Carving of a lion
California,  History,  Monday walks,  Street art

Three walks, two towns, one very hot day

December 31, 2024 / 28 Comments

Planning our California itinerary was a bit like playing join the dots! There were plenty of places we knew we wanted to go to, sights we wanted to see. The great national parks, the giant redwood trees, the Pacific Coast and inland landscapes. Once those were plotted, we had to find the best routes between them. But what is best?

For us this meant seeking out some varied and potentially quirky sights, avoiding big cities for the most part, and heading off the beaten path on some more scenic roads when time allowed. Those roads took us to some interesting places we might not otherwise have discovered. One such was Eureka, where I took you on a previous Monday Walk. Today I want to introduce you to two more, Chico and Grass Valley. We visited both on the same very hot day, so our walks were rather curtailed but we nevertheless found plenty of interest.

Log jam

We stopped in Chico around mid-morning, after a stretch of driving made challenging by the aftereffects of the Park Fire that had devastated this region not long before our visit. We had set out a little later than usual after a larger and longer breakfast than was our norm, but fortunately not much later. The road to Chico led through that devastated area, lined with the sad sight of burned trees. About halfway along this road we got a shock. A warning sign declared the road closed ahead with a possible two hour wait. We’d already driven over 20 miles of challenging winding road; the last thing Chris would have wanted was to have to retrace our route.

But then we spotted the second part of the changing electric sign. The road was opened at intervals: 10.00, 12.00 and 14.00. It was now 9.40 and we assumed we couldn’t be too far from the closure so should make it before 10.00. We did indeed, just a few minutes down the road, so although we had to sit waiting in a queue that consisted mainly of logging trucks for about 15 minutes, it could have been much worse. And our leisurely breakfast became irrelevant as we couldn’t have passed before 10.00 however early we’d got here.

We were here long enough that I was able to get out of the car to take some photos.

Large lorries carrying timber on a road
Log jam!

Once the traffic got moving we could see the reason for the closure. Workmen were clearing burned trees from the side of the road on a tight bend where access was difficult. Presumably they needed the whole width of the road to manoeuvre.

Chico

Having got through this hold-up we continued to Chico with no further incidents. We decided to stop there for coffee and a leg stretch. The temperature had risen rapidly as we drove here, from 52F when we set out to 87F now. But we couldn’t leave the town without exploring just a little so took a short walk around a couple of blocks. We were rewarded by some Art Deco style buildings, in particular a striking theatre, the Senator. This was built in 1927 and was originally used for vaudeville theatre. It was converted to a cinema in the 1970s but when that closed in 2000 the venue was bought by a local business person, who renovated it and opened it back up for live musical acts. My feature photo is of a detail on this building.

Signs and stone carvings above a theatre entrance
Large theatre building with carved stone details
Signs above a theatre entrance
White stone tower with relief carvings

There was also some colourful street art, including a huge mural on the side of the post office celebrating the Pony Express.

Circular mural of a tree
Mural with lion's head and coloured bubbles
Large mural with men riding ponies

The Empire Mine

We arrived in our second town of the day after a pleasant drive on rural roads lined with fields and orchards. By now it was even hotter, about 95F (it had briefly hit 100F as we drove), but I was keen to visit a state park on the outskirts of town, the Empire Mine State Park, site of a former deep gold mine.

Large rusty wheels and machinery
Corrugated metal buildings
Corrugated metal building and large rusty wheels

This was one of the oldest, deepest, and richest gold mines in California. In operation for more than 100 years, the mine extracted 5.8 million ounces of gold before it closed in 1956. Its equipment was sold at auction in September 1959 and the site abandoned for some years. In 1975, the State of California purchased the Empire properties and created this park which includes not only many of the mine’s buildings and the owner’s home and restored gardens, but also miles of trails in the backcountry.

In less hot weather we might have explored some of those trails but as it was we focused mainly on what remains of the mine itself. We started in the thankfully airconditioned Visitor Centre. This contains lots of photos and documents relating to the mine but the ‘star attraction’ is a scale model of the mine. It was created to help keep track of the mine’s 367 underground workings over five square miles. It gives some sense of the scale of the mine, but I found it hard to fully understand and impossible to photograph!

After that we braved the heat to visit the blacksmith shop, where it was even hotter! We lingered long enough to take some photos of the smith at work and hear a brief explanation of the sort of objects that would have been fashioned there, such as hooks for equipment, tools etc. We were also told that although the shop is fitted out with authentic apparatus of the period, it isn’t original to the mine because of that auction sale in 1959.

Man holding a metal rod in a fire
Hammer hitting a metal rod glowing red
Hammer hitting a metal rod glowing red

Nearby we could venture down into the shaft a short distance.

Looking down a dark tunnel
Mine shaft

The mine owner’s house was closed (I think it only opens for guided tours) but we could walk around outside and enjoy the shady gardens before leaving.

Shingled house among trees
Mine owner’s house

Grass Valley

We spent a night here in the beautiful historic Holbrooke Hotel. By the time we had settled in it was late afternoon and the temperatures had dropped from too hot t comfortably warm. We set out to explore the old part of town before dinner. We found some good street art, with one piece celebrating the town’s mining history.

Large mural of a mountainside with mine shaft
Large mural of woman with a fan and mountain backdrop
Large mural with landscape and flowers

There were plenty of interesting old buildings along pedestrianised Mill Street, including a lovely old cinema. The Del Oro was built in the early 1940s with classic Art Deco/Moderne style architecture.

Cinema entrance with slim tower above
Tall slim tower

The interior has been largely modernised, I gather, but touches of the old building remain, along with a couple of good ghost stories. As our visit to Grass Valley coincided with the approach of Halloween it seems appropriate to retell them! One is linked to an old fire escape, rumoured to be the location where a woman who either fell or was pushed to the concrete below. Another centres on the projection room, where a projectionist perished inside during a freak fire.

We finished our walk with dinner at an Italian restaurant where we could enjoy eating outside, and a final look at Grass Valley at night, including some of its Halloween decorations.

Halloween decoration with illuminated pumpkins and skeletons
Halloween decoration with illuminated pumpkins and dog skeleton
Cinema building lit up at night

I visited Chico and Grass Valley in October 2024

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