Grass Valley

Cattle in the Meadow, 1849

The Grass Valley library, opened in 1916, stands above the Golden Center Mine, and 367 miles of tunnels run under the city.⁴ Hardrock mining under this Nevada County town ceased only in 1956.^3,4

In 1939 the Federal Writers’ Project guide told how an immigrant party of 1849 found its half-starved cattle, strayed from camp on the heights, feasting on green grass in the meadows where Grass Valley would rise.² The guide adds that in August 1849 a band of 20 men led by a Dr. Saunders built the first cabin on Badger Hill and wintered in it.² The library’s National Register nomination also dates the settlement to 1849, and it records that a short-lived library of 1860 came a year before the city was incorporated.⁴

Quartz on Gold Hill

The easily reached gold was soon gone, and the 1939 guide says the quartz mines were not tapped until 1850.^2,4 In October 1850 George Knight found gold-bearing quartz on Gold Hill, and the marker set there in 1929 says his find created the great excitement that made quartz mining a great industry.⁵ The same marker allows that gold-bearing quartz was undoubtedly noted there and elsewhere about the same time or earlier.⁵ The Gold Hill Mine is credited with $4,000,000 in gold between 1850 and 1857.⁵ George D. Roberts located the Empire Mine in October 1850; the Empire Mining Company was incorporated in the spring of 1854, new works with a 30-stamp mill went up in 1865, and Wm. B. Bourn, Sr. bought the mine in 1869.¹ Miners from Cornwall brought the skills of the tin mines, the Cornish pump among them, to start hardrock mining.⁴

In 1939 the guide counted 3,817 people and reported that the Empire and the North Star, opened in 1851, had yielded $80,000,000 worth of gold.² The guide called the North Star the deepest mine in the district, with its 9,800-foot level lying 1,600 feet below sea level.² A. D. Foote built the North Star Powerhouse in 1895, where Pelton water wheels made compressed air to run the whole mine, and the state landmark calls its 30-foot wheel the largest in the world.¹

Lola Montez, Chinatown, and the Fire of 1855

Lola Montez, born in Limerick, settled in Grass Valley in 1852, and the state landmark says she built there the only home she ever owned.¹ The 1939 guide has her living there in retirement from 1852 to 1854 with a pet bear, some dogs, and a husband, whom she later divorced because he killed the bear when it clawed and bit him.² Up the street the Crabtrees kept a boarding house for miners, and there their daughter Lotta met Lola Montez, who taught her to sing and dance.¹

The marker E Clampus Vitus put up in 1969 dates Grass Valley’s Chinatown from 1850 to 1938 and says it was second only to San Francisco’s.³ It names former residents Duck Egg, Georgie Bow, and Ah Louie, and the pioneer Yuen, Gon, and Tinloy families.³ The Masons’ marker records that the great fire of September 12 and 13, 1855, destroyed most of Grass Valley along with their wooden lodge.⁶ A few days later the Masons and the Odd Fellows chose a site at 110 Mill St. for a shared brick building, which housed the lodge until fire destroyed its Masonic portion in December 1928.⁶

Brick and Stone on Main and Mill

Henry Silvester and Abraham Salaman built their brick store in 1854 and finished it in 1855, and its marker of 2000 calls it the first and oldest original brick building in Grass Valley.⁷ Grass Valley Hardware has been in business on its site since 1854, by its marker’s account.⁸ The Holbrooke Hotel was built in 1862 around the Golden Gate Saloon of 1852, which the state landmark calls the oldest continuously operating saloon in the Mother Lode region.¹ Bishop Eugene O’Connell dedicated the Sacred Heart Convent and Holy Angels Orphanage on May 2, 1865; under the Sisters of Mercy it was an orphanage until 1932 and an academy until 1965.¹ The United States Government built the post office in 1914, and until 1984 it handled mail, packages, and gold shipments from the mines.⁹ The philosopher Josiah Royce was born on the library’s site, and the diary his mother kept on the Emigrant Trail to Grass Valley is held in the library.⁴