Golden History Days and Wagon Train Arrival

Saturday on Main Street

On a Saturday in June, Placerville closes Main Street to cars between Bedford Avenue and Sacramento Street and gives it over to Golden History Days. According to the Mountain Democrat, many buildings along the street date from the years following the Gold Rush. A city staff report for the 2026 edition, held June 6, listed about 50 vendor booths of antiques, arts, crafts, leather goods and specialty items. It also listed food vendors and living-history displays by the Buffalo Soldiers, the Pony Express, the Gold Rush Fire Brigade and the Daughters of the Golden West. The official opening was a Buffalo Soldiers flag ceremony at 10 a.m. DJ Brando played from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with acoustic performers through the day.

The Golden History Association presents the day with the Highway 50 Association and the downtown group Merchants on Main. “To enrich the experience, we invited antique vendors, cultural artisans, peddlers and food vendors to join us,” Greg Rezak, the association’s president, told the Mountain Democrat. The Kiddy Corral was new in 2026: a run of children’s games, each modeled on a Main Street landmark and each hosted by a local nonprofit. At 11 a.m. Mountain Democrat staff gathered outside Placerville Hardware, the newspaper’s early home, to unveil a plaque from the Native Daughters of the Golden West, Marguerite Parlor No. 12. The plaque marks 175 years of continuous publication by California’s oldest newspaper.

The 2024 program, on June 8, leaned toward costume and song. Buried History organized it under the Golden History Association. Its sets portrayed Japanese pioneers, Black Americans, Hispanic and Californio residents, and Anglo and Irish settlers, and the city’s listing added Native Americans and Chinese. Living History members worked as blacksmith, gambler, saloon dancer and camp cook, and the Gold Rush Chorus sang barbershop harmony in the street. Visitors were asked to come in clothing of 1848 to 1888, such as prairie dresses, mining clothes, saloon garb or fancy dress, and the best-dressed won $100. Public House, Thai Noodle House, Franny’s Farm Table, Powell’s and Sourdough & Co. put out grab-and-go menus. The Placerville Kiwanis Club sold hot dogs, and Meridian Snow and More sold shaved ice. That year’s opening ceremonies, at the Bell Tower from 9 to 9:30 a.m., included a Native American land blessing.

The street has not always filled. For 2025 the organizers could not raise enough sponsorship for a full-scale celebration, so they scaled the event back and did not seek the full closure. The Folsom Times described that June 7 edition as starting at noon, with food trucks, live music and an antique street fair. The city report says the coordinators spent the following year raising money to revive the event.

Three o’clock at the Bell Tower

About 3 p.m. the Highway 50 Wagon Train reaches the Bell Tower. The Folsom Times reported in 2026 that crowds line Main Street to meet the wagons and riders. That year’s 77th run left Round Hill, Nevada, on a Sunday. It followed the Highway 50 corridor through the Lake Tahoe Basin, Echo Summit, Kyburz, Pollock Pines and Camino before coming down into Placerville. The train is made up of covered wagons, horse-drawn freight wagons, riders, scouts, wranglers and reenactors, and it averages three miles an hour.

The Highway 50 Association’s rules of the road require wagons to be authentic replicas, with no rubber tires or plastic. Dress must be of the era as well: no baseball caps, T-shirts, tank tops, halter tops or shorts. Each night there is a Pow Wow at the Lead Hitch, and every participant is expected to attend. Vi Tara, writing for the association, set down the mornings in camp: “coffee boiling, bacon frying, mingled with the clanking of harness, the soft knickers of horses being readied for the day, and the murmurs of the wranglers going about their duties.” Ron Martin wrote on Facebook in 2016: “My first experience was over 60 years ago on the old highway 50 (pony express trail) still is a wonderful experience to see.”

In 2026 a memorial followed the wagons, at about 3:30 p.m. from the Bell Tower. It honored Davey “Doc” Wiser, who died in March 2026. The city report calls him a longtime advocate for the Wagon Train, and he was known for his stagecoach rides. A static display recalled his work. Through the afternoon the Bell Tower had seating for food from Old Town Grill and other Merchants on Main fundraisers. The proceeds went to Images of Hope, which supports families going through cancer treatment.

The Roaring Road, 1949

In the early 1850s the route over what is now Echo Summit and the Highway 50 corridor was called the Roaring Road. The association’s history says traffic was so heavy that wagon trains sometimes waited days for their turn. The Folsom Times gives it another name, the Johnson Cutoff. Its maker, the trailblazer John Calhoun Johnson, laid out one of the most heavily traveled wagon roads into California.

As early as 1946, local citizens began to consider a wagon train to honor the emigrants who had come over that road. By 1949 they had one, timed for the Gold Rush centennial and running from Lake Tahoe to Placerville, which the association’s history calls Old Hangtown. The founders also hoped it would draw attention to the Highway 50 corridor and the small businesses along it. South Tahoe Now credits business owners and residents of South Lake Tahoe, Stateline, the American River Canyon and Placerville. The Folsom Times names that first outing the original Pony Express Wagon Train and records a parade-style entrance into Placerville.

It was meant to happen once, and there was no train in 1950. Demand brought it back in 1951. The association says it has made the trek every year since, while the Folsom Times, in 2026, wrote “nearly every year.” California recognized it as a historic event in 1980 and Nevada in 1982, and the association calls it “the ONLY Bi-State Historic Event.” In 2025 the Folsom Times described it as the last full-length, historically accurate wagon train re-enactment in the United States.

A queen in Sacramento

South Tahoe Now tells of one detour. When Queen Elizabeth II visited California with Prince Philip in March 1983, she asked to see the Wagon Train. The group gathered its wagons and horses and went to Sacramento for a special ride with the Kit Carson Mountain Men and Women of the West. By that paper’s account, the train had been starting to fall apart, and the Queen’s interest put life back into it.

The association has set its 78th run for June 6 through 12, 2027, from Round Hill to Placerville, with Steve Downer as wagonmaster. The train is due in Pollock Pines on June 11.