Now that gold prices have dropped like a brick, real estate is starting to shine again. Back in August 2011, when gold was at its peak, investors were asked where they’d want to keep their money long-term. According to a Gallup poll, 34% said gold was the best investment.
Now, only 24% of investors say gold is a good investment.. Real estate essentially ties gold for the best investment currently, at 25% to 24%, respectively. In August 2011, 19% of those surveyed listed real estate as their top choice.
Stocks also are more popular, with about 22% saying the market is the best long-term place for their investment dollars. In August 2011, 17% had that view.
“Stocks have been booming and real estate has been recovering in recent months, likely contributing to the decline in gold’s perceived investment status,” Gallup researchers noted in a prepared statement released late Tuesday.
Gold still has its standard bearers, of course. Though investors no longer are rushing to gold, solid support comes from men over 50 years old, while Americans who consider themselves politically independent favor gold over stocks almost two-to-one: 26% to 15%.
On Tuesday John and I, and my family visited Colombia State Historic Park, a living, restored gold rush town. The concessions and businesses in the park close on Thanksgiving and Christmas days, but they are open for every other holiday, weather permitting.
The Gold Rush to Columbia, California began on March 27, 1850 by a small party of prospectors. News of the discovery spread and they were soon joined by a flood of miners. Unlike many settlements that have changed with the times, Columbia, California seems to be frozen in the 1800’s, and appears to be the best preserved of California gold rush towns. Columbia State Historic Park offers a blend of museums, displays, town tours, live theater plays, shops, restaurants and attractions.
After a great Mexican lunch, we saw the soap shop, the museum, information center and the working blacksmith shop. We also visited many other stores, enjoyed a few sarsaparillas, listened to some street musicians, and my four year old granddaughter made her very own dipped candle.
As a grand finale we rode a stagecoach through the woods – where the bad guys tried to take our gold (we didn’t have any thank goodness, because they weren’t willing to pull teeth). It was a wonderful, educational trip.
Judy J. Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in many publications.
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
The earliest settlement in Nevada County was made in the summer of 1848 at a place called Rose’s Corral which was located between the Anthony House and Bridgeport. Early in the spring of 1849 a group of mountaineers from Oregon known as the Greenwood Company mined for gold at Illinois Bar on the South Yuba River. They were followed by emigrants from Indiana. In the fall of 1849, the Greenwood Company made winter camp at Jefferson, and the Indiana group moved further upstream to Washington. It was that same autumn that Captain John Pennington’s party struck rich diggings on Deer Creek and built the first cabin on Gold Run, the site that was to become Nevada City. (Source Ed Tyson)
Originally a mining camp founded along Deer Creek in 1849, Nevada City rapidly became the largest and wealthiest mining town in California. At one point, Nevada City was the third largest city in California with a population of 10,000. Nevada City’s good fortune allowed miners and settlers to enjoy plush gambling establishments, hotels, saloons, and stores. However, like many big cities that sprang up quickly during the rush for instant wealth, early Nevada City shared a darker side of claim jumping, murder, brothels and opium dens.
Well, really day two, but getting in last night an hour before midnight doesn’t count!! The trip didn’t start too well as they held us for an hour in Sacramento while they fixed some computer problem. This caused us to miss our connection in Denver to go to Houston. When we got there we were told we had been rescheduled on Continental, but arriving at that gate we found it was NOT reserved. We were then put on “standby” but luckily got on anyway. Then somebody had a medical emergency (heart) on our plane, but (also luckily) there were 3 Doctors on board.
The Hotel Aranjuez in San Jose is very nice and inexpensive too. Wonderful FULL breakfast included with a double room (actually two beds and a bath) for US$ 48.00. It is within walking distance of the main downtown, which is what we did today. …oh and RAIN…did I mention it was raining… (pouring) most of the morning? John and I were prepared, but several hours into it Ted realized his windbreaker was not waterproof (duh)…but tiendas (shops) abound so we found a nice waterproof Adidas jacket with hood.
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Rafael Angel Calderón Museum
Our walking tour started with the Rafael Angel Calderón Museum, Costa Rica’s (CR) President from 1940-44, and the social reforms he helped to create in that time period. Educated in Costa Rica and Belgium as a medical doctor, Calderón soon turned his back on the conservative coffee elite to address widespread poverty and poor health conditions among the working poor. He became the first Central American president to primarily focus his attention on poverty and deteriorating social conditions.
The Mexican Government surely became concerned about the interlopers ferreting around in their territory and it is believed that this is what led them to grant John Sutter his vast tract at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers. One of Sutter’s boats was the schooner Isabella which legend has it had been the private yacht of King Kamehameha the Great of the Sandwich Islands, possibly the first yacht in the Delta! Leaving what is now San Francisco in August of 1839 it took Sutter and his band eight days to find the entrance to the Sacramento after passing through Carquinez Straits which speaks to the maze of waterways even then. Sutter eventually landed on the bank of the American River at about where the city dump of Sacramento is located. He built his fort nearby at what is now the corner of 27th and L streets in Sacramento. Sutter became a Mexican citizen on August 29, 1840 and was appointed Captain in the Mexican Army as well as judge and representative of the “Government at the Frontier of the Rio Sacramento”. Sutter’s treatment of the Indians is a matter of controversy. Certainly he treated them no worse than did the Mexicans or the Spanish before them. What is known is that he minted tin coins with stars stamped into them for payment to the Indians for work performed and the coins could be redeemed later for food or dry goods in Sutter’s store.
Charles Weber migrated westward and arrived at John Marsh’s ranch at the base of Mt. Diablo in October of 1841. Weber made his way to Sutter’s fort and was employed there in the winter of 1841. Sutter sponsored Weber to obtain Mexican citizenship, which made Weber eligible to receive a land-grant from Mexico. In 1844 Captain Charles Weber and William Gulnac obtained a Mexican land grant for the Rancho del Campo de los Franceses of about 48,000 acres. Weber later bought out Gulnac for $200 and started the settlement of Slough Town later renamed Tuleburg.
During the Mexican-American war the Mexicans imprisoned Weber for refusing to raise arms against the Americans. Commodore Robert F. Stockton the American military commander of California rescued him. In gratitude Weber renamed his settlement Stockton which name it still bears today. The Steamer John A. Sutter was the first power boat to arrive in Stockton on November 1849.
On June 16, 1846 the settlers in California under the command of John Fremont declared independence from Mexico and created the Bear Flag Republic. On July 11, 1846 Paul Revere’s nephew Lieutenant Joseph Revere sent a United States flag to Sutter and the U.S. annexed California under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which included paying Mexico a cash payment of $15,000,000 and the United States assuming claims of American citizens against Mexico of $3,250,000. This ended Mexico’s 21 year control of California. On September 9, 1850, by act of congress California became the 31st state in the Union.
Gold!
Sutter's Mill - Photo courtesy of Bureau of Ocean Management, Regulation and Enforcement
In January of 1848 James Marshall found gold at Sutter’s sawmill on the American River at Coloma and the news quickly spread to San Francisco in spite of Sutter’s attempt to keep the discovery secret. The first known newspaper account was on March 15, 1848 in The Californian in San Francisco and from then on the population of Northern California grew exponentially.
Sam Brannan seized the opportunity and opened a store selling mining supplies. Sam is credited with founding the city of Sacramento and was rumored to have been seen running through the streets of San Francisco yelling “gold has been discovered in the Sierras!” Brannan was reported as California’s first millionaire. John Sutter later in 1848 said:”Every little shanty in or around the Fort became a store, a warehouse or a hotel, the whole settlement was a veritable bazaar.”
Captain William Warner and Lieutenant William T. Sherman (later as General Sherman of Civil War fame) surveyed the area between Sutter’s Fort and the Embarcadero along the Sacramento River laying out the first grid of the city that would be known as “Sacramento City”. Sam Brannan claimed credit for the name. From Sherman’s memoirs: “ Having finished our work on the Cosumnes, we proceeded to Sacramento, where Captain Sutter employed us to connect the survey of Sacramento City, made by Lieutenant Warner, and that of Sutterville, three miles below, which was then being surveyed by Lieutenant J. W. Davidson, of the First Dragoons. At Sutterville, the plateau of the Sacramento approached quite near the river, and it would have made a better site for a town than the low, submerged land where the city now stands; but it seems to be a law of growth that all natural advantages are disregarded wherever once business chooses a location. Old Sutter’s embarcadero became Sacramento City, simply because it was the first point used for unloading boats for Sutter’s Fort”
Originally the San Joaquin had a myriad of turns and bends and plans to straighten it were formulated in the 1870’s. The project was finished in the 1930’s by cutting through numerous islands and dredging the channel to 26 feet. This one project created many new islands and meandering waterways that are still in existence today.
John Bidwell had a 17,700 acre land grant along the Sacramento River starting in 1844 that included the area that now is the City of Rio Vista. In 1848 at the beginning of the gold rush a wharf was built to handle the steamer traffic. N.H. Davis purchased the town site from Bidwell in 1855 and by 1860 the town was called Rio Vista. The great storm of 1861 washed the town away and it was later rebuilt on higher ground where it remains today. The channel of the Sacramento river originally went through horseshoe bend to the east of Decker Island just downstream from Rio Vista but a cut was made and the channel moved to its present location in 1918 creating Decker Island.
Up until the rivers were silted in by hydraulic mining in the 1870’s steamers could make it all the way up the Sacramento to Red Bluff and up the Feather River as far as Yuba City. On the San Joaquin steamers made it as far as Firebaugh near Fresno. There are even records of steamboats going as far as Coloma (!) on the American River. The hydraulic mining caused terrible silting of the rivers, which is still a major problem today. The Yuba river near Marysville went from a “fish filled 30-foot (deep) water” in 1850 to where “the river was almost level with Marysville streets” in 1878 according to Marysville mayor at that time C.E. Stone. The Briggs orchard near Marysville was covered with 20 feet of silt. In one year in the 1870’s “46 Million cubic yards of gravel, a mass a mile wide and a mile long and fifteen yards deep had been hurled into the streams or spread over the farm lands”. Over a thirty year period two billion cubic yards of debris filled the Sacramento River and its tributaries.
The gold rush brought hoards of people to Northern California. Some came overland but many came by sea. As of March of 1850 Sacramento City had thirty stores, six saloons, and many other business establishments. By 1855 Sacramento produced $300,000 worth of manufactured items per month.
The name of the settlement of Yerba Buena was changed to San Francisco in 1847. The original settlement was started at Yerba Buena Cove but as the population and area expanded a new name was thought to be in order. Gold captivated most people until about 1860 at which time agriculture was rediscovered. The original farmers were called rimlanders because they farmed on the edges of the Delta before the islands had been surrounded with levees and reclaimed.
Source:
Bill Wells
Executive Director
California Delta Chambers & Visitor’s Bureau
PO Box 1118
Rio Vista, CA 94571
WIN $250 IN ARTWORK DESIGN CONTEST Submit the winning artwork for the 2011 Nevada County Fair and you could win
There’s still time to enter the Nevada County Fairgrounds artwork design contest. If you’re a talented or aspiring artist, and you’d like $250, this is the contest to enter! All you need to do is create the best artwork to illustrate the 2011 Nevada County Fair slogan, “Gold! Rush to the Fair.”
The contest is open to Nevada County residents only and takes place until January 14. If you submit the winning artwork, you will win $250 and a 2011 Nevada County Fair package. Additionally, the winning artwork will be used on various Fair promotional pieces, print ads, buttons, t-shirts, banners, posters, and flyers.
Interested artists may use any medium and can submit up to three entries, which must be on 8-1/2 by 11-inch paper. Entries can be delivered to the Fairgrounds Office at 11228 McCourtney Road or mailed to the Fair Office at PO Box 2687, Grass Valley, CA 95945. A complete set of rules can be found on the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com, or by calling the Fair Office at (530) 273-6217.
Nevada County Narrow Gage Museum, Grass Valley, CA
The need for rail service in the semi-mountainous and wooded area of Grass Valley and Nevada City was precipitated by mining operations subsequent to the California Gold Rush. In addition, timber operators wanted to make their land accessible to the Southern Pacific Company in Colfax. On March 20, 1874, the California legislature and Governor Newton Booth approved the right to build and operate a narrow gauge railroad from Colfax, through Grass Valley, to Nevada City. On June 20, an Act of Congress granted the railroad right of way through public lands.
J. H. Bates estimated that construction and equipment would total $411,132. Only one bid came in and it was for $500,000, signed by M. F. Beatty; he received a lump sum of $500,000. Construction began January 1875. Knox were subcontracted for earthwork. John Flint Kidder was the chief engineer. Within two months, 600 men were employed in the railroad’s construction.
Construction included two bridges, two tunnels, and five trestles. After leaving the Colfax depot, the road headed north, parallel with the Central Pacific Railroad, then crossed Bear River, and into Nevada County. One of the first stations was at the town of You Bet which serviced the Goodwin Drift Gravel Mine. The road proceeded into Chicago Park, a fruit and grape growers colony, and then continued into Grass Valley. All cars and locomotives had Westinghouse railway brakes, and cars used for passenger service had Miller Platform couplers. As the first contractor, Beatty, was unable to complete the project, a second, J. K. Bynre, was brought in; construction was completed in the spring of 1876. The inaugural train, from Colfax to Grass Valley, ran on April 11 and by May 20, the first train reached Nevada City.
The company’s first President was John C. Coleman, president of the North Star Mine. Kidder, the builder, decided to settle down in Grass Valley, becoming the General Superintendent, and in 1884, became the second president. Upon his death in 1901, Kidder’s widow, Sarah, took over, becoming the first female railroad president in the world.
In September 1907, a 3.56 mi (5.73 km) “cut-off”, at a cost of $132,285 was built, bettering the grade. The following year, construction was completed on the Bear River Bridge. By 1912, the NCNGRR was running three mixed trains daily, each way, between Nevada City and Colfax, while a fourth mixed train ran daily, each way, between Grass Valley and Colfax. Sarah Kidder sold her interests in 1913 and retired to San Francisco.
In 1926, Earl Taylor and his associates purchased the railroad for $1. With the outbreak of World War II, they sold it in 1942 for $251,000 to Dulian Steel Products Company and the last train to run over the line was on May 29.
Each combination coach had a small iron safe in the baggage compartment. Though $200,000,000 in gold was hauled out of Nevada County by the NCNGRR during its operation, there was never an attempted robbery.
