Columbia & gold mining

Thursday, August 18, 2010

Today most of us went traipsing off to Columbia State Park... which contains Columbia, a gold rush mining town, quite well preserved. We didn't take a whole ton of pictures of the town as it hasn't been that long since the last time and um, it doesn't change much, since they are tying to, you know, preserve it! 

The one picture I wish we had gotten was of the old house that was used in the movie High Noon, the white farm house that has John Wayne coming out of it.. That part was filmed here. In fact, I believe the tour guide said that the film was supposed to be filmed in Columbia but they started filming to late and it was to "fall-ish" by the time they made it up here...

This building was not well preserved as you can see. I don't remember what it started out as, but eventually it was a part of the china town area.

And ditch. (duh) Columbia has an interesting history of getting water down from the mountains. Mostly it involves a lot of out of work miners digging ditches.

The Columbia fire hall. Notice the faux brick siding.

The old fire engine... Columbia had several devastating fires (everything is brick now) and the bought this fire engine from San Francisco. San Francisco had obtained it after some company or another couldn't deliver it to some Indonesian island. It wasn't built with good brakes, and therefore was not well suited to San Francisco, thus Columbia got it. Also, note that the white bar is in a very propitious place.

Family photo shoot!

The Paynes

Walking down main street. At this blacksmith shop you can get a horseshoe with your name stamped on it. I have one from when I was 5. It was so special.... :D

So around Columbia they did hydraulic mining... ie, HUGE fire hoses of water that blasted the earth away and then left tons of rock outcroppings. These are very fun to climb on. :)

Awesome...

Here you can get an idea of how big these rocks are... and it's like that all over the place, where there was a hint of water coming down from the Sierras... usually not so tall though, but very noticable none the less!

The traditional Jail photo shoot...

A beautiful bridge that you cross to get to Columbia... Here the oaks are mixing with the Pines...

Back to the cabin a swim and dinner!