Portuguese Flat was a

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

mining camp of the early 1850s during the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) 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 from the rest of the U ...

, consisting largely of Portuguese miners. It was located about 35 miles north of

Redding, California Redding is a city in and the county seat of Shasta County, California, and the economic and cultural capital of the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California. Redding lies along the Sacramento River, north of Sacramento, California, Sacrame ...

near what is currently now the

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

of Pollard Flat. It is in the ZIP code area of 96051 and the area code 530.

History

Arising along the route of the Siskiyou Trail, Portuguese Flat, with its rich diggings, gained the reputation of being one of the roughest camps in northern Shasta County; it was also known as a "squaw town" because of the number of Native American women present in the town. By the time of the 1885 census, it appears that the site was deserted. As late as 1933, just north of Pollard's Gulch on what is now

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels thro ...

, one could see a few old tumbledown buildings, one ancient log cabin, and some veteran

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

trees — all that remained of Portuguese Flat. Pioneers Ross McCloud and Mary Campbell McCloud operated an inn in Portuguese Flat from approximately 1853–5 (before going on to operate the inn at Upper Soda Springs). In the story of the famous " Battle of Castle Crags" (which took place in 1855), a young

Joaquin Miller Cincinnatus Heine Miller ( ; September 8, 1837 – February 17, 1913), better known by his pen name Joaquin Miller ( ), was an American poet, author, and frontiersman. He became known as the "Poet of the Sierras" after the Sierra Nevada, about wh ...

tells a dramatic tale of being seriously wounded, by having an arrow shot through his jaw and neck. Miller was taken to the Portuguese Flat inn operated by the McClouds to recuperate, and was nursed to health by Mary Campbell McCloud.

Politics

In the state legislature Pollard Flat is in the 4th

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

District, represented by Republican Doug LaMalfa, and in the 2nd Assembly District, represented by Republican Jim Nielsen. Federally, Pollard Flat is in .

References

Reference by Joaquin Miller to Portuguese Flat

External links

Museum of the Siskiyou Trail

{{authority control Former settlements in Shasta County, California History of Shasta County, California Mining communities of the California Gold Rush Portuguese-American culture in California Former populated places in California