Ghost Town Restoration – Columbia CA

Description

The State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA) financed a $25,000 appropriation “which employed 65 research workers out of the Bancroft Library of U.C. Berekey and 56 additional workers put to work in the field to gather the necessary information to provide for the restoration of the old town of Columbia, in Tuolumne County.” According to the Mariposa Gazette, efforts were being made in 1934 to have a local Mariposa County ghost town Hornitos being made into a state park in a similar way to what was occurring in Columbia California.

Like most Mother Lode towns of the Gold Rush era gold was discovered in 1850 and with the construction of a flume, the population boomed to 5,000, “By the 1870s, the gold began to be played out, and the population of Columbia dwindled. In 1945, the California legislature created Columbia State Historic Park. Existing historic buildings were restored, and new replica buildings were constructed from old photos and plans, leading to the town you can see today [based on the work of the SERA funded research].