Marshall Gold Discovery Park and Sutter Creek - Day 4

Marshall Gold Discovery State Park
Coloma, CA

There is much to see and do here, at the "birthplace of California's Gold Rush". About 40 miles east of Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, the town of Coloma is peacefully nestled among trees on the south fork of the American River.

The drive along Historic Hwy 49, appropriately nicknamed "The Gold Rush Highway", is absolutely b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!!

At the Visitor Center at Marshall Park, there is a wonderful museum with several life-like displays. This photo shows Trevor eyeing Marshall's discovery (no doubt wishing those shiny gold painted nuggets in the hat were real!). It's very realistic setting!
We saw a model of the sawmill in the museum that explains how it worked - but they also have a life-sized replica near the river within Marshall Park.
The docent on hand at the museum was more than willing to answer any questions we had. He told us the water wheel was used to drive the saw, then the lumber was rolled right off the end into the water so they could transport it without having to lift it because it was so heavy!
There is a small theater where we watched a film giving us pointers on how to pan for gold.

We figured we would need proper instruction if we wanted to strike it rich. We obviously couldn't expect to become millionaires without some in- depth research and preparation.

The film lasted 10 minutes :)

Then it was off to try our hand! At Marshall Park, you have a couple choices in panning activities: in troughs at Bekearts Gun Shop, or you can buy your own pans for $5 at the museum store and try your hand in the American River. We didn't think we'd strike it rich in one of those troughs, no sirree, we were going to experience the real thing! We'd make that discovery that would cause them to rename the park to Moreno's 2nd Gold Discovery Park!

So we journeyed to the South Fork of the American River
(about a 5 minute walk from the museum) to try our hand!

Here's just a taste of our panning experience. You should understand that our instructional video showed how to swirl the pan in a circular motion to remove the larger pebbles and debris, submerging the pan to cover with water and swirling again. Then you dip in and out of the water a few times to slide the heavier pebbles out over the top of your pile of earth. The idea however, is NOT to let everything in your pan slide out. This video is hilarious!

After an hour of panning, you can see what many of California's gold miners went home with at the end of a long day - a nearly empty pan. In the beginning, many did find large amounts of gold, but as time went on, most would pan less than an ounce a day. An ounce of gold was worth about $20 back in 1849.
$20 wasn't very much money in California in 1849! The miners had to pay a lot of money to live in Gold Rush territory...especially for LUXURIES like butter and eggs. Eggs were about $3 EACH!!! The merchants were really the ones who made money during the Gold Rush - they were said to be "mining the miners' pockets" because they charged the miners so much for everything. It was very expensive to live in California gold mining towns. Unfortunately for the miners, gold is worth much more today than it was in 1949. Today, gold is worth over $900 an ounce!!

This is a scale (in the Marshall Park museum) that was used during the Gold Rush. This is how it worked: You would pan all day and take your little pieces of gold with you when you shopped. Most merchants had scales in their shops, so they could tell you how much your little pieces of gold weighed so you would know how much money (in gold) you had to spend!! Or, you could take it to one of the banks and exchange it for coin, but it was usually easier just to shop with your gold!! Interesting, huh?

After our panning attempts, we realized getting rich wasn't going to be as easy as we thought. We decided to return to our lives as modern-day tourists and walk around taking pictures instead.

Here is the replica of the sawmill at
Marshall Gold Discovery State Park You can see the water wheel underneath

Just a short walk away, on the actual site where the mill stood,
there is a stone monument.You can follow the "Discovery Trail" leading from the replica to the exact spot on the river where Marshall discovered his gold.
We can just imagine...
Half a mine up the hill is a gigantic bronze statue of John Marshall.

The statue points to the place where he found that first gold!

Driving to the monument along SH153 - only a half mile long.





A visit to Marshall Gold Discovery Park will leave you with a very good understanding of the beginning of California's Gold Rush - and the largest migration in United States history.

Now, we are off to visit another type of gold mining operation - You see - panning wasn't the only way of getting gold out of the earth. Panning is called "placer mining". Digging shafts down into the ground is another way - called "lode mining".



We take an hour drive south
along Hwy 49 to Sutter Creek







We loved the names of some of the roads along Hwy 49!

Sutter Gold Mine Tour
Sutter Creek, CA


We ranked our tour of Sutter Gold Mine in the top two activities of our trip. It was WONDERFUL!






When it comes to life experiences, some are just more memorable than others. This tour is one of those. After our visit to Sutter's Fort I was talking to my mom on the phone. It went something like this:

"Mom, this is so fascinating...walking around this place and seeing how things were back then. I'm loving this! Trevor, on the other hand...well, he definitely likes some of what we see, especially the cannons and buttons to push along the way, but clearly I am the one thriving here...Why is it that the older you get, the more you appreciate history?" She replied, "Well honey, you know what they say... education is wasted on the young" Haha! I had to laugh!

But, here at Sutter Gold Mine, I can tell you my 9 year old was on the edge of his seat the entire time. They do an incredible job of combining education and adventure. This is another popular field trip for 4th graders in the area and I'm sure it's one they all LOVE!

You begin at Sutter Creek in their gift shop - where you have the opportunity to select a piece of quartz from a trough, purchase it (priced by the ounce, most cost between $3-$7) and have it cracked open with a vice to reveal the quartz crystals inside!
Here's a look at the inside of Trevor's quartz:











Their restrooms are worth visiting - if just to see the creative names on the stalls.

They have a map with pins showing where gold has been found in the United States. You can see how popular California must have been! Trevor is pointing to where we are in Sutter Creek.
Click on the map for a clearer picture
The underground tours at Sutter Creek leave every hour. When it's time for your tour, you board the Boss Buggy Shuttle for your trip 400 feet below the earth's surface! Once underground, we went into a small underground "classroom" (safety chamber). There, our PHENOMENAL guide, Sierra (several of us on the tour were talking about how we felt very fortunate to have had her for our guide, she was so easy to understand and was like listening to a talking textbook; she really knew her stuff)

The entrance to the mine:
Here's a sample of what we saw underground. The 2:17 min video shows Sierra in the underground safety chamber explaining some of the conditions the miners worked under.

This gives you an idea of how wide the tunnels were that the miners walked through

The "light at the end of the tunnel"
I would recommend the Sutter Mine Tour to anyone!!

http://www.caverntours.com/sgmt.html

Tomorrow - it's on to Columbia - one of the most well known and preserved of the California Gold Rush towns. We will be participating in a program called, "History Mysteries". It will be a re-enactment of an actual crime that was committed right there in Columbia during the years of the Gold Rush. We will watch the crime as it happens, then have an hour to walk through the town interviewing the witnesses to the crime (all docents in period dress), serving those we want to question with a summons to appear in court - then WE will act as lawyers and question the witnesses in court. All we know about the "crime" is that we will be deciding if it was:

1. self-defense
2. attempted murder

Hmmmmm....this could be interesting.
We have a town tour scheduled afterward with one of the rangers. (Their daily town tours are at 11am and the crime re-enactment conflicts with that).