Placerville City Council affirms ‘Old Hangtown’ nickname after removing noose from logo
Placerville City Council members last week unanimously voted to approve a resolution affirming the Gold Rush-era nickname “Old Hangtown,” a little over two weeks after they agreed to remove a noose from the city’s logo.
The city has been facing heightened scrutiny for the past year over its historical connection to vigilante executions during the mid-19th century, with critics arguing that the city’s branding is racially insensitive.
Criticism intensified last summer, when a series of large-scale protests against racism and police brutality swept the nation following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In July, Placerville City Council members deferred action regarding the city’s logo until this year. Earlier this month, the council again took up that same discussion, voting to remove the symbol, which had been depicted hanging from a tree standing behind a miner panning for gold.
Last summer, petitioners also demanded that the council remove the name “Old Hangtown” from welcome signs greeting visitors entering the city. A competing petition sprung up shortly afterward, urging officials to keep the name for the sake of historical preservation, earning nearly 17,500 signatories to date compared with the former’s 6,500. Placerville’s population is about 11,000 people.
During Thursday’s City Council meeting, members decided to embrace the “Old Hangtown” nickname, originally adopted in reference to three hangings carried out in 1849. The city’s resolution also affirmed the earlier nickname “Old Dry Diggins,” which refers to the mining origins of the city.
“The city of Placerville does hereby acknowledge and recognize that ‘Old Dry Diggins’ and ‘Old Hangtown’ shall remain in our vernacular as the official historic nicknames,” the resolution reads.
The resolution ties the city’s nomenclature to a California state historical landmark which makes explicit reference to the city’s history of hangings. Historical Landmark 475 marks “Old Dry Diggins-Old Hangtown-Placerville” — the city’s downtown center — as a site of interest. Additionally, Historical Landmark 141 is “Hangman’s Tree,” the old white oak that once stood in the city’s main square, the stump of which now lies beneath one of the commercial buildings on Main Street.
Mayor Dennis Thomas — who requested the resolution alongside Councilman Michael Saragosa — said he wanted to clear up the city’s position on historical preservation after the last meeting’s vote to remove the noose from its logo.
“A lot of information was passed around after that meeting suggesting that its the beginning of a slippery slope, that its part of this whole grand scheme of taking down everything historical in the city of Placerville,” Thomas said.
Saragosa said old petitions from last year regarding city signage had been recirculating in the wake of the vote, and heard from residents concerned that more changes might be coming.
The resolution to affirm the city’s historical nicknames “is a much different thing than our logo and the noose that was on the logo,” Saragosa said.
During public comment, some residents argued that making a point of holding onto the “Hangtown” name was inconsistent with the city’s last action to remove the noose from its logo. Others noted that the “Hangtown” name was only widely used for a very brief period of time prior to the city’s incorporation in 1854 under the name Placerville. The city’s resolution acknowledges that local churches and a temperance league had, starting in 1850, “began to request a more friendly name be bestowed upon the town” following the 1849 triple hanging.
Vice Mayor Kara Taylor, a vocal supporter of eliminating the noose from the city’s logo, voted to adopt the resolution, but only begrudgingly.
“I was not pleased to see this on the agenda,” Taylor said. “This resolution — I don’t know if it’s going to settle any acrimony in the community.”
She recognized the intention behind the resolution, which she described as trying to “close the book” on a highly contentious issue, and added that since the state has already identified the names as an integral part of California’s history, “it’s not really up for interpretation.”
This story was originally published May 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
