Tuolumne County History

The name Tuolumne is Native American and has been given different meanings, Many Stone Houses, The Land of Mountain Lions and, Straight Up Steep.It was later interpreted that the word was a corruption of the Indian word talmalamne, which meant”cluster of stone wigwams."

Tuolumne County was established as one of California ’s original 27 counties on February 18, 1850 , with Sonora as the County Seat. Sonora remains the County Seat and is the only incorporated city in the County.

Located at the southern end of the State's Gold Country, Tuolumne County was home to Native Americans for several thousand years until the Gold Rush in 1848. This Central Sierra Nevada region was transformed into hundreds of fleeting and permanent communities established by thousands of prospectors seeking their fortune.

The Southern Mines attracted quite a variety of miners and merchants from such far away places as Chile, the Hawaiian Islands, Germany, England, Italy, France, Australia, China, Mexico and "the States" including slaves brought West by their masters. This ethnic mix coupled with greed and the loose lifestyle of those times, created much violence and lawlessness. Some made their fortunes mining; others sold supplies and services to gold miners.

Sonora, the county seat, and other camps and towns were destroyed periodically by fires, which easily consumed hastily erected buildings of canvas, wood and brush. Eventually as camps became towns and cities, Tuolumne County's economy diversified into timber harvesting in the Sierra Nevada forest to the east; hydroelectric projects which benefited Central Valley communities and the San Francisco Area; commercial activities associated with local trade and tourism which relied on the area's proximity to Yosemite and other mountain retreats. The economy also ranged to agriculture as cattle ranching and apple orchards. Advances in mining equipment technology and transportation in the form of the Sierra Railway, which arrived in 1897, made a second Gold Rush in the 1890s possible. Today Tuolumne County is a growing part of California.

Although the gamblers, outlaws, painted ladies and most of the miners have gone, many parts of the exciting frontier days remain. A walk along many streets and roads is a visit with yesterday - a brick building, an iron shutter, an old home, a rock wall, an ancient shade tree in the midst of an old fashioned garden - all are reminders of the pioneers and the history of Tuolumne County