Kathy.... MOTHER LODE The Story of Californias Gold Rush by Louis J. Stellman written 1934. Mountain Messenger "In Downieville is published The Mountain Messenger, now in it's eighty-first year. It is one of the few remaining newspapers in the mining regions that retain a flavor of the old days when quaint homespun humor, genuine literary quality, and an extraordinary candor of expression were the keynote of journalism. It is published almost opposite the old courthouse and a stone's throw from its now disused gallows. The Messenger plant is a shingled two-story house with a lean-to in which was installed recently a linotype machine. In the main building is the newspaper and job printing press, with its type cases, composing stone, and appurtenances, while the upper floor is a storeroom for paper. In front of its gate and tiny yard piled a load of cord-wood, which some subscriber, no doubt, had delivered to pay for his subscription. On the Messenger's front page when I visited Downieville, was the following item: ORPHAN RATTLESNAKE NEEDS WINTER HOME Wanted-A home for one small timber rattlesnake. This wanderer, apparently an orphan and said to be the first to make its appearance within the town limits for some years, is guarenteed to be of a lovable disposition and particularly fond of human companionship, attaching itself to anyone who sticks a finger in the box. The snake was found and captured by Kenneth Latta while working on his new house on Pearl Street, and it is being kept in a box awaiting more permanent and suitable quarters." North San Juan "Between Nevada City and Downieville lie a number of "ghost towns", including North San Juan, through which, in the latter seventies, passed the first long-distance telephone line in the world. It was called the Ridge Telephone Company and was built in 1878 for intercommunication between the big hydraulic mining companies of that region." St. Charles Hotel "In 1853, two days after the big fire (Downieville), James McNulty opened the St. Charles Hotel, a pleasant rambling, verandahed structure. Today, except for electric lights-which burn only at night, for the current is turned off at daylight-and a few improvements in plumbing, it remains exactly as it was that momentous Washington's Birthday when, believe it or not, the St. Charles dining-room took in $2600 for meals. In its old barroom, deserted for the most part during the period of prohibition, hang the same old paintings of nude ladies which engaged the sentimental fancies of early miners. And under its arcade, seated in a chair probably older than myself, I listened to a nonogenarian prospector who still hopes to uncover the lost vein of Bald Mountain. He related a story of crime and punishment that occurred half a century ago." Jackie in California [email protected]