Columa, California, USA
Sites: Marshall Gold Discovery Museum, Sutter Hill
Part of the Missions and Gold Rush 2025 series
2026-01-13
The rain gives a taste of the harsh conditions settlers had to endure when mining for gold.
We drive in our car to quickly go see the John Marshall statue pointing at where he discovered gold. Then scurry back into the car because it's pissing it down.
The only place safe from the rain is the Marshall Gold Discovery Museum. The ladies in there put on three films for us detailing the difficulties traversing the harsh terrain during the gold rush. The twist was that they were all produced by Mormons, some of who were very instrumental in forging the trails across the west. The other one was a really nice 10 minute narration about riding a wagon. It sounds boring, but the narration of details about where to sit (for women, men, children), and who was conducting the wagon (a man and his mate with a gun) was fun. The museum even had preserved a life size, original wagon.
The only other cute thing was a small recreation (preservation?) of a Chinese shop, and a very cute post office that is still in operation. I'll tell you what, the post offices in these towns are all still very cute -- they've been one of my favourite things this entire trip.
The final, final stop of the trip is Sutter Mill. Without this place, gold would have never had the rippling impact that it did in California, and for the Union. Here, John Marshall first discovered gold. It's only memorialised by a plaque with dots lined to read "Sutter Mill". There's also a recreation of the mill that they originally used to separate rubble from gold.
It's quiet all around because it has been raining. You can only hear the creek nearby, some birds, and the falling of rain on dusty ground. I imagine all those years ago, the discovery of gold was on a day like today: quiet and unassuming. And just like all things that start as such -- so they end. John Marshall never saw a penny of the gold he discovered, bless. And our Mission/Ghost Town/Gold rush trip also ends here, at a small creek in the foothill of the Sierras. Nothing ever lasts.
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EPILOGUE:
These places were here all along, and the memory of them were etched in some distant corner of my brain, which has not been explored since the fourth grade. I'm so glad I grew up here -- very few places in the world have the diversity and history that California has. There's so much to do in your own backyard.