Weekend Rambler

Today's destination and the semi-ghost town of North Bloomsfield, there is so much history tucked into these foothills. This is the site of the largest hydraulic mining operation in California from the 1850s till the 1880s when farmers in the valley were able to stop the destructive practice because of silted up rivers and streams.

The damage is obvious and 150 years later this is what it looks like. The natural treeline is visable. Some of you may remember a "Big Valley" episode when Audrey was kidnapped and held by hydraulic miners working on the Barkley's land. This is very much the region that show was filmed. I loved "Big Valley" and "Bonanza", an excuse to head to Tahoe's North shore where it was filmed, and all Westerns in general as a kid, still do, and now I am exploring where it happened, fun, eh? I love to watch the old and new westerns and pick out places I have been to or backdrops I can recognize. I love to explore and in an area this beautiful and full of history, it is impossible to resist the urge.

Ye olde school house and town meetin' place, built solid, as the largest room in the town it had many functions from school during the day to evening socials and dances at night.

Next door is the Catholic Church, this is my kind of church building, simply a place to meet. The antique glass didn't allow a decent picture of the interior but it is perfectly quaint.

A water cannon, the biggest sent an eight inch solid jet of water 200 feet to erode the mountain into sluice boxes to capture the gold.

A muddy hole across the street from the Church.

A remaining house/cabin, about 10x15

Another one, both could be made livable really quick as a huntin', an fishin' cabin.

No wonder the miners wound up here, the local saloon, card tables at the rear and keep it clean sign, note the scale to weigh the gold dust on the back counter to the right.

This will be a new focus of the Barnyard, can't do war and politics all the time, to dedicate either the Rambler or the Roundup, my choice, to posting some California history. I live at the entrance to gold country, it is a fascinating journey and I hope you will return to explore it with me.

I believe we have a cabin trip planned for next weekend for spring maintenance and I will try to make it into Bodie, another ghost town, in the "High Plains Drifter" region.

This is fun blogging for me, do my readers enjoy it? Let me know, I want to know, I have thousands of pictures of my explorations of California waiting to be scanned in. Should I do it myself or take the negatives to Walmart to have discs made? I need a new scanner, any suggestions as to the best for photo work? I have used HPs up to this point and have been happy, any reason to change?