Days of 49 Celebration and Wagon Train

The wagons come into Jackson at the end of the trail: canvas-topped, horse-drawn, each team handled by a driver who has brought it across Amador County over the preceding days. The organizers bill them as wagons “as they were in 1849.” On parade morning they come down Main Street with horses and mules. In 2023 and in an earlier edition, the train stopped for about 30 minutes so the crowd could look over the wagons and animals and have photographs taken with the Kit Carson Mountain Men, the club that runs the event. John Queirolo, the club’s head wrangler, puts the whole affair in a line: “Days of 49… where history comes alive!”

The order of the parade has varied. In 2025 the Days of 49 Parade opened at 11 a.m. with the arrival of the wagon train, followed by wild-west and pioneer-theme entries, children’s entries, riders, and floats from the towns and businesses of the county. In 2023 the wagons came last, after the Kiddies’ Parade. Ron Scofield, who draws the event’s poster each year, rides along. In 2023 the posters sold for $10, the money went to the event’s running costs, and the newsletter noted that he would personalize one “if you catch him on the train.”

1,056 feet of Main Street

The street day has run from morning into mid-afternoon. In 2025 it went from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 27, and all of it was free. The Jackson Lions Club served a free pancake breakfast at the Jackson Civic Center from 9 to 11. Before the parade, Calaveras Cody did magic and juggling, the Black Flag Gang staged a shoot-out, and the pony rides began. After the parade the bands took over: Those Windburn Brothers, Route 88, Ragtime Rising, and Jack Magee’s Travelin’ Tunes and sing-along. The Nevada Gunslingers held more shoot-outs. The Mountain Men and the Gold Rush Fire Brigade ran living-history stations. X-Treme BBQ, Auggies Doggies, Wok & Roll, Cupcake Trolley, and Hawaiian Ice sold food from 11 on. At 12:30 there was a Blessing of the Animals on Main Street, and people were invited to bring their pets. Children had stick pony races, Hoop a Boot, face painting, and the Talking Toads.

Cedric Clute, writing in the Ledger Dispatch before the April 30, 2023 celebration, measured the street himself the day before. “Main Street is 12,672 inches long,” he reported, “that translates to 1056 feet or 352 yards.” He then walked a reader down it from the Firehouse to the National Hotel. A stagecoach stood on display just off the highway where the Kiddies’ Parade lined up. Near it, Jake and Joey Guidi sang campfire tunes, small children went on pony rides, and Clancy the Tin-Horn Gambler wandered the crowd and talked about old-time poker games. Six vendors had tables in the El Dorado Bank parking lot, among them Amador Leather Works and Lisa Porta with her mosaics and wrap jewelry. Jack McGee sang at the corner of Court Street with a popcorn vendor beside him, and Route 88 played classic country and rock in front of Sue’s Shoppe. Down Logan’s Alley a food court sold tacos, pizza, Hawaiian ice, barbecue, cotton candy, and foot-long hot dogs.

Clute listed more along the street: a mechanical calf for children to rope, a scavenger hunt, rope making, and a Medicine Wagon whose “lecturer” explained early doctoring in the West. The stick ponies for the races, he wrote, were designed and made by Dianne Oneto, the event director, and Queirolo, and no two were alike. Children named their mounts before racing them. Trophies for the Kiddies’ Parade were handed out in front of the National Hotel, with fourteen awards in every category. Four bullfrogs sat with the interpretive wagons to answer questions. “Calaveras County may have jumping frogs,” Clute wrote, “but we have the ‘Amazing Talking Frogs of Amador County.’”

The trail through Plymouth, Drytown, and Sutter Creek

The trek begins days before the parade, at the Amador County Fairgrounds in Plymouth. It follows back roads and Old Highway 49 through Drytown, Amador City, and Sutter Creek to Jackson. The wagons circle up each afternoon and evening to rest, and on most evenings the public can come see them up close. The 2025 route ran this way:

• Wednesday: a stop on Main Street in Plymouth, then private ranch land to Drytown for 30 minutes, then the climb up New Chicago Road to a private ranch.
• Thursday: a day of rest on the ranch.
• Friday: a 30-minute stop in Amador City, a late lunch in Sutter Creek, and a climb to the Italian Picnic Grounds.
• Saturday: ranch land into Jackson, a procession down Main Street, and a stop at the Senior Center.

The ranch encampments are private and not open to visitors. The public viewing points on the Saturday were Main Street and the Senior Center.

The 2023 newsletter gave more of the road. On the first morning the train made a pass and a wave to the children at Plymouth Elementary School, then looped through the vineyards of the Shenandoah Valley. On the second it went through the 49er Village RV Resort and stopped on Spanish Street in Drytown “for a visit with neighbors.” At the Italian Picnic Grounds, 581 Highway 49, visitors watched a square-dancing demonstration and danced to live music, with barbecue from 5 to 7. On the fourth day the wagons crossed ranch land off Ridge Road and called on residents of Oak Manor Retirement Complex, next to the Amador Senior Center. The senior-care stops have stayed on the route. A 2026 Ledger photograph shows Dianne Oneto with her first cousin once removed, Tom Oneto Sr., at Amador Residential Care, and the caption explains that residents come out to pet the horses.

That year the last night was spent at Laughton Ranch, 90 Clinton Road in Jackson, across from Raley’s. The public was invited for the afternoon. “It’s a working ranch,” Clute wrote, and “very little of the ranch is off-limits.” Visitors could talk with the teamsters and look for a filly born a month earlier in the pasture. Hot dogs and hamburgers were sold from 1 to 5, followed by a barbecue dinner of tri-tip, cowboy beans, roast potatoes, and green salad. There was an 1840s interpretive wagon and rope making, blacksmithing by Volcano Forge, the Del Oro Spinners and Weavers, and Charlie Chatfield with his miner’s camp.

The 2026 train, the twelfth by the Ledger’s count, ran four days instead of five, from Wednesday, April 22, to Saturday, April 25. It came down Historic Main Street in Jackson on the Saturday, stopped at the Amador Senior Center, circled back to Main Street, and ended at a private ranch. Posts by Kristi Stinchfield Hostetter in a Jackson community group followed it along the way: “Wagon Train is in Plymouth!” on April 22, then Amador City, Sutter Creek, and the Italian Picnic Grounds on April 24, “Heading to Jackson tomorrow.”

Kit Carson Days and the Mountain Men

The Kiddies’ Parade is older than the wagon train. It was part of Kit Carson Days, which Jackson held from the late 1930s until 1971. When the 2023 newsletter announced its return, with sponsorship from the Jackson Rancheria Band of Miwuk Indians and the City of Jackson, the newsletter noted: “Only we ‘oldsters’ will remember this parade.” Visit Amador and the Ledger describe the present celebration as honoring California’s pioneer and Native American heritage.

The sources count the editions differently. A Sutter Creek visitor listing posted in March 2022 called that spring’s train, sixteen covered wagons strong, the sixth living-history wagon train. The 2023 newsletter called its own the ninth, and the organizers’ site called 2025 the eleventh. The 2022 route also included a stop at the Kit Carson Mountain Men Hut in Jackson.

The club itself goes back much further. In 2023 the Kit Carson Mountain Men were in their 67th year. That year they re-elected their president, James Philips, known in the club as Kit Carson. Under him, the newsletter reported, the Mountain Men had set up a site in Jackson for club campouts and were thinking of “maybe hosting a future rendezvous with other clubs.”