The Ghost Towns of Amador

Author John Andrews described his early childhood as growing up with the remnants of Amador s early history around him, as he herded cattle in Lancha Plana and Campo Seco. By the time he was 15, he was becoming aware of the ephemeral and fleeting nature of historic buildings, places and old town sites.

Many years later, he would write about the DeAugostine Flour Mill at Pokerville, built in the late 1860s or early 1870s. It was still standing when the 15-year old explored the building in 1914, but was gone by 1916 or 1917. He had studied the flour mill so closely that he would later describe the carpentry of the structure as built with timbers, broadaxed and square fitted with mortis, tenon and hardwood pegs. It is not just the old method of construction; it is the best.

At the time Andrews arrived in Musicdale, located on the Amador side of the Cosumnes River. He would later describe it as "There is nothing written of it as it only survives in the remembrance of old timers."

The earliest miners were from Missouri mostly from Pike County. Some old dwellings still housed inhabitants until just before the war, in pre-1914 days. There was one old man still living there, a Frenchman called Mr. Lafferty. But young Andrews was learning to observe, as he saw the old man write his name as Labarde. This tiny village of Musicdale was between today s Latrobe Road and Highway 49.

He often wrote in frustration, as when he tells of a two-story building said to have been a stage stop, still standing in the late 1940s in a location known as Live Oak on the Carbondale-Plymouth Road. The next time he visited, he found that "Imbeciles and half-wits in a stupid search for treasure, tore the second story floor joists away and brought the whole thing down in a complete ruin."

Occasionally, he would have tantalizing thoughts, wondering about the little town of Live Oak and how it came to be, and suggesting it was "...a fine subject for additional research."

Today, many of those town sites he visited such as Lancha Plana are known mainly to fishermen as a location on the waters of Lake Camanche. Butte City is the location of a singular, sentinel stone building which "...had the misfortune to be right at the edge of Highway 49 and thus subject to the tender mercy of Swinus Americanus." Carbondale is a flat spot on the Carbondale-Plymouth Road, and what was once Muletown is now located close to a state prison on Mule Creek.

He had a visual way of describing the color and the crowds of people that makes the reader also "see" through his eyes. In 1967, after traveling around the county, he lamented that "Our once delightful countryside is rapidly deteriorating into God s own junkyard."

Serendipitously, Volcano Press discovered the existing illustrations of Amador County native and superlative artist Robert Richards.

Using Andrews book, Richards had visited and sketched these locations over the years. Thus, the alchemy of Andrews text and these fine line drawings evolved.

Richards also contributed many anecdotes to this edition of Ghost Towns of Amador.

Located on the western slope of California s Sierra Nevada mountains, the importance of Amador County during the Gold Rush era cannot be overstated. Millions of dollars of gold were mined during the lat