We continue exploring California’s historic “gold country” this week, meaning those areas of the Sierra Nevada foothills that were well trod by the 1849ers, the first wave of gold seekers. This week we peek into historic hotels in storied gold rush towns. You could easily stay a weekend—or longer—at any of these establishments, given that there’s plenty to do and see nearby, and thus gradually work your way through California’s gold rush. If you tend to be cheap, camp somewhere and then stop by the hotel’s restaurant or bar to drink in the ambience, and thus support the local economy. Some of the gold country’s saloons are magnificent, fun even for teetotalers.
Let’s start in historic Grass Valley in the north, historic sibling to Nevada City. After 1850, when George McKnight discovered gold-laced quartz, Grass Valley became a California hardrock mining capital. Famous and infamous folks from around here included Amos Delano, a Wells Fargo agent and very funny writer better known as “Old Block,” a descendant (he said) of the Block-Head family; amateur aeronautical engineer Lyman Gilmore, who launched a successful airplane more than a year before the Wright brothers’ first flights; and Josiah Royce, born in Grass Valley, who attended Harvard and studied philosophy with William James, and later became James’s academic successor.
Anyway: The place to hang your hat in Grass Valley is the Holbrooke Hotel on Main Street, a historic landmark with plenty of weathered brick, rich wood, and the oldest continuously operating saloon west of the Mississippi. (Elsewhere Prohibition put a serious hitch in the flow of hooch, but apparently not in gold rush towns, most of which were all but abandoned by then.) Because Main Street is Grass Valley’s main drag, and because the hotel’s Golden Gate Saloon downstairs is the best bar in town, light sleepers should request accommodations away from both—concerns to keep in mind with many gold country hotels.
You can’t miss the reincarnated red brick Imperial Hotel, the building boldly embracing the big curve as Hwy. 49 snakes through Amador City. Take a few moments to appreciate the weight-bearing construction of the building itself, a thickness of 12 bricks at the base tapering to four at the roofline. The Imperial is a destination hotel, restaurant, and bar touted by Sunset and Wine Spectator, so consider yourself warned if fine wines, organic food, and white-tablecloth dining aren’t your thing.
The three-story St. George Hotel in Volcano is a more modest charmer, included on the National Register of Historic Places. Due to steep stairs, balconies, and other old-timey details, it probably isn’t safe for young children. Seek luxuries like private bathrooms and Jacuzzis in the motel annex. Volcano, by the way, was quite the cultural hot spot back in the day, creating the state’s first lending library, community theater, and literary and debating society.
Another favorite place is Murphys, a one-street town shaded by locust trees, cottonwoods, sycamores, and elms. The Murphys Hotel, which, perhaps coincidentally, boasts both a great bar and genuine bullet holes, was once considered the state’s finest lodging outside of San Francisco, despite its wild Wild West reputation. Everyone from U.S. Grant and Mark Twain to Will Rogers slept here. Check out the Murphys Olde Timers Museum, an eclectic collection of Murphys history and artifacts including the memorable E. Clampus Vitus Wall of Comparative Ovations, a memorable testament to human modesty.
Running out of radio air, so I’ll just mention a final few: The restored town of Columbia, a state historic park, and its lovely City Hotel, Fallon Hotel, and vacation cottages; the charming Groveland Hotel on the way to Yosemite, a gracious example of Monterey Colonial construction; and the wonderfully relaxed Jeffery Hotel in my favorite place of all, middle-of-nowhere Coulterville. (Do not miss the Northern Mariposa History Center, which still has the Studebaker buckboard Grace Kelley graced in High Noon.) At last report the Jeffrey and its saloon were open but still recovering from a 2015 fire.
