Placerville is one of
Californiaa's golden treasures. Less than two hours
by car from Sacramento, the scenic, pine-topped
hills visible from intimate roads that run through
the center of town provide a timeless wooded scent.
The fragrance captures the essence of this
old-fashioned place where European travelers come
with wide eyes and a fascination for America's past.
Hoping to gain a glimpse of the California they've
read about and imagined, you can see Danish, Germans
and Brits sitting on the porches of coffee houses
overlooking Placerville's Main Street, just
soaking in the ambiance.
The seat of government
for El Dorado County where the hills become
mountains, sits at an elevation of about 2,000 feet.
Main Street, the heart of Placerville's downtown is
lined with historic buildings that are well
preserved with fresh coats of paint and colorful
petunias of purple, red and blue. While the Gold
Rush and the Old West are the dominant themes in
shop window displays, they do not mask modern
clothing styles, books and art work from world
famous Bennett Gallery and Kinkaide, to name a few.
In Placerville,
modern conveniences such as Starbucks mix with
turn-of-the 20th Century Cary House, a bed and
breakfast-styled hotel featuring themed rooms, many
with antique furnishings. On special evenings, the
owners of the property dress in period costume and
re-create scenes from the era in which the hotel was
constructed. Enjoying rich soil perfect for wine
grapes, the B&B rolls out some of its fine local
wines for adult guests to sample in the evening.
While a visit to El Dorado's wine country and stay
at Cary House is more than enough excuse to take a
brake, there's a lot more going on.
Easy to access via
Sacramento, you can fly into Sacramento and
rent a car for an easy drive to the hills where gold
was discovered. The City of Placerville owns and
operates
Gold Bug Mine, the only gold mine in California
that is open to visitors. An interesting tour into a
cool, damp mine allows you to see and feel what the
miners experienced as they worked and toiled hours
on end in the search to find gold.
Placerville and El Dorado County
are located in the heart of California's Gold Rush country,
often called the "Mother Lode." El Dorado County is
approximately 30 miles east of Sacramento, California's State
Capitol and 40 miles west of Carson City,
Nevada's State Capitol. San Francisco is 125 miles
to the west and Reno Airport is 50 miles to the
northeast.
While Coloma north
of
Placerville credited for the discovery of gold over 150 years ago,
Placerville grew rapidly out of the rush from gold
fever and today, families and descendants of that
era still live in town and operate the stores passed
down through generations.
Shown in photos above is a woman in front of a store
with a newspaper stand. Placerville
News Company, 409 Main Street, Placerville, CA 95667
Phone: 530-622-4510. This store is located in an
historic 1856 building in downtown Placerville. The
Placerville News Company has been in the same
location since 1912 and and is one example of a
family business passed through the generations. They
are open seven days a week.
