Angels Camp: Historic Mother Lode destinations offer up-to-date values

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In 1865, Mark Twain, traveling in the West, penned what was to become a famous short story about a wagering scheme involving a frog-jumping contest in the mining town of Angels Camp.

Because of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches," the community – otherwise known as Frog Town – ever since has been leveraging its reputation on that piece of literary humor.

Angels Camp's first Jumping Frog Jubilee was held in 1928 as an early effort to publicize the town's ties to one of America's most beloved authors. It set the stage for an annual tongue-in-cheek event, now combined with the Calaveras County Fair, that draws tens of thousands of visitors to one of the Mother Lode's best preserved Gold Rush towns.

The festival is held the third weekend of May, but frog humor abounds year-round in a community of 4,000 that sponsors art-frog contests (the painted fiberglass statues are parked around Main Street) and commemorates the Jubilee's winning amphibians with brass plaques embedded in a downtown sidewalk.

It's folksy, all right. But Angels Camp (named for shopkeeper Henry Angel) has every right to be proud of its rough-and-tumble heritage, the most obvious signs of which are rooted in an impressive collection of iron-shuttered brick and wooden buildings dating to the heyday the mining era.

There's a reason why more 19th century structures survived here than in other towns of the Mother Lode. The hard-rock mining operations around Angels Camp were equipped to pump out the water that collected in the deep shafts. This ability to pump water up from the mines helped spare the place from the devastating fires that ravished so many other boomtowns of the era. Today, the buildings on Main Street house antiques stores, boutiques, art galleries, restaurants – and, as befits its rowdy past, quite a few saloons.

Stop by the visitor center on Main Street to pick up a self-guided tour pamphlet that will fill you in on the history (don't miss the statue of Twain in Utica Park or the "chicken ladder" on Hardscrabble Street). Better yet, carve out a couple of hours – three is better – to visit the Angels Camp Museum.

From the road, this storehouse of Calaveras County history looks like an unprepossessing building with some antique mining machinery out front. But what you see from the street is only one of three structures housing an amazing collection of mining-era artifacts, wagons, antique agricultural equipment, rock and mineral collections, photographs and other relics of a bygone era.

Among the gems: a working model of a stamp mill, a horse-drawn hearse, a video of a 1936 Caltrans film touting highway projects of the era, a logging wagon with tree-trunk wheels, the "frog room" and a hog oiler (I'm not going to spill the beans on that one; you'll have to ask).

"Our ancestors had things that were amazing," notes museum administrator Bob Rogers.

What they most certainly didn't have was Greenhorn Creek Resort, whose Robert Trent Jones II golf course was voted by Sacramento golfers in a survey by Greenskeeper.org as the best maintained and "best value for the greens fee" course in the region. Player hazards are decidedly unique: a stone Chinese oven and stone farm wall beleaguer duffers on the fifth fairway.

Greenhorn offers "Stay & Play" packages that combine cottage or condominium lodging with deals on golf and other activities. Its CAMPS Restaurant, in a building inspired by architect Julia Morgan, features a wine list showcasing produce from 20 Calaveras County wineries.

In town, try Crusco's Ristorante for tasty Italian food in a rustic atmosphere.

Oh, and did we mention that parking in Angels Camp is free? There's not a single parking meter in town.

– Janet Fullwood

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Calaveras County Visitors Bureau: 1192 S. Main St.; www.visitcalaveras.org; (800) 225-3764

Angels Camp Museum: 753 Main St., (209) 736-2963

Greenhorn Creek Resort: 711 McCauley Ranch Road; www.greenhorncreek.com; (888) 736-5900

CAMPS Restaurant: (209) 729-8181

Crusco's Ristorante: 1240 S. Main St.; (209) 736-1440

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