Middle Bar, California

Middle Bar is a former mining town on the Mokelumne River in Amador County, California. It is a California Historical Landmark.[1]

Middle Bar
Location2.8 miles (4.5 km) south of State Route 49, on Middle Bar Road at the Mokelumne River
Built1850
Reference no.36

History

Middle Bar was founded in 1850 by English miners during the California Gold Rush.[2] A mine in the area produced gold quartz.[3]

In 1851, the Middle Bar Bridge was built over the Mokelumne River to handle the large amount of gold seekers coming through the area. The following years, 1852, a flood washed the bridge away. Another bridge was built with claims stating it was high enough it would not get washed away. It was finished in November, 1852, and cost $25,000 (~$654,701 in 2021) to build. It stood for approximately ten years until another flood dislocated the bridge.[4]

After the first gold rush, the area experienced a second round of increased population in the 1920s during a smaller mining rush.

Eventually, the homes of Middle Bar were purchased by the East Bay Municipal Utility District. The company had built the Pardee Dam, six miles away.[5]

Present day

In the present day a truss bridge built by the Clinton Bridge and Iron Works bearing the date 1912 crosses the Mokelumne River at the town site, connecting the river banks in Amador County and Calaveras County, California.[6]

See also

References
  1. "Middle Bar". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  2. "Middle Bar". Ghost Towns. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  3. California State Mining Bureau (1899). Catalogue of the State Museum of California ...: being the collections made by the State Mining Bureau ... p. 170. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  4. "Middle Bar, Amador County". Amador Gold. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  5. Kyle, Douglas; Rensch, Ethel (September 6, 2002). Historic Spots in California (Fifth ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-8047-4482-9. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  6. "Middle Bar Bridge". Bridge Hunter. Self-published. Retrieved September 3, 2012.

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