Currently considered a quiet mountain hamlet of a few dozen people today, Michigan Bluff was once overrun with miners who struggled across steep mountain trails and through ravines to reach the rich diggings they expected to find. Hundreds of miners began their ascent into Michigan Bluff in 1849. In 1850, thousands of more miners followed, coming from nearby El Dorado County mines.
Michigan Bluff, seven miles east of Foresthill, is perched upon the Foresthill Ridge at the 4,000 foot elevation overlooking the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River Gorge and El Dorado Canyon. Michigan Bluff connects to the Last Chance Trail of the Western States Trail, offering spectacular scenic views of the Sierra Nevada.
Leland Stanford lived in Michigan Bluff between 1853 and 1855. This period was when Stanford held his first conversations regarding rail travel. These discussions eventually led to developing the Central Pacific Railroad, that years later connected the west coast to form the transcontinental railroad. After leaving Michigan Bluff, he became one of the “Big Four” financiers of the railroad and became Governor of California.
Hydraulic mining began in 1853, using high pressure water jets to wash gravel away from mountainsides. Rivers downstream flooded from tremendous amounts of sediment. Riparian habitat was destroyed.
Fire swept through the town in 1857. The mines were rich in gold, so the town was rebuilt and residents stayed. By 1858, Michigan City, as it was originally called, was producing $100,000 worth of gold per month.
In 1858, a few years after hydraulic mining began, the damage was irreversible. The land below the town was so severely undermined that homes and businesses began sliding off the ridge and tumbled down the cliff to the river below. In 1859, amidst turf battles between residents of the “north and south,” the townspeople moved en masse farther up the hill and renamed their city Michigan Bluff. During the 1860s and 1870s, Michigan Bluff was one of the most prosperous mining centers on the Foresthill Ridge.
Fortunes changed in the 1880s. Large mining companies were buying out the smaller mines, so increasingly less land was available to mine. The “Anti-Debris Act,” also called the Sawyer Decision rendered in 1883, made hydraulic mining illegal. This became one of the first environmental decisions in the nation and changed the course of mining for camps throughout the Mother Lode. Hydraulic mining abruptly stopped. Town populations sharply declined anywhere hydraulic mining was the primary method of extracting gold. People moved on to other diggings and the places they left behind stood virtually abandoned.
The historical marker is located at the intersection of Gorman Ranch and Auburn-Foresthill Roads in Michigan Bluff.
Placer is a Spanish word describing surface mining. Gold that had been “placed” in streams or on the ground through natural erosion was processed by planning, rocking, and similar techniques. Such mining efforts made Placer County residents some of the richest in California.