilcox building was south of my incorrect location, across Hangtown Creek. It was at that time identified as a vacant stone building (blue), as seen in the maps below.
The exact location of the Wilcox Warehouse is difficult to precisely identify. Comparing the Sanborn (below) with current days maps it appears that the old Washington Street has been re-routed and is now known as Mosquito Road. Assuming the current-day Washington Street that runs south from the intersection of Main and Spanish Ravine is still located that in the same location as in 1910, then the Wilcox Warehouse was actually sited northeast of the Police Station and the second the two new business buildings. All that said, this image is of that building and was taken while coming back from vacation at South Lake Tahoe, just so I could correct my mistake. Why couldn't they have just picked the Chamber of Commerce building?!?
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AuthorMy name is Jeff and I am on a hunt to find historic brick and stone structures along Highway 49. Archives
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