Red Dog (also known as Brooklyn or Brooklin) was a

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 ...

mining town located in the

Gold Country The Gold Country (also known as Mother Lode Country) is a historic region in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, that is primarily on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. It is famed for the mineral deposits and gold mines t ...

in south-central Nevada County,

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 ...

, United States, northeast of Chicago Park. Red Dog Hill, a mine and campsite, was founded by three men all under the age of 22, and was named by their youngest, a 15-year-old prospector. As mining operations grew, the campsite became a settlement, and then a town with a population of 2,000 residents, before it was eventually abandoned. Still considered important today, Red Dog Townsite is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

History

While prospecting in 1850, three young men, all aged 21 or younger, discovered gold on a hill on the east side of Greenhorn ridge. The two from Arkansas, Henry Jacob Stehr and the Irishman Joseph Chew (or Chow), named the ravine after their home state of Arkansas. Charles ("Charlie") Wilson of Illinois, the youngest of the three at age 15, named the hill "Red Dog" after a

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...

mine. Mining campsites began to form in Red Dog as well as other places nearby such as Chalk Bluff ( away), Hunt's Hill, Little York and You Bet ( away). Their existence was tied to ongoing mining operations. Red Dog Mining Company's Mine was situated at an elevation of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

and expanded over . It used water powered through Old Chalk Bluff ditch from the head of Deer Creek. Red Dog evolved from a campsite into a settlement by 1851. During the next four years, it became an active and progressive mining town, replete with a

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

, hotel, restaurant, professional buildings, lodges, and homes. Eventually, the miners of Chalk Bluff moved to Red Dog, and the town decided to rename itself "Brooklyn" (sometimes spelled "Brooklin"). When a post office was established in 1855, it was the post office's decision to stick with the name Red Dog, as Brooklyn, California already existed in

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland. A ...

. Several times, the town was devastated by fire; each time, it was rebuilt. The fire of January 1859 resulted in an $8,600 loss. The fire of August 1862 destroyed most of the town's business district, resulting in a $50,000 loss. An

Odd Fellows Odd Fellows (or Oddfellows when referencing the Grand United Order of Oddfellows or some British-based fraternities; also Odd Fellowship or Oddfellowship) is an international fraternity consisting of lodges first documented in 1730 in 18th-cen ...

Lodge preceded the building of a

Masonic Lodge A Masonic lodge (also called Freemasons' lodge, or private lodge or constituent lodge) is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also a commonly used term for a building where Freemasons meet and hold their meetings. Every new l ...

, which opened on the east side of Main Street in 1862. In 1863, Main Street and Plumb Street had two general variety stores, a hardware and tin shop, a shoemaker's shop, butcher's shop,

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

's shop, dressmaker's shop, two hotels, three

saloons Saloon may refer to: Buildings and businesses * One of the bars in a traditional British pub * An alternative name for a bar (establishment) * Western saloon, a historical style of American bar * The Saloon, a bar and music venue in San Francis ...

, and stands for fruit and liquor. Macy & Martin of Red Dog are credited with inventing a rifled nozzle for

hydraulic mining Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.Paul W. Thrush, ''A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms'', US Bureau of Mines, 1968, p.560. In the placer mining of ...

in 1863, an improvement subsequently used by all hydraulic nozzles. Red Dog was on

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

's 1866 lecture tour that started and ended in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, October 1 to December 10. Twain lectured in Red Dog on October 24, which marked the first time he was introduced as Mark Twain rather than Samuel Clemens. An old miner who introduced Twain in Red Dog said he only knew two things about him—that he'd never been in a penitentiary and that, "I can't imagine why." The lecture focused on Twain's travels to the Sandwich Islands. By 1867, the town had four cement

Stamp mill A stamp mill (or stamp battery or stamping mill) is a type of Mill (grinding), mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than Mill (grinding), grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking materia ...

s, including Wright & Company, and Cozzens, Garber & Company. But the continuous rains of 1867–68 washed away the mine's hydraulic ditches and

flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to t ...

s destroying much of the town. Many of the approximately 300 residents left, and many of the buildings, including the Odd Fellows Lodge, were moved to You Bet. The post office remained until 1869. While three cement mills were operating in Red Dog in 1873, including Wier & Garber, Williams & Riggs, and Wright & Company, the Mason's Lodge closed. Red Dog Cemetery is the only part of the

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

that remains today. It is located on You Bet Road near Red Dog Road in what is now Nevada City. Stehr (died 1881), Stehr's son, Chew (died 1900) and three of Chew's brothers are buried there.

Landmark

Red Dog was designated by the state as a

California Point of Historical Interest 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 ...

(No. N2143) on May 9, 1975. On September 14, 2001, the Red Dog Townsite was designated a landmark (No. 01000968) by the

. Owned by the Federal government, and address restricted, the townsite was honored for its 1850–99 information potential in community planning, development, commerce, settlement and exploration; as well as the social history of those who emigrated to the town, such as the Chinese. Nevada County also designated Red Dog as a Historical Point of Interest (No. 25).

References

{{authority control Former settlements in Nevada County, California Mining communities of the California Gold Rush Ghost towns in California California Historical Landmarks National Register of Historic Places in Nevada County, California Populated places established in 1850 1850 establishments in California Populated places on the National Register of Historic Places in California

History

Landmark

See also

References