HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT CALAVERAS COUNTY

Historians believe that the area now known as Calaveras County was visited as early as 1806 by the Spanish military explorer Gabriel Moraga.

When California was discovered by Spain in the 1500s, the region already had a population of over one-quarter million native people, including nearly 20,000 members of the Miwok tribe living in and near Calaveras County. By 1856, the Miwok population had been decimated to about 3000.

The Calaveras region had little or no white population before the discovery of gold on the American River in 1848. Within a few months, hundreds of white miners had set up camps on Calaveras' numerous foothill streams and rivers.

Calaveras was rich in both gold-bearing placer gravels and quartz lodes. Nearly one-quarter of the famed Mother Lode runs through his county. More than 75% of the gold that was there in 1848 is still there today, and will probably remain there due to the high cost of ore extraction and milling.

Calaveras was among the first counties established by the new state government of 1850. It was originally laid out as a massive county stretching from the coastal mountains to the Nevada border, but was later reorganized to include only the area from the mining districts eastward. The size of the county was later reduced again through the formation of Amador and Alpine counties.

The County seat of Calaveras County changed five times in the first 13 years, and an argument over its location was the cause of an Old West style shootout on the streets of Jackson.

Calaveras County is the only county in California to have been split by organized secession, when the section north of the Mokelumne River declared themselves to be a separate and independent county, called Amador, in 1854.

Calaveras County is directly connected to an uncommonly large number of legendary characters (and creators of legendary characters). These include Black Bart (a real bandit), Joaquin Murietta (a legendary bandit), Kit Carson (a real explorer), Mark Twain (an author and teller of tall-tales), and Bret Harte (an author, teacher, & newspaperman), among others.

Calaveras County was home to an ever-changing array of attractive and successful industries, including placer gold mining, quartz gold mine, hydraulic mining, copper mining, railroads, silk production, insecticide production, concrete production, and various forms of farming and ranching.

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