Gold Nugget Days

The 2026 Gold Nugget Days began on the evening of Thursday, April 23, at the Paradise Performing Art Center on Nunnely Road. There, candidates for Gold Nugget Queen were judged on three counts: the historical authenticity of their costumes, their poise, and their personality. The winner is crowned with a 14-karat gold crown made by John A. Woodworth in 1968. From that Thursday the celebration ran four days across Paradise and Magalia on the Paradise Ridge. Gold Nugget Days, Inc. and its Gold Nugget Museum run it.

Friday at the Elks, Saturday at the church

Friday, April 24, opened at 8:30 a.m. at Paradise Community Park with Make a Difference Day. Volunteers went out across both towns to build, weed, plant, paint, and clean, and one crew worked on a creek restoration. That evening the Paradise Elks Lodge on Elk Lane served a community dinner from 4 to 6, then live music until 10, at twenty dollars a head at the door.

Saturday began early up the road in Magalia. The Historic Magalia Community Church on Old Skyway served pancakes from 7 a.m. under the name Grub and Grits, and at 8:30 the 67th Annual Donkey Derby stepped off. E Clampus Vitus, Pair-o-Dice 711, stages it as a reenactment of the 1859 discovery of the Dogtown Nugget and of the nugget’s journey. The program asked spectators to bring chairs.

Fifty-four pounds from Willard Gulch

The Paradise Post covered the 59th derby on a Saturday in April 2017. Teams of one contestant and one donkey came up from Whiskey Flats to the church in Old Magalia. Each donkey carried a satchel weighted to 54 pounds to stand for the nugget. At the church the obstacles waited: a water pit, tires, stairs, and a dark corridor. Henry Schleiger and his donkey Poppy went through the water and the tires without hesitating and won for the second year running, taking $500 in gold coins. It was Poppy’s 16th derby. “The hill here was the toughest part,” Schleiger said. “I felt like I was pulling her up.” The next team reached the obstacles ten minutes later and stalled at the first water pit, as did most of the field as it trickled in. Spectators laughed while contestants grunted and pleaded with their animals. A special prize went to the team that finished dead last.

The weight comes from the canyon below. A marker on the Old Skyway entering Magalia was erected in 1955 by Centennial Parlor No. 295, Native Daughters of the Golden West. It records the first large gold nugget in California: “It was found across this canyon in Willard Gulch April 12, 1859. Weight 54 pounds.” The site became California Registered Historical Landmark No. 771 on January 31, 1962. State Parks places the find at the Willard Claim, a hydraulic mine in the Feather River Canyon northeast of the town. An account excerpted on the Historical Marker Database adds more detail. Three miners named Willard, Wetherbee, and Smith owned the claim in 1851, and a 96-ounce piece was reported from it in 1854. The 1859 nugget was found by a workman, A. K. Stearns, and was worth $10,690. The marker overlooks the canyon below Sawmill Peak, and a 2010 entry notes that trees now hide much of the view.

Down Skyway at noon

Back in Paradise, Skyway closes at about 11 a.m. on parade Saturday. The parade runs from noon to 1:30, from Paradise Shopping Center to Birch Street. The museum produces it with the Paradise Police Department and V.I.P.S., and the town lists a contest for best entry. In 2017 the queen, Anahi Yerman, and her escort, Jared Mackay, led it down Skyway. Two riders, Carl Shadburn and Geary LaFountain, had come from Redding on a Harley-Davidson for their first look. “I thought I was going to Chico and ended up here,” LaFountain said. “I’m glad I did because it’s a blast. People are very happy.” She marked the kids lined along both sides of Skyway. The museum calls the parade of April 27, 2024, a beautiful day; its account of April 26, 2025, records rain.

The rest of the weekend spread across town. At the Terry Ashe Recreation Center on Skyway, the Paradise Recreation and Park District held the Gold Nugget Craft Faire, which the district counts as 48 years running. It drew artisans from Northern California, Oregon, and Nevada, along with food vendors and over 50 small businesses. The district’s notice gives April 25 and 26 as the dates; the Butte365 listing gives Saturday only. Burnt Barn Distilling Co. on Wayland Road held a gathering after the Wildflower Century Ride, with a featured cocktail and Big B’s BBQ. On Sunday, April 26, the Paradise Horse Arena on Moore Road held the Gold Nugget Days Horse Festival, with food, booths, games, and a raffle. The town’s standing list for the celebration also names a children’s costume contest, a melodrama, a Highlanders and Miners Ball, the Miss Gold Nugget Pageant, and Sunday at the Museum. In 2017 the last day was spent at the museum and at The Depot in Magalia.

Mrs. Youngs and the Willard Nugget

Early in 1959, Paradise resident Mary Audrey Youngs realized the year marked a century since the Dogtown Nugget. By the museum’s account, she did not think anyone was thinking about it. She took the idea to her group, the Native Daughters of the Golden West, who sent her on to the Paradise Ridge Chamber of Commerce. The chamber secretary, Inge Baldinger, recorded the meeting of February 2, 1959: “Mrs. Youngs presented the suggestion that the Native Daughters and Chamber of Commerce join in some kind of celebration commemorating the 100 anniversary of the finding of the Willard Nugget. She gave some history of the event and expressed the idea that the two organizations collaborate in giving a dinner and dance in the 49er style.” Some members worried there was too little time. Will Styles spoke in favor and was named chairman of the Parade Committee, in the museum’s words, “for his trouble.” The first Gold Nugget Days brought the parade, the donkey derby, and the Gold Nugget Queen.

Gold Nugget Days, Inc. was formed to keep the ridge’s artifacts and history. The museum dates its incorporation to 1970; a 2021 article from the town’s Make It Paradise program gives 1973. The same article says the corporation’s charter requires a parade, barring emergencies. The corporation broke ground for the original Gold Nugget Museum in 1978. On April 23, 1981, the 1980 Gold Nugget Queen cut the ribbon at its grand opening. The museum has planned the celebration ever since, along with Days of Living History, which brought students from across Northern California to see something of life in the 1850s and 1860s.

The Camp Fire destroyed the museum on November 8, 2018, and its staff and board resolved to rebuild. The town’s page says the celebration has continued every year since 1959. The 2021 article, however, marks that year’s edition as a return after the previous year’s pandemic hiatus. That spring the Paradise Gem & Mineral Club brought a show back to Gold Nugget Days after more than ten years. At least 25 vendors, food trucks, and blacksmithing filled the grounds of the new museum property at 475 Pearson Road. “The faces. The smiles. The laughter: it’s the community getting back together one way or another – that’s the most important thing,” said Executive Director Mark Thorp.

The new museum occupies a six-thousand-square-foot building on Pearson Road that was once a transmission shop. The Paradise Gem and Mineral Club uses part of it. A small staff, docents, and hundreds of volunteers keep it running. The museum’s web pages carry the line “museum closed until further notice.” After the 2026 parade, from 1 to 5 p.m., the museum celebrated the opening of its new showroom with music, a BBQ food truck, a beer garden, a blacksmith working before the crowd, and an old-timey mock barber shave for the children.