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Groveland and Columbia: Gold Rush Ghost Towns Reborn By Shirley Fong-Torres & Wroburlto Send
your comments to Shirley at: wokwiz@aol.com (And pictured above, it's charming Wro) "Principles
have no real force, unless one is well fed." Mark Twain Tourism is accidental. People travel to see mistakes like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, anachronisms like Maccu Piccu and Bruges, and oddities like the Grand Canyon. We seek not the familiar, but the other. Thus one century's economic disaster is sometimes another century's bonanza. Before the 49'ers "rushed" into the High Sierras of California, they first had to cross oceans, mountains and plains, where all the hostile forces of nature conspired against them. The lucky few who survived the passage and discovered gold quickly spread their new-found wealth around fledgling communities where simple comforts and base temptations were legal tender. Beds and bathwater sometimes became more valuable than gold. Oysters and wine often did. California towns like Columbia, Sonora, Groveland and Jamestown were built on legacies inherited from the opposite poles of human nature, where men braved starvation and death so that one day they might be able to overeat. The California Gold Rush was as brief and fast as its name implies. For all practical purposes it was over within four years, quite a 'rush' indeed. Its enduring legacy was to the American language, where it produced a gold mine of rich words and phrases. Bonanza, claim jumper, the Barbary Coast, 49'er, gold digger, grubstake, Levis, lode and mother lode, native son, nugget, tenderfoot, pay dirt, piker, sluice and strike are terms with which the California Gold Rush enriched our language. They all have charm, but none are as poignant as "ghost town."
Wro calls 'ghost town' his two-syllable haiku. I wouldn't want to be the teacher
who has to argue with him. Ghost towns are frozen in time. After the boom years,
when their original reason for being has been mined out, the fabrications of their
glory days remain intact, while the ambitions that founded them move on to virgin
fields. Like all things frozen, they are preserved to thrive again, when the changing
winds of history thaw them from their sleep. Today, Columbia State Historic Park volunteers wear Gold Rush-era costumes and bring history back to life. Gold panning, stage coach rides, candle and soap making demos are hands-on affairs that Wro loved, as do kids of all ages. Gold was discovered here because of rain and fate. After Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth had given up his quest for gold here, rain delayed his departure from the mountains, and then revealed gold in these odd hills where rainwater runs underground. The historic buildings here were re-created from authentic line drawings. No one knows for sure if the "Cotage" is a misspelled, or just a literal spelling for a place that probably rented cots by the hour. Water was carried here in flumes, since redwoods were plentiful for constructing them. Because gold could be blown out of the mountain with water, the gorgeous hills were sculpted by water pressure…and greed. But Columbia is the exception to the rule. Elsewhere, hydraulic forces were overused and denuded the granite and landscape. Wro pointed out one local store's sign. In a Gold Rush "spa," the cost of a bath depended on how many people had previously used the bathwater, which was as dear as gold when clean. After our living history lesson, we settled in at the historic City Hotel, which, of course, has several resident ghosts. To a chef, however, its charms are less ethereal. The hotel's kitchen is a teaching facility for the Columbia Junior College Culinary Arts program. Students master the finer points of fine dining here. Owner Tom Bender is a New Hampshire import, who loves the Sierra lifestyle and uses as many local products as he can find, plus finer wines from Europe and elsewhere to educate his students. The student dinners are exceptional bargains, especially by San Francisco standards, and sell out fast. The City Hotel has some extraordinary winter bargains, including a promotion in which guests pay as many dollars as the degrees Fahrenheit that day. Wro reasoned that the colder it was, the more money Mommy would have to spend on stage coach rides. Mommy had better ideas. She
tried some seasonal soups, marvelous crab cakes, a stunning venison and wild boar
sausage, and a special chocolate soufflé. Wro flirted shamelessly with
the college waiters and sommeliers, and told them to hurry up and graduate and
come to San Francisco to cook for him. What's a mother to do? Innkeeper Peggy Mosley could have kept us entertained talking about her ghosts, but when Wro heard that she grew up in Memphis, he calculated Elvis' and Peggy's approximate ages, and demanded some personal stories about growing up with the King.
Astonishingly, Peggy really did grow up with Elvis, a neighbor before Elvis started
high school and all through his Hume High days. "We were all poor, but we
didn't know it and we got jobs and stopped being poor soon enough," she said,
summing it all up. Wro told her some ridiculous story about having written "Teddy
Bear" for Elvis. The
small-town atmosphere and the great outdoor living has created a town with probably
the highest percentage of pilots in America. Groveland's population is 1,500 and
there are 500 registered members of the local Pine Mountain Lake Aviation Association! And
the whitewater season is only April through Labor Day! Rafters from all over the
world come for the Tuolumne River's reputation as a top ten river for white water
thrills. "I did not set out to have a great wine cellar," she said. "In fact, I just checked an old menu, from just 12 years ago, and I had only 12 labels in 1992. However, the wine vendors came and tasted me. "I can assure you, I personally tasted every wine on the list," she laughed out loud and gave a double thumbs up. "That's my job," she laughed again. Peggy makes all her window dressings herself and each unique room is stunning, with antiques and appointments to recreate the glory days of the Sierra. Her rooms are named for the builders of the dam that brings water and electricity to San Francisco, and for famous ladies of the Sierra. "We ran out of dam builders," she joked. Groveland attracts creative people as well as outdoorsmen. The shopping is niche driven, with quilters, candy makers, artists, photographers and the like showing many one-of-a-kind product by local artisans. The library is also the Historical Museum and increases its attendance by offering free Internet access. Europeans love Groveland, especially in the off-season, when Charlotte Hotel innkeeper Lynn Upthagrone told us she and chef/husband Victor get well over half their business from Europe. They court it with practices like low prices that include breakfast and all taxes, something common in Europe but not here. Mommy was content to hang out in Peggy's kitchen, but Wro reminded me that we came to see the hills, not the pantry. Groveland is the Gateway to Yosemite, one of the few places in the world where the word awesome has meaning.
Yosemite made painters like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran famous. The artists
sold the West for the railroads by commercializing the glories of the 19th century
mountains and waterfalls. This was Wro's first time in Yosemite and he was awed
into silence. I am more easily impressed by man made things, especially those
that can be enhanced with salt and pepper. Majestic ceilings and their colossal redwood beams take my breath away, as do mountains. So did Chef Terry Sheehan's traditional Sunday buffet, which included some Gold Rush era decadence -- several different kinds of oysters on the half shell, smoked and un-smoked salmon -- and more modern delicacies, like rare prime rib and perfect strawberry crème brulee. The gargantuan Native American tapestries and the roaring fireplaces, and the sheer size of the room had me thinking that things were about as memorable as they could possibly be.
Then Wro asked the piano player to sing an Elvis medley, and he did. City
Hotel The
Ahwahnee (Click below for more travel).
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