As of the 2000 year census, Placerville's population is 9,610 people. In 1848, the beginning of the California Gold Rush, the town now known as Placerville was called Dry Diggins. The town had the name during the gold rush because the miners would use dry soil and mix it with running water to get the gold from the soil in Placerville.
Placerville's nickname is “0ld Hangtown” because many people were being hung there in the 1800's. Placerville was also part of the Pony Express, were mail was delivered by men on horses instead of the railroads, airplanes, and trucks we use know.
James Marshall built a sawmill were Placerville is today, for one of his employers. On January 24, 1848, he found small flakes of gold on the tail race of the mill. When news spread of his finding the California Gold Rush began. The gold rush was also a time of murder and robbery, many people lost their gold by threat of their life. The spot in Placerville called “Old Hangmans Tree” was a big oak tree were all the robbers and murderers were hung. This is when became known as “Old Hangtown”. During 1854 Placerville was the 3rd most populated city in California, only overtaken by San Francisco and Sacramento the states capital.
There is a very unique in the middle of Placerville called Belltower, this unique tower has its own history. Placerville suffered 3 fires in 1856 which almost destroyed all of Placerville's business section in the city. So the people of Placerville wanted an alarm in case of another fire, this is were the Belltower comes into Placerville. The people demanded a bell from England, England accepted the request. They requested the tower in 1860, it arrived in the town in 1865, the city council gave approval to put it in a tower on the plaza, it cost them $380.00. The tower was just 50-feet high, and was revealed to the people on September 8, 1898, during the city's admission day parade.
The first toll bridge in Placerville was made by a falling tree that fell over a stream, a miner found it and camped by it and charged 4 dollars for anyone who wanted to cross, he got away with it for some time, which made the first toll bridge in Placerville.
The famous painter from Placerville is Thomas Kincaid, Thomas is known as the painter of light.
In 1855, Placerville's postmaster had a serious problem; the mail man on contract for Placerville had disappeared. So all of Placerville's mail had disappeared. The carrier's partner was killed first, and his mules froze to death in the snow. They think it was the carrier's death of his horse that tipped him over to breaking contract and running away. There was one man named John Thompson, who was and ex-miner, who did not do well in his mining, who asked the postmaster to carry mail over the Sierra Mountains. The postmaster could not hire John for the mailman was on contract with the postmaster and could not sign the contract over for he was missing.
John really wanted to have the job of a mailman, he returned to the postmaster every day, on the fifth day after his rejection the postmaster gave in and let John try to carry the mail. John was very good at his job and soon was making trips over the Sierra peak and to Placerville in only one day. Soon people began to call him Snowshoe Thompson. Thompson was very determined, once he carried a printing press over the mountain section by section, and moved through a pack of wolves looking for dinner. John had no bug spray, no sleeping bag, nothing except some biscuits and jerky for his trips over the mountains.
Thompson had even saved a mans life, When he was forced to seek shelter inside an old cabin due to freezing temperatures. He found an unconscious man inside, with no furniture, realizing that the furniture was burned for heat and that the man was developing gangrene. He sped down the mountain were he got a rescue team; they wanted to amputate his legs from gangrene. But they needed a certain chemical or they could not go on with the operation. He went down the mountain again and searched Placerville, they had none there so he went all the way down to Sacramento, and got a bottle of the chemical. Then he went back up the mountain to the old cabin and the operation saved his life and so did John.
Eventually, the train had come along and Thompson was run out of a job, and out of all the 13 years Thompson delivered mail, he did not receive one penny for his efforts. Thompson decided to go Washington D.C; he carried with him a petition of 1,000 of his postal customers signatures. Congress was in a tight budget for it was the reconstruction period, and told him without a contract he could not be paid. Returning to Placerville, his postal customers had raised enough money to buy him his own ranch near his hometown.
He died four years later; there is now a statue in Placerville of John Thompson.
