Coulterville Streets Lined With History

This Gold Rush community has been designated a state historic landmark but it’s no ghost town.

Take the restored Jeffery Hotel, for example. Built in 1851, its best-known guest was President Theodore Roosevelt, who reportedly spent the night en route to Yosemite National Park at the turn of the century.

Another park visitor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, also stayed at the Jeffery Hotel in its early days. That’s when the main route to Yosemite was the Coulterville Turnpike, a toll road 10 miles north of town.

Today’s Yosemite-bound visitors traveling California’s Mother Lode Highway should detour at Coulterville on scenic county road J20 as a short cut to the park entrance at Big Oak Flat. But don’t rush through the village; stop to have a look around.

Coulterville’s Main Street has been named to the National Register of Historic Places, and there are 47 historic buildings and sites in town.

Nowadays only about 100 people live in Coulterville, but it was home to several thousand miners during its heyday, when there were 10 hotels and 25 saloons. Fires destroyed the main part of town three times in the 1800s, but the Jeffery Hotel was rebuilt atop its 2 1/2-foot-thick rock and adobe base after each blaze.

Today it is Coulterville’s only hotel and features the historic Magnolia Saloon, entered from the street through bat-wing doors. Visitors have been bellying up to its well-polished bar since the 1890s.

A back door goes to a patio and steps that lead to the top floor, where a new dinner theater is expected to have its debut this spring. A stairway at the hotel’s main entrance leads to 20 guest rooms on the upper floors.

Five rooms have private bath and cost $54 a night, double occupancy, through March. Eight shared baths serve the other rooms, which have winter rates of $43/$46. Continental breakfast is included. Call (209) 878-3471 for reservations.

Across California 49 from the Jeffery are ruins of the Coulter Hotel, which was not rebuilt after the town’s last great fire in 1899. It serves as part of the Northern Mariposa County History Center, which also is housed in a former Wells Fargo stage office next door.

Photos and mementos from pioneer times and early mining days are displayed in the museum. In February it reopens on weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. From April through August, visiting hours are daily except Mondays.

Near the historic center, in the shade of Coulterville’s Hanging Tree, you’ll see a small wood-burning locomotive called Whistling Billy. It ran from a gold mine to a stamping mill over four miles of crooked track.

Mexican miners were prospecting in the area in the 1850s when George Coulter arrived to set up a tent and sell supplies. He prospered enough to build a store, a family home and a hotel, and the town was named in his honor.

The Coulter Cafe was originally a family home, then a rooming house, a grocery store and a beer bar. Now it’s a family-run restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner daily.

Yosemite Sam’s Cafe began as a blacksmith shop and has also been a clothing store, restaurant and bar. Collectibles are now sold at Sherlock’s Americana store, which originally was a general merchandise store and the Knights of Pythias meeting hall.

A warehouse/general store has become an antique shop, the Ellis Co. It’s just across the street from an old cigar store and saloon that are gift and consignment shops.

Next door is the Kona Trading and Jewelry Co., in a 130-year-old building that first served prospectors as a bakery. Antiques and custom-made jewelry are sold there today.

One store no longer open is the Sun Sun Wo Co., housed in an adobe building that has survived since 1851. It was a major trading place for Coulterville’s Chinese population, which was estimated at 1,000 during the Gold Rush era.

Hungry visitors can eat at two cafes--Polly’s Bakery and the Jeffery Hotel. The hotel dining room opens for breakfast at 6:30 a.m. Lunch is served daily from 11 a.m., dinner from 5 p.m. Brunch is offered on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For reservations, call (209) 878-3473.

A band plays Saturday nights in the Magnolia Saloon, which is open to 2 a.m. on weekends. Weekdays, the saloon--as well as the town--closes down by 10 p.m.

For more information about Coulterville, call the Northern Mariposa County Chamber of Commerce at (209) 878-3074 (it’s closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays in winter) or write to P.O. Box 333, Coulterville, Calif. 95311.

To get to Coulterville from Los Angeles, drive north on Interstate 5 and California 99 to Fresno. Exit on California 41 to Oakhurst and pick up the Gold Rush route, California 49.

An alternate route is to continue on California 99 to Modesto, then go east on California 132 to Coulterville.

Round trip from Los Angeles to Coulterville is 636 miles.