Columbia Clothing

History buffs Love's Columbia State Park, California
If you want a glimpse of what the near to mid-19th century California gold rush, like, visit Columbia State Historic Park, they say, the ghost town in the state best preserved.

In fact, Colombia is far from being a ghost town. Several local business owners are doing well, thank you, logging concessions in the park that help recreate the feeling of a city in the era of gold rush. On any given day, you will find people all over the city dressed as he was still the 1800s and are doing everything possible to create the illusion that you are traveling through time.

Columbia Main Street is like a movie set, except that the stores downtown are not just window dressing, but real historical buildings. There are about 40 brick buildings and 10 wooden structures all built in a day when thousands of miners coming to town for supplies before returning to the gold claims that ultimately produced 67 million worth of gold between 1850 and 1870. It's an impressive sum. But consider the gold at the time only sold for $ 20 an ounce and you begin to see how much gold was taken out of them thar hills.

Columbia made its debut in 1850 when a group of prospectors were caught in a rainstorm and, while drying their gear, John Walker - No, not that John Walker - decided to look for gold. He found so that, within six weeks, thousands of miners go down to the area in search of their fortune. In 1852, more than 150 shops, shops, salons and other businesses were operating in Colombia. In 1853, more than 30,000 people lived there.

Once mining had run its course, the buildings of the city has deteriorated to the point that in 1945, the state intervened and began restoration efforts. Columbia became a State Historic Park and now includes the largest collection of structures of California Gold Rush.

There are about 20 companies and 20 static displays history that visitors can see on their visit to Colombia. Among the companies are such companies as an authentic Old West hotel, blacksmith shop, a pair of cowboy style lounges, a glacier, a merchant and a store of dry goods. There is a bank, a firehouse, a couple of candy stores, a hair salon, bookstore and several exhibits that explain some of the historic buildings and how they were used. We especially enjoyed the museum with its vast collection of artifacts and photographs of the city.

There is another museum of its kind to the Bookstore and Stationery Columbia, where we chatted with owner Floyd Oydegaard RFP, a bearded gent who dresses in period clothing and just happens to look like someone who might have fought in the Civil War. It is no coincidence, because Oydegaard store was packed with memories of civil war and other antiques and museum-quality 19th century.

"I want people to feel they have entered into a museum," explained Oydegaard. "I do not have any room in my house while my wife he told the magazine."

Oydegaard has studied the history of British and stresses that the town has become quite a melting pot after the discovery of gold. Many locals have been to other countries and there were more than 1,000 Chinese living in Colombia within two years of discovery.

After spending a pleasant afternoon exploring the city, we took one step further: we spent the night. Many may not be aware that the Town Hall (with the Fallon Hotel) offers one night accommodation in a historic hotel that operates as a hostel bed-and-breakfast. If you like westerns watching television or movies, City Hall is like stepping into one of these hotels Old West.

The Town Hall is ornate with a lot of attention to the antique furnishings. The hotel is full of antiques in the lobby, in rooms, in.