Columbia Historic State Park
Columbia, CA
In deciding on an itinerary for our trip, I found myself continually directed toward Columbia. The woman working at Sacramento's Discovery Museum, the park ranger at Sutter's Fort, multiple web pages on CA's Gold Rush history all mentioned Columbia as a place not to miss on any trip down Highway 49. We found out why - SUCH a great little town!
Columbia's Main Street video (25 sec)
Our visit began with the "History's Mysteries" event we'd signed up for. There were about 15 participants who gathered on Main Street to "witness" a recreation of an actual crime from 1856. They posted this sign to warn visitors,
"Gunfire may be heard"
It was a great experience, lasting almost 3 hours.
Here is a condensed version of the event (4 min)
What you'll see:
Mr. Horn (in hat below) wants to buy alcohol from a shopkeeper. She refuses, "You've had too much already!" Horn then picks fights with townspeople until a good samaritan (with eye patch) intervenes, then shoots an innocent bystander in a skirmish. Our mission was to search out the truth and deliver a just verdict.
More photos during the event:
Trevor questions the shopkeeper about Mr. Horn.
Then she gives us her "4th grade field trip" tour of life as an Early Californian!Paper was expensive so they used slate boards in school.
The one bed all the kids shared (notice the rope holding the mattress)
Many of the volunteers at Columbia State Historic Park are retired school teachers - so they make for very good "explainers" to kids. We SO enjoyed (yeah, ok, so I'm speaking for myself here) learning from them. (but I could tell Trevor was interested in what they had to say too!)
Trevor and Rick practiced some 1850-era bowling!Next, we tried our hand (the other hand this time) at gold panning.
What we knew: You had two choices: pan in the trough for $5 or for $5 more, get a bag of dirt (with a few small pieces of gold buried in it)
What we didn't know: Your chances of finding gold in the trough were slim to none, but with the extra $5, you were virtually guaranteed some.
What we learned: Definitely worth it to pay the extra (which we ended up doing)!
We saw the blacksmith's shop:
The firehouse:
Then, because our History's Mysteries event took place during the daily walking tours that normally operate at 11:00, we had arranged a tour of Columbia with one of the rangers via email.
She took us into several buildings, (some locked) many of which are shown to the local 4 th graders on their annual field trip.She showed us a trap door right in the middle of the museum floor leading to underground storehouse. It was cooler below, minimizing spoilage of food items. Climbing down the ladder was a treat! It definitely DID feel much cooler, too!
But quite possibly the most exciting part of the day was the "Bucket Brigade" event they held. They split the kids into two teams and had them race to fill a can with water - then empty it in another race.
VERY FUN !!
Watch the video!!!!
What a great little town Columbia is! We highly recommend it! Soooo glad we listened to all the suggestions to visit!
Tomorrow - our last day "on the trail" - we're determined to "take home the gold"! We're off to Jamestown for some serious gold panning. No more of this "dusting the trough" stuff for us, no siree, not with gold up to almost $1,000 an ounce!
After much research, we settled on a company called, Jamestown Gold Panning. Wish us luck...
