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Lodging
There are a variety of lodging choices in Downieville and its surroundings; some are on the North Fork Yuba River. They include Forest Service campgrounds, motel
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionarie ...
s, bed and breakfast inns, rental cabins and backcountry campsites.
E Clampus Vitus
Every year, during the final weekend of August, the brotherhood of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, William Downie Chapter 1849, descend upon the town of Downieville for their annual "Tin Cup Doins;" a grand and noble tradition dating back to the gold rush days that celebrates the rich history and heritage of the town. The town of Downieville is often referred to as "the Cradle of Clamperdom," or the birthplace of the modern Order. Clampatriarch Adam Lee Moore is noted to be buried in the Downieville cemetery, who within Clamper Lore, is credited with resurrection of the order to its modern status as a historical society from its former days as a fraternal brotherhood amongst miners. Many of the bronze commemorative plaques that can be seen marking historical sites and artifacts throughout the town are rememberances bestowed by the modern ECV brethren; many of such plaques can be seen about numerous historical mining sites throughout the western United States.
St Charles Place, the local and last standing saloon in town, is an official ECV Watering Hole.
Notable people
* Lewis Francis Byington, District Attorney of San Francisco
The San Francisco District Attorney's Office is the legal agency charged with prosecuting crimes in the City and County of San Francisco, California.
The current district attorney is Brooke Jenkins. Occupants of this office have gone on to highe ...
* Robert Lewis Byington, member of the California State Assembly
* Byington Ford, real estate developer and military officer
* Tirey L. Ford, 18th California Attorney General
The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" (Constitution of California, Article V, Section ...
* George E. Goodfellow
George Emory Goodfellow (December 23, 1855 – December 7, 1910) was a physician and naturalist in the 19th- and early 20th-century American Old West who developed a reputation as the United States' foremost expert in treating ...
, physician and naturalist who performed the first documented laparotomy
A laparotomy is a surgical procedure involving a surgical incision through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. It is also known as a celiotomy.
Origins and history
The first successful laparotomy was performed without ane ...
* Warren Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
, climber and member of the first team to climb El Capitan
El Capitan ( es, El Capitán; "the Captain" or "the Chief") is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith is about from base to summit along its talles ...
, Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Hal ...
, in 1958
* Joseph C. McKibbin, lawyer and politician
* Frank M. Proctor, member of the Nevada Senate
The Nevada Senate is the upper house of the Nevada Legislature, the state legislature of U.S. state of Nevada, the lower house being the Nevada Assembly. It currently (2012–2021) consists of 21 members from single-member districts. In the pr ...
* Josefa Segovia, victim of lynching in Downieville
Appearances in popular culture
Downieville was featured by Huell Howser
Huell Burnley Howser (October 18, 1945 – January 7, 2013) was an American television personality, actor, producer, writer, singer, and voice artist, best known for hosting, producing, and writing ''California's Gold'' and his human interest sh ...
in ''California's Gold
''California's Gold'' is a public television human interest program that explores the natural, cultural, and historical features of California. The series ran for 24 seasons beginning in 1991, and was produced and hosted by Huell Howser in colla ...
'' Episode 212.
Services
Downieville has its own post office; the town's ZIP code is 95936.
Wired telephone numbers for the town follow the format (530
__NOTOC__
Year 530 ( DXXX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lampadius and Probus (or, less frequently, yea ...
) 289-xxxx.
Downieville is home to
The Mountain Messenger
' weekly newspaper. The paper began in 1853 as a twice-per-month publication; its claim to fame is that Mark Twain once wrote there under his real name, Sam Clemens. It is distributed through the U.S. mail and includes subscribers far beyond Sierra County.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of t ...
, the CDP covers an area of 3.2 square miles (8.3 km), 99.83% of it land and 0.17% of it water. Most of the town is built on riverwash soils; higher locations are on Hurlbut gravelly loam or Deadwood gravelly sandy loam.
Climate
This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above . According to the Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
system, Downieville has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate
A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...
, abbreviated ''Csb'' on climate maps.
Gallery
Grocery store, bell tower, Downieville.jpg, Downieville, 2019.
Downieville Museum.jpg, Museum, 2019.
Downieville School 2.jpg, School, 2019.
References
External links
Sierra County website
— ''Downieville is the county seat''.
— ''founder of Downieville''.
Sierra County chamber of commerce: History of Downieville
Tahoe National Forest — homepage + links
Panorama of Downieville, Calif., ca. 1860-ca. 1870
— ''from The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
''.
Eastman Originals Collection: historical images of Downieville
— from th
University of California, Davis; Special Collections Department: The Eastman Collection
— ''online archives''.
{{authority control
County seats in California
Census-designated places in Sierra County, California
Mining communities of the California Gold Rush
Populated places in the Sierra Nevada (United States)
Tahoe National Forest
Yuba River
1849 establishments in California
Populated places established in 1849
Census-designated places in California