Norristown, or Hoboken, was an ephemeral
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
settlement and steamboat landing on the
American River
, name_etymology =
, image = American River CA.jpg
, image_size = 300
, image_caption = The American River at Folsom
, map = Americanrivermap.png
, map_size = 300
, map_caption ...
in present-day
Sacramento County, California
Sacramento County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,585,055. Its county seat is Sacramento, which has been the state capital of California since 1854.
Sacramento County is the ...
.
[Jerry MacMullen, Paddlewheel Days In California, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1970.]
History
It was located on the south bank of the American River, four miles east of Sacramento on a road leading to the gold fields, that later became L Street, in the vicinity of what is now the
California State University Sacramento
California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus California ...
.
Norristown was built above the reach of flooding by the river, unlike Sacramento below it. During the flooding of Sacramento in 1852–53 it began as a settlement called Hoboken, for citizens of Sacramento who fled the inundation of their city. Sam Norris who owned the land tried to make it a permanent settlement, however most of the refugees returned to Sacramento and Norristown failed to grow and soon vanished.
William Burg, ''Sacramento'', Arcadia Publishing, 2008
/ref>
See also
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References
Former settlements in Sacramento County, California
American River (California)
Ghost towns in California
Mining communities of the California Gold Rush
Populated places established in 1852
1852 establishments in California
{{SacramentoCountyCA-geo-stub