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Event: 'Smartsville & Timbuctoo Day @ Amicus'

Author Reading/Signing
Author reading/signing
Date: Sunday, June 29, 2008 At 11:00:00 AM
Duration: 5 Hours
Contact Info:
To Schedule an Interview with authors Kathleen Smith and Lane Parker please contact: Kara @ 530-237-6402
Email:

Written by: Kathy Smith and Lane Parker **Everyone is welcome for this free event - Smartsville- Timbuctoo Reunion & Book Launching**

Learn about the history of these pioneer towns, view images taken during an era when women and men dreamed of streets flowing with gold, and visit with the people who have preserved their important history for many years to come. Funds generated from the sales of the book go to the Literary Lounge Project.

 


A full day of celebration in honor of

Smartsville and Timbuctoo

with authors Kathleen Smith & Lane Parker



A Historical Snapshot...

TIMBUCTOO

The first mining was done in the ravines about Timbuctoo in 1850; William Monigan, who had a store at Rose Bar in 1850, was one of the first to work here. Timbuctoo was the largest and most thriving locality in the township in 1859. At that time there were two hotels, six boarding houses, eight saloons in addition to the bars in the hotels and boarding houses, one bank, one drug store, two general stores, three clothing and dry good stores, three shoe shops, one blacksmith shop, two carpenter shops, one lumber yard, one livery stable, one barber shop, three bakeries, two tobacco and cigar stores, one church, and one theater.

SMARTSVILLE

James Smart built a hotel at this place in the spring of 1856. This was the first building except a few cabins, here and there, occupied by the miners. The only large settlements at that time were Timbuctoo and Sucker Flat. L.B. Clark bought the place in 1857, and kept a store. The hotel is now owned by B. Smith. A saloon was started in 1856, also a small store was kept by a Mr. Shearer. As the mines began to develop the place gradually to settle up, until at present, it is a thriving mining town. The old cemetery on the hill, near the Empire Ranch, was first used in 1852, for the burial of a man from Oregon. This was followed by the entombing of several men who died with cholera. About three years ago a mine caved in at Sucker Flat, killing seven men, who were all buried in one day. A little further up the road is the Fraternal Cemetery, laid out by the Masons, Odd Fellows, and Good Templars, in 1875. Until a few years ago the remains of Catholics were taken to Marysville to be interred in the Catholic cemetery there; but a fine burial ground has since been laid out, just across the ravine and south of the town.

From The History of Yuba County California by Thompson & West, 1879

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Publisher Comments:

Smartsville and Timbuctoo (California State Landmarks Nos. 321 and 320) are essentially one place with two names. As worked-out claims and floods forced placer forty-niners up from the sandbars into the hills above the Yuba River, and as word spread around the world about gold in the California hills, towns and communities formed. The Smartsville and Timbuctoo area was once the most populated place in eastern Yuba County. Black Bart, Jim athe Timbuctoo Terrora Webster, and other desperadoes haunted the local roads. Eventually fires, worked-out diggings, and the Sawyer Decision succeeded in driving out all but the most dedicated (and in some cases eccentric) residents. Neither town, though, is ready yet for the dustbin of history: the population might once again explodeathis time not with gold seekers but with long-distance commuters, turning the former boomtowns into future bedroom communities.

Learn More about the Smartsville-Timbuctoo Project

The Smartsville-Timbuctoo Project is an on-going collaboration to collect and record information on some of Yuba Counties oldest mining communities. You can participate in this wonderful effort by visiting http://www.smartsville-timbuctoo.org



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