Fiddlin’ with Middle Age

So, today is my birthday. I’m not going to dwell on that, other than to note it’s a prime number, and it earned me a free donut. Anyway, I figured that I’m not getting any younger, so I decided to spend the day exploring the back roads of the Sierra Foothills. The region is beautiful this time of year, with its rolling hills covered with deep green grass. And today was unseasonably warm, feeling much more like spring than winter. So I saddled up the Speedmaster and went to see what I could see.

I found myself meandering along CA Route 49–a scenic, historic road that links a number of gold mining towns. (I wrote about an earlier trip along a stretch of it here.) This time I headed south on CA-49, starting around Coloma. I passed through the (relative) metropolis of Placerville, and soon came to Diamond Springs (pop: 11,000). To me, Diamond Springs is one of those gold rush towns that has somehow managed to maintain its historic charm while still being relevant in the 21st century. Its population has more than doubled since 2000. The most attractive business in town, for my money (literally), is Solid Ground Brewing. But the most picturesque building is the old General Store, from the 1850s. It’s for sale or lease, if any of my readers wants an investment property…

Now, in case you thought Diamond Springs was stuck in the Gold Rush era, it does have some “modern” buildings….from the 1950s. According to Yelp, Deb’s Frosty specializes in Mexican food. (??!)

Somewhat further down 49 I entered Nashville. No, not the Nashville. But they do have their own music venue.

A little further down the road I encountered the name of another entertainment icon…

After a few random stops for gas, coffee, and Reeses (it’s my birthday, after all), ended up in Fiddletown (pop: 235). I spent several hours here. Fiddletown dates back to 1849, as do so many of the towns here in the Mother Lode Country. It didn’t start out as a particularly popular place to mine for gold, given that it didn’t have any year-round rivers or streams, which the miners needed for panning and placer mining.

Then, in 1852, gold was found in the region’s dry creekbeds, and everything changed. The town swelled with an influx of prospectors, and a canal was dug to divert water from the Cosumnes river into Fiddletown’s dry creekbeds. Not only did this facilitate easier gold mining, but it also opened the region to agriculture. By 1854 Fiddletown’s population exceeded 2000 souls.

With growth and wealth came the desire for respectability, which for some required changing the name to anything but “Fiddletown.” (It’s unclear where the original name came from, but one story suggests the original settlers from Missouri enjoyed playing fiddles in their spare time.) In any event, a decision was made in 1878 to change the name to “Oleta,” which was the name of a prominent resident’s daughter. Fortunately for those of us who appreciate local color, the original name was restored in 1932.

At some point, the town so embraced its name that it erected a huge fiddle over the community center. I’m told that there have been several iterations of this instrument. The latest version is made out of fiberglass.

How do I know this? Because Michelle told me. I ran into Michelle at the town’s post office. The walls of the lobby are lined with historic photographs of the town’s residents, and I was perusing them when Michelle walked in to get her mail. There are literally hundreds of photos, so I asked her, “Is every resident in town pictured here? Where’s your photo?” She matter-of-factly told me that the post office ran out of wall space long ago, and replacing an old picture with hers “would require permission from the Post Mistress.”

Michelle then spent the next 20 minutes pointing out pictures of friends and relatives on the walls. She grew up in Fiddletown, and says it’s an wonderful place to live. She used to rollerskate in the community center (where the big fiddle is), and knows most of the residents. However, she said the town’s recent growth has made it difficult to keep track of everyone.

At some point Fiddletown became a major enclave for ethnic Chinese folks–in fact, for a time it boasted the state’s second-largest Chinese population, after San Francisco. Along the main street there are several well-preserved buildings that speak to the town’s Chinese heritage: A general store, a gambling hall, and an apothecary.

The apothecary also serves as a museum (which, sadly, was closed when I visited). It contains personal effects from over 100 years of continuous habitation by Chinese “herb doctor” Yee Fung Cheung, his successor Chew Kee, and Chew Kee’s adopted son, Jimmie Chow. Jimmie Chow lived his entire life in Fiddletown, and was the town’s last Chinese resident when he died in 1965. Notably, Michelle (whom I’d met at the post office) had met Jimmie in the early 1960s. Her father and she took some fish heads to Jimmy’s house for his fish head soup. Michelle had thought it was a joke until she watched Jimmy add the heads to his soup pot. (If you’re interested, here is a recipe.) Michelle told me she was fascinated by the home/apothecary, and all the unusually artifacts therein.

All this talk of fish heads was making me hungry, so I figured I’d scope out a place for lunch. There is exactly one place in town that will serve you a sandwich, so that made my choice easy. Improbably, it’s the Brown’s English Toffee store on Main Street. A young woman named Kailey, who’s been working there for the past two months, took my order. After a few false starts (they were out of the meat and the bread that I wanted. But other than that, they had just what I wanted for a sandwich!), she managed to produce a pulled pork sandwich with cole slaw.

It was now time for my traditional cemetery visit. The Fiddletown Cemetery was established in 1870, and is the final resting place for a broad swath of humanity. The headstones offer testimony to the large number of countries from which the 49ers hailed:

Across the street from the cemetery is Fiddletown’s historic one-room school. It was constructed in 1862 and was in operation until 1955, when the area schools were consolidated and relocated to the nearby town of Plymouth. The school had no running water, and featured outhouses (which are still extant) in the back.

One other notable structure is the looming Schallhorn building, built in 1870. It was a long-time blacksmith’s shop and wagon repair facility, as well as a telegraph office and mail stop. Today it appears to be the site for accumulating various historic artifacts. The front porch is littered with wagon wheels, metalworking equipment, a safe, a old ovens, even a small railcar. Heaven knows what’s inside the massive building itself!

It was beginning to get late, so I decided to head back home. One of my final glimpses of Fiddletown suggests a story that I honestly don’t really think pertains. If you ask me, I think this place has a future.

So, that was my trip to Fiddletown. I managed to get home in the afternoon without incident. I wish you all a very happy Steve Boilard’s birthday. I suggest celebrating with the high-gravity imperial stout of your choice.