Gold Rush Country [Columbia, California]

The Gold Rush was primarily located in the area around a number of small cities such as Grass Valley, Nevada City, Truckee and Columbia in California. Columbia was originally called Hildreth's Diggings, after Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth who discovered gold there. The American Indians who occupied the lands where the Gold Rush took place were greatly victimized. They were pushed off their land, the rivers they fished in were ruined by mining, and huge numbers of them died from diseases carried by the would-be miners. A town like Columbia in the Gold Rush territory gives visitors an idea of what life was like many years ago and can be described as a form of collective cultural regression that helps us understand something about a historically interesting aspect of our origins. Towns like Columbia also force people to consider the credibility of the 'get-rich-quick' schemes that are found in American's media.