Columbia Takes You Back-

Historic State Park Lives On as a Gold Rush Community

A team of horses drawing an authentic stagecoach is ready to take another group of visitors on a historic ride through Columbia, California. Photo: Steve Newvine

Let the next five minutes take you back to 1849. Gold has been discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the Sierra Mountains.

Tens of thousands of wannabe millionaires storm the region. Gold rush towns such as Hornitos in Merced County pop up. In Columbia in Tuolumne County California the rush came.

But long after the prospectors left, this little town was not forgotten. A trip to Columbia can take you back to the Gold Rush days because the town never let go of its history. According to a historical plaque placed by the State Park Commission, Columbia never became a ghost town.

A worker helps visitors pan for gold at the prospector’s shop in the Columbia Historic State Park. Photo: Steve Newvine

More than five-thousand people lived there in the Gold Rush era. Today, the population stands at just over two-thousand.

Many of the buildings that made up what is now known as Columbia Historic State Park are still standing and still in use. Gold is no longer the big business.

Tourism is the draw now with an estimated impact of nearly a quarter billion dollars of annual spending from travelers according to the Visit Tuolumne County 2021 Annual Report (visittuolumne.com).

On a warm sunny day in August, my wife and I took in the village as part of a one-day getaway.

Upon parking the car, we were in the historic confines in a matter of minutes.

We watched a pair of blacksmiths pound out customized horseshoes for paying customers. We picked up some chocolate treats from the candy shop. We saw how traditional candles are made at a shop that sells nothing but candles.

We bought lunch at a sit-down saloon with sarsaparilla available upon request.

Sarsaparilla was a favored non-alcoholic drink from the Gold Rush era. Fortunately for me on that sunny weekday in that authentic western saloon, other beverages were served as well.

Our day was topped off with the Sierra Repertory Theatre’s presentation of Jersey Boys, the one-time Broadway musical staged during the summer season with professional actors and professional stage personnel.

While the show was great, experiencing it inside the historic Fallon House was a capper to a refreshing day of old and new.

The Fallon House in Columbia Historic State Park hosts selected productions of the Sierra Repertory Theatre. Photo: Steve Newvine

The Columbia Historic State Park was created in 1945. It was established by the state to preserve the historic buildings.

Some eight decades later, it remains very much like it was back in the Gold Rush era.

The region around Columbia was known as the southern mines as it lies well south of Sutter’s Mill where the first discovery of gold took place. For people living in the Merced and Atwater side of the County, you can get there within an hour and a half.

My wife and I have used Columbia as a convenient one-day event destination for out-of-town visitors.

It is another side to California that sometimes gets lost in the common misconceptions of the state being only about San Francisco or Los Angeles.

There’s a lot of history up there, and thankfully a lot of it has stayed in place ready to be rediscovered.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

Two of his books: California Back Roads and Can Do Californians, are available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop or online at Lulu.com