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Draft EIR Calaveras County Draft General Plan June 2018 CULTURAL AND TRIBAL CULTURAL 4.5 RESOURCES 4.5.1 INTRODUCTION The Cultural Resources chapter of the EIR describes cultural resources, including prehistoric, historic, and paleontological resources, known to be located within Calaveras County. Prehistoric resources are those sites and artifacts associated with indigenous, non-Euro-American populations, generally prior to contact with people of European descent. Historical resources include structures, features, artifacts, and sites that date from Euro-American settlement of the region. Paleontological resources are the remains of life preserved in a geologic context, such as fossils. Fossils may consist of the physical remains of a biological organism (including human remains), such as teeth, bones, shells, leaves, seeds, or wood. The extent to which buildout of the Draft General Plan could potentially remove, damage, or destroy existing cultural resources within the County is evaluated below. 4.5.2 EXISTING ENVIRONMENTAL SETTING The following discussion consists of the Calaveras County’s historic, prehistoric, and ethnographic settings, as well as historic resources and historic and prehistoric archaeological resources known to exist within Calaveras County. The information below is derived from records maintained by the Calaveras Heritage Council as well as various other sources.1 Historic Setting Prior to the turn of the nineteenth century, most European involvement in California had been centered on the Spanish missions that lined the coastal area between San Francisco and San Diego. Travel beyond the coast was typically limited to recovery efforts to retrieve runaway neophytes back to the missions. Gabriel Moraga’s campaigns into the Californian interior in 1806 through 1811 were scouting undertakings meant to protect the farms and pueblos that were developing in central California. During his journey, Moraga “discovered” and named many of the rivers in California, including the Mokelumne, Stanislaus, and Calaveras Rivers. Tradition states that Calaveras County derived its name from the river named by Gabriel Moraga in 1808 (Hoover 1966: 41). The name Calaveras, Spanish for “skulls,” referenced the skulls and bones encountered by Moraga in the river during his encampment (Lewis Publishing Company 1891). It is also possible, however, that the name references the effect of the malarial epidemic of 1833 that wiped out thousands of Native Americans. (Mace 2002: 63). For the following half century, non-native involvement in the area was dominated by fur trapping and military interests. After Mexico declared its independence in 1821, more land grants were 1 Calaveras Heritage Council. CalaverasHistory.org. Available at: http://www.calaverashistory.org/. Accessed March 2, 2017. Chapter 4.5 – Cultural and Tribal Cultural Resources 4.5 - 1 Draft EIR Calaveras County Draft General Plan June 2018 distributed throughout California, drawing more permanent, non-native settlers into central California, which led to an increased Mexican military presence, such as the expeditions of General Mariano Vallejo against the Native population in 1829. An increased presence of American and European fur trappers throughout California occurred during the same time period. In 1826 Jedediah Strong Smith led a fur trapping company into California from Utah and became the first American to enter the region that would come to be referred to as the Mother Lode (Mace 2002: 2). Barring such expeditions, the presence of white settlers in the area of Calaveras County was relatively limited until the discovery of gold in 1848. Calaveras County encompasses roughly one quarter of California’s Southern mines and is one of the eight counties encompassed by the Mother Lode. In 1848 the area was thoroughly explored by Californians entering the area in search of gold (Wood 1955: 6). Mexicans Don Antonio Coronel and Benito Perez of Los Angeles were some of the earliest prospectors to enter Calaveras County, arriving in the spring of 1848. That summer, miners George and Henry Angel, John and Dan Murphy, and James Carson left Hangtown, now Placerville, and established the camps along streams that now bear their names (Mace 2002: 2). By 1849 the gold country was inundated with thousands of prospective miners and would continue to be so throughout the following decade. The prominence of mining accounted for the names and locations of many of the towns and communities that developed in Calaveras County. Large towns developed with large strikes or supply encampments. Towns were named after prominent miners, locations, events, or geographic features (Marvin 2007). The Gold Rush drew people from across the globe to Calaveras County: Chile, Ireland, England, China, Australia, and Mexico, to name a few countries. Mokelumne Hill, during its tenure as county seat, had a sizable Chinatown located at its outskirts in Chinagulch. In 1860, the Chinese represented 23 percent of the area’s population, as opposed to 16 percent represented in the State as a whole (Mace, 2002: 15). Campo Seco also had a considerable Chinatown during the 1850s (Mace 2002: 51). Chili Gulch derives its name from the sizable number of Chilean workers who occupied the space, and the Mexicans congregated in Campo Seco. Race relations were tense during the Gold Rush, with violent disputes occurring between groups regularly (Mace 2002: 51- 53). In 1850, California attained statehood and Calaveras County was among the 27 original counties established by the government. Calaveras was originally proposed to be a huge county, stretching from the coastal mountains outside of the San Francisco Bay to the Nevada border (Mace 2002: 5). Its final size was considerably smaller, but still included portions of present day Amador, Alpine, and Mono Counties. Pleasant Valley, a small mining camp near present day Jenny Lind, was designated by legislature as the first county seat in January 1850. Almost immediately, the county seat was moved to Double Springs in April 1850. The county seat was controversially moved to Jackson in 1851 when locals appropriated government records through subterfuge. Less than a year later, the State legislature moved the county seat to Mokelumne Hill. In 1854 the citizens of Jackson seceded, forming Amador County from the area north of the Mokelumne River. Finally, in 1866 the county seat was moved for the last time to its current location of San Andreas (Hoover 1966: 41). Chapter 4.5 – Cultural and Tribal Cultural Resources 4.5 - 2 Draft EIR Calaveras County Draft General Plan June 2018 During its more than 150 years of existence, the economy of Calaveras County has been driven by three major industries: mining, lumber, and agriculture. Pan (or placer) mining dominated the efforts of miners during the first few years of the Gold Rush. Within a decade, numerous new methods to increase efficiency in mining were introduced, changing the most prevalent demographic of the mining community from the individual miners to mining companies. By 1853 hydraulic mining, using high powered hoses to wash away mountains in search of gold, came into play in the gold fields. Chili Gulch, north of San Andreas, is the most obvious example of hydraulic mining in Calaveras County. Drift mining, digging a tunnel to reach the gold pocket itself, was introduced in Calaveras County in 1855. Quartz mining was introduced in the 1860s and developed with the advent of deep rock mining in the late 1880s. Drift tunnels and deep rock quartz mines represented more than half of the gold recovered in Calaveras County (Mace 2002: 74-75). Minerals other than gold also had their place in the history of mining in Calaveras County. Campo Seco was a center for copper mining for over a century. Copper production in that area began in 1859 but was hit hard by the copper market glut of the late 1860s. The Penn Mining Company was established in the 1880s and continued on and off, supporting the community until the closing of the Penn Mine in 1959 (Mace, 2002: 51-53). Copperopolis has its roots in the Civil War era, when the community shipped more than $1,600,000 worth of copper east via Stockton (Lewis Publishing Company 1891). As a result of the boom caused by military demand, copper production briefly vitalized an area that had been left out of the Gold Rush (Mace 2002: 76). The Copperopolis Armory, constructed in 1864 for the Union Guard, was used by military men for training and storage. With the end of the war, demand for copper dropped and the prices plummeted. Interest in cheaper shipment of copper to Stockton instigated the construction of the Stockton- Copperopolis Railroad in the early 1870s. Milton was established a mile off the eastern terminus of the railroad and acted as a transportation center and the railhead into the County. In 1885 the Southern Pacific absorbed the Stockton-Copperopolis Railroad and it, along with two other short railroads in the County, supported local transportation until automobiles attained dominance in the 1930s (Mace, 2002:81-83). Following the Gold Rush, settlers of Calaveras County turned to various other avenues of economic development. Agriculture flourished in many sections during the late nineteenth century, particularly in the western parts, around towns such as Milton. The 1880 Census shows 467 farms assessed at 10 times the value of the 1850 Census (Lewis Publishing Company 1891). Early agricultural efforts focused predominantly on fruit, grains, and mixed-use subsistence farming. Locals turned to ranching when farming failed to produce the desired economic revival for the region (Marvin 2007). Through the 1960s, agricultural activity focused predominantly on livestock, but also included crops such as hay, fruit, and nuts (Clark 1962; Lewis Publishing Company 1891). During the latter half of the twentieth century, commercial crops such as wine grapes and olives began to gain prominence along with the traditional livestock and timber interests. Lumber has a long-standing history in Calaveras County reaching back prior to the Gold Rush.

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