Historical Resources of El Dorado County

Spanish explorers were possessed by the idea of a New World city made of gold. They never found it, but when this area turned out to be the heart of the mother lode, the powers that used to be named the county in honor of that golden city El Dorado. 

The hills are full of old half or wholly abandoned census-designated places where stamp mills once thumped and the great Wheel of Fortune spun like the propeller on a P-26. Money was made, money was lost. It’s still a rich country. The terrain—foothills, mountains, and Lake Tahoe—encourages every sport imaginable, ale and wine trails, and wilderness camping as well as more genteel B&Bing.

The World Rushed In, by J. S. Holiday, is a much-recommended history about what became of this area after the Gold Rush. Even the title is an implicit lament for the spoilage. 

Of some use in visualizing the golden days is a gonzo report by a certain Missouri loafer named Clemens—“writing is lazy work, and I was born lazy.” Alias Mark Twain, Clemens was an eyewitness to the mining in Virginia City, Nevada. His inimitable description of the nuts and bolts of hard-rock mining makes Roughing It as indelible a view of the west slope of the Sierra as it is of the Nevada side.