Angels Camp conjures up nostalgic memories of childhood road trips

As a young lad, my parents often loaded up the car and headed to destinations unknown. They knew where we were heading but often forgot to mention that to me.

Ah, the recollections of childhood.

“Johnny, go pack your suitcase,” my mother would tell me on a Friday afternoon after I had returned home from school. “It’s a long weekend, and we have miles to make.”

“Where are we going?” I would innocently ask.

My father would look at me. “Are you paying for the trip?”

Being in fifth grade, there were not many opportunities for a job. I had once tried being a paper boy, delivering the Press-Enterprise Newspaper in my hometown of Riverside.

That ended in disaster as most of my throws broke pots on porches, cracked a few front windows, hit an older woman in the forehead, and nearly skinned a few relaxing cats.

“You can’t throw worth a bean,” the subscription manager told me when I had to turn in my double-wide handlebar newspaper sack.

It had only been two days.

And what is meant by ‘throwing worth a bean?’

One of my parents' favorite routes was along California gold avenue. That was Highway 49, skirting past all the famous mining spots in California during the mid- to late 19th century.

It was a long drive from Riverside, but according to my father — “A long drive is better than no drive.”

I, too, drive lots of miles. Last glance at my Google maps showed that I had moved four times around the equator in the previous month. I am not sure that is true, but with the current gas prices, my lovely wife, Laureen, was starting to wonder if I would begin collecting discarded cans in the desert.

“Perhaps I will get a raise writing articles,” I responded.

A recent Saturday found me picking up sun-abused Coors cans along 395 and Bear Valley.

But I digress.

Towns such as Mariposa, Sonora, Placerville, Coloma, and many more were visited by our little family. Some are still thriving, and some have entered the pages of history.

And what a rich history. The "49 Trail" is the epitome of one of the most significant gold strikes in the United States.

“We’re going to Angels Camp,” my mother would announce to me when we were 10 minutes from Angels Camp.

I would never know why they believed the location would be secret for so long. I went to school, and reading was my second nature.

Highway signs were plentiful, and I could decipher them without needing a dictionary.

“Angels Camp, 10 miles.’

I never let on that I could figure out where we were going.

Angels Camp is a beautiful town of nearly 4,000 residents and has been growing in population for the past decade. Where many locales have lost folks, this town has been gaining them.

And it is perfectly understandable.

The historical downtown is much as I remembered when Laureen and I recently visited it.

“It looks like when I was a child,” I said.

She nodded. “How long ago was that?”

I remembered a time when I met Bret Harte and Mark Twain in a local saloon, and we shot the breeze for a while.

“It’s been a piece.”

“A piece?” Laureen asked.

I shrugged while taking the length of straw out of my teeth and husking up my suspenders.

Both Harte and Twain had wandered these parts of Angels Camp, and many of the trail miners had come to find their fortunes but usually left with only their skivvies.

Neither man was famous at the time. They were simple journalists trying to find the stories Americans in the East would find interesting to read — across the Mississippi.

Their names would soon become iconic.

They had met in San Francisco in 1864 and instantly found a familiar spirit. Both were journalists, and humorists, wrote fiction and nonfiction, but their real goal was to find fame and recognition.

There is a plaque outside of Angels Camp that describes the Bret Harte and Mark Twain trail. I took a photo of it but did not take the time to explore it.

I was tired, and we drove on.

Docent Nola, at the Calaveras Visitors Center and the adjoining Angels Camp Museum, said the daily crowds were getting quite large.

“Our traffic is really picking up,” Docent Nola said. “During the pandemic, we lost so many visitors we believed we may have to shut down completely.”

“And now?” I asked, using my most journalistic tone.

“We are getting so many visitors daily that we may exceed pre-pandemic numbers. Half are from overseas, the rest either locally or across the states.”

“How many per day?” I asked.

A busload of tourists had just arrived, and because of the noise, I do not recall how many visitors Docent Nola said were visiting, but I believe it was about 2 million per day.

The Calaveras Visitors Center and Angels Camp Museum are both wonderful experiences explaining the area's history, from the first findings of "color" in the local streams to the advancement of hard rock mining in the nearby hills.

Three levels allow the visitor to explore the various techniques in finding gold, processing that gold, and final shipment.

There is antique farm equipment, antique mining equipment, antique vehicles, and antique antiques.

It is a place to stop and spend a couple of hours for individuals or entire families.

Angels Camp was where Twain first made the front-page news and became Mark Twain. This is where his star began to glow brighter, both nationally and internationally.

According to lore, Twain had heard a very serious but funny story about jumping frogs from a bartender in 1865.

Though I rarely visit bars, let alone talk to bartenders, this one is worth revisiting.

“A jumping frog, that does not sound like a story,” Twain uttered.

“You have not heard the entire story,” said the barkeep.

The bartender, Simon Wheeler, related a story to Mark Twain about a gambler named Jim Smiley, whom he met at the Angels Hotel.

It details how Smiley would bet on anything. The time the sun would set, the time the moon would fall beneath the horizon, the time a Sasquatch would scratch, and anything else a wager could be cast.

In the story by Mark Twain entitled — "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" in 1865, Smiley had a frog by the name of Daniel Webster, and he boasted his frog could outjump any frog in the county. Smiley met a stranger who took the bet.

“Your frog will not outjump mine,” said Smiley.

The stranger grinned. “To make it fair, you pick out any frog for me, and I will prove your frog is a lazy, no-good froggy.”

Smiley headed out to find a random frog in a random stream.

When Smiley was out searching the hinterlands for the frog, the stranger filled Webster’s stomach full of lead shot in preparation for the contest.

We refer to that as cheating today.

The contest started with great anticipation from the crowds watching the jumping match. Suddenly, to everyone’s surprise, the stranger’s frog leaped to the next county while Smiley’s sat and pondered why his Atkins diet did not work.

The rest, thanks to Twain, is history.

This story has a moral, and I am still looking for it.

The story written by Twain became so famous that Angels Camp holds jumping frog contests annually. It is a four-day event, and nothing but fun is had by visitors and locals alike. In fact, according to the Calaveras County Visitor’s Center, this yearly event draws people from not only the nation but the entire world.

Outside of town is a replica of the cabin Mark Twain spent from 1864 to 1865. It was home to the Gillis brothers and is now a historical landmark.

It is not much of a cabin — sturdy walls of lumber, a small fireplace, a couple of windows, and one door.

Rumor has it that Twain lamented to the brothers, “When I become the real Mark Twain, I will have room service.”

One of the Gillis brothers looked at Twain. “What’s room service?”

Twain was known as a journalist from his early Virginia City days, but his love of creative writing set him apart from other writers of his day.

That said, Angels Camp is a must for anyone interested in true Americana.

Angels Camp has so many events that I will only mention a few. There is the Mark Twain Wild West Festival, the annual Taste of Calaveras, the Jumping Frog Jubilee & Fair, and the Who is Bret Harte Contest.

This town is not only in a gorgeous country but is a historic gold mine for the visitor.

For more information: https://www.gocalaveras.com/itinerary/gold-country/angels-camp-california