Union Gold Bluffs Placer Mine

In 1881 John Chapman and one other party owned and operated the Gold Bluff mines. Chapman and his men watched the beaches closely, and when the "gray sands" began to go out, it constituted a signal to commence operations.

Meanwhile, ...

Humboldt County

Lumbering commenced in Humboldt County in 1850, but five years were to pass before any attention was paid the redwoods. The pioneer lumbermen were easterners from Maine and the Maritime Provinces of Canada, who were accustomed to the pine, spruce, ...

Bald Hills

The Chilula allied with the Hupa against the coastal Yurok. "Chilula" was English for the Yurok "Tsulu-la," people of Tsulu, the Bald Hills. Locally they were known as the Bald Hills Indians. Their villages were located on or adjacent to ...

Battery Point Lighthouse

In 1855, the year after Crescent City was incorporated, the California legislature urged the state's delegation in Congress to pass an act to erect lighthouses at “Trinidad and Crescent City." On March 3, 1855, Congress appropriated $15,000 for the construction ...

Gold Bluffs

In spring of 1850, J. K. Johnson and several companions headed north from Trinidad to look for the mouth of the Trinity. In passing up the beach, they saw gold grains in the sand. On their return, only gravel was ...

Point Reyes Lighthouse

The ancient home of the Coast Miwok people, the dramatic landscape of the Point Reyes peninsula with its wave battered cliffs, remained undiscovered by European explorers until the late 1500's. Sir Francis Drake probably first sighted and mapped the fog-shrouded ...

Tunnel Log

This question is asked thousands of times each year by visitors to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. They are surprised to hear that the famous tunneled sequoia tree they seek was never in these parks, but rather 100 ...

Crystal Caves

By some accounts Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks could have been set aside solely to protect the amazing caves found in this area of the Southern Sierra Nevada. The two parks protect half of the caves more than a ...

Mineral King

The winter passed quickly, and eager prospectors pushed their way up the East Fork canyon well before the snows melted in the spring of 1874. During the warm weather of July and August, the subalpine valley the miners optimistically called ...

Tharps Log

Tharp also noted the substantial Native American population, which to its later dismay, welcomed him graciously:I first located my ranch where I now live in the summer of 1856. There were about 2,000 Indians then living along the Kaweah Rivers ...