Treasure in a Gold Rush Town

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome back to Real Estate and more show. I'm Michael Hatfield. We're going back in time to visit a treasure in a gold rush town. The first time I met this man that's going to help us out to tell us about it. He'd baked fresh cookies in an open house that he was hosting as a realtor. And, man, it was hard to live that one down with other clients that we ran across. But this man is passionate and finds his heartbeat in whatever he does. But especially in the small town in the Sierras called Dutch Flat. I cannot wait for you to hear him tell the story of gold rush times through current. What's available up there? Please welcome Mr. Dale Bridges, a friend, fellow realtor, and a passionate fellow about Dutch flat. Welcome to the show, Dale. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much. I sure appreciate it. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Oh, it's great to see you. Haven't seen you for a couple of months or so, but it's sure good that you're back in. Tell us about Dutch flat. Where is this place located? [00:01:07] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It is probably a well hidden secret at times, but it's 30 miles east of Auburn, and it's headed towards Highway 80, turnoff number 145. And as you go over the freeway, you'll see the Monte Vista Ann, which is quite interesting, has a lot of tails on it. And you go in about a mile, and then you come into a little town with no stoplights, maybe two stop signs, and a lot of friendly people. [00:01:37] Speaker A: Well, what's special about Dutch flat? It has history somewhere. How did it ever start out? And we know it's gold rushdown. [00:01:45] Speaker B: It is. And I wish I was the historian of Dutch flat. And there is the museum there in Dutch flat on Main street that you can stop by and see. And they have all the photos of different things that went on and back in the 18 hundreds they had. My gosh, a lot of people were involved in gold, looking for all the hidden ones and try and get that going. And then they also had hydraulic mining back in that time. And also they had a lot of folks there working for the achievement of building the railroad. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that was quite a story about that railroad. What can you tell us? [00:02:24] Speaker B: Not much, other than it comes through Dutch flat about ten times a day or night and seems to be nice and long, and they're very friendly and they just keep going. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Well, there wasn't a scandal about that at that time. When it came about, there was a big scandal in Sacramento. People were saying that they just want to run it to Dutch flat. They did this is only to be for Dutch flat. But actually it wasn't. It was to take it through there, through the Sierras, and connect it down with the rest of civilization. And what an interesting place this is. [00:03:02] Speaker B: I know. It really is, and it's amazing. There's only a population of about 200 people, probably less than that. I don't see many people up there. When I'm there. I stand on Main street, and I look across the street at the Dutch Flat Hotel, and my gosh, it was built in the 18 hundreds, and it's still standing. [00:03:21] Speaker A: You know, I read something about the Dutch Flat Hotel, an amazing place. It actually is rumored to have a ghost, a coattail man. And he's sometimes seen as a male ghost with a black jacket and coattails. He's a legendary ghost called the Coat Man. What do you know about that? Anything? [00:03:42] Speaker B: My gosh, I don't. But I know that probably leaf and Wendy, who own the hotel, they probably, if you come up there and stay in one of their rooms, I think there's about nine rooms there, and they can get downstairs and start that rumor. I imagine it could go quite a know. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Back in the day in the airline business, there was a hotel in Louisville that had all the crew members scared. They did not want to go near that room that was rumored to have some type of an apparition in it. You know what? This is not that complimentary of Dutch flat. And it's quite an interesting, quaint town that, I have to say, in beautiful, beautiful Sierras. And it's in, I guess, Placer County. It was originally founded by a couple brothers, right? [00:04:33] Speaker B: Yes. Matter of fact, I think both of them, they were there. I don't know how the history of Dutch flat came about. I know. In one, eight hundreds. I know I have a building there that built in 1856, and they asked me if I wanted an inspection on the building, and I said, well, this building has been here a long time. I don't think so. It looks pretty neat. Yeah, it was really interesting. [00:04:56] Speaker A: So a couple German immigrants by the name of Dornbach, and one of them, they called the town for a short while, Charlie's Flat. I think they did, yeah. And did he have the hotel? Charlie, do you know if he owned the hotel? [00:05:11] Speaker B: At the beginning, I think there were a lot of rumors around about the hotel and the gold mining and the business down the street and what was going on. And there were a lot of different things going on in the little town there. Back in the 18 hundreds, they didn't have too many laws back then, that time. [00:05:28] Speaker A: No. And it's been rebuilt now. It's actually a suitable hotel to go and take your girlfriend and your sweetheart and hang out, drink a little bit of wine, and think about looking for the coat man. And as well as just remembering times when gold was the real reason that people went to California. It was gold and in the hills and such. And then you mentioned something about hydraulic mining. Can you tell us, enlighten us a little bit about hydraulic mining. How does that work? [00:05:59] Speaker B: Well, the hydraulic mining, they came in with pressured water and hitting the different areas there of the rock, breaking it down and looking for gold. And also they had different minerals there that they were looking at. Mercury was one of them and a couple of others. They ended up getting in an area where they had to stop it because of the flow of the water going down to the farmers down in the. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Open area through the Bear river, which it resides on. The actual little town resides on the Bear River. So it would go down and do some pollution, I suppose. [00:06:40] Speaker B: Imagine they would. [00:06:41] Speaker A: But, yeah, there were three busy mining camps in the area. There was this one, Dutch Flat, and whatever were the other ones, do you recall? [00:06:52] Speaker B: She's just guessing. There would probably be at Gold Run. [00:06:55] Speaker A: Gold Run, yeAh. [00:06:55] Speaker B: And then Alta, there was one up there, and they have all these mines there. I have several properties there, and the people there, the ones that go through these different mines, and I don't go through them. I just say, good luck, be safe. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Have you ever went through one of these mines? [00:07:12] Speaker B: No, I didn't. Why? [00:07:13] Speaker A: You don't like being in the ground? [00:07:15] Speaker B: Well, it's unusual. Yeah. For somebody that wants to come up and look for gold. There's a bunch of gold up there in that area, and they have mines, and you just have to be real careful when you go in one, because you don't know if something's living in there and it's going to come out. So there's a lot of different folks that come up there, and they do recreation. They get their AV or the motorcycles and the ATVs. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Enjoy. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And they do some fishing and hiking and walking around the town and looking at all the different. One thing you've got to do is when you're in Dutch flat, you got to stop at the trading post and see Abe. And Abe is a friendly guy, and he has a lot of different things there that he enjoys selling all the stuff there. [00:08:08] Speaker A: One of those kind of guys. Yeah, all kinds of parts. You'll probably find a television program coming over there looking to see what he's had in his garage. But up until the later part of the 1930s, Dutch flat was thriving. It had laundries, restaurants, opium dens, brothels and gambling halls, general stores and a post office. And then it was a big deal there because at the same time, the Chinese population was as large there almost as it was in San Francisco at the time. [00:08:39] Speaker B: That's right. [00:08:40] Speaker A: And that was because they were working on the railroads. [00:08:42] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:42] Speaker A: The Chinese were really great with the railroads. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Well, they knew how to do that. The workers, they were real focused and had that skill. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Well, it was one of the largest, actually was the largest town in Placer County. It had close to 5000 people at one time. Boy, that was something. And then what about Mark Twain? Did you know about Mark Twain? [00:09:08] Speaker B: No, I didn't. [00:09:09] Speaker A: He came there and actually would hold readings and such of his works. [00:09:16] Speaker B: Well, I remember now they were talking about Mark Twain holding his readings and they would do it at the community center upstairs. Yes. And if you've never been to Dutch flat, you really got to take the time and spend maybe a good hour just driving up and down the town and looking around because it's really. [00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'd imagine. Well, what brought you to Dutch flat? I know you weren't born. [00:09:42] Speaker B: No, no, I wasn't born there. I was living at the time in Forest Hill. And a friend of mine, he called me one day and said, I'm selling my property and I'm buying something in another area. And I said, okay, I'll be right over. And I bought it and then went through and enjoyed it. And I still enjoy it. I don't go up there a lot, but back and forth I try. [00:10:06] Speaker A: You know, you talked about recreation. There's something about a swimming pool up there that is an important thing. My wife, Nancy, when she was really young, actually, before we had even met, she had actually went up there and enjoyed it with her girlfriends. And she just had a wonderful time up there. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Well, that was something. And of course, Mike Mudo is the one that runs the Dutch flat community pool. [00:10:41] Speaker A: That's cool. Well, we got Nancy here. She's going to tell her story about the Dutch flat swimming pool. What about it? [00:10:48] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. What great memories. I'll tell you, I must have been 12, 13, 14 years old, and I had a girlfriend and her mom who would rent a home in Dutch flat, which you can still now do during the summer and other times of the year, I believe. And we would go up there for a week or two and just hang out, relax, walk along the streets, enjoy the swimming pool like every day in the summer. Just being barefoot and walking through this little town and we would get ice cream and the 4 July parade. It was just so quaint and just so relaxing. Great, great memories. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Well, thanks dads. I appreciate that input. I know you had to put in your two cent worth again, didn't you? You just did. I'm glad. Thank you. [00:11:40] Speaker B: And you know, Isn't that really neat about the history of that? [00:11:43] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, it's incredible. It's an incredible, incredible place. Why do you think that there's only 200 people there. Why isn't there 20 00, 20,000? [00:11:53] Speaker B: Gosh, I don't think everybody knows about Dutch flat and the housing market up there. There's a few homes that are for sale, nicely priced, but they're real small. Some of them don't have any power and so you don't have any power, but you have solar and you have propane and it takes a little different living style out in the. Get out there. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Absolutely. Now, you know, I said Dale's a realtor. He's a really good guy. If you want to buy something up in Dutch flat, you can give us a call. We can hook you up with Dale and he'll just show you all about that area because his passion and his heartbeat is about this area. Now you said the Diggins. What are the Diggins? [00:12:39] Speaker B: Well, the Diggins, it starts at the post office in the duplex and it goes out the Diggins Hill Road. And that's acreage, a couple of hundred acres. And it goes out, has a lot of rocks, has gold, it's a lot of minerals out there and it's rare earth minerals and I'm not into that. I don't understand a lot of that. But for somebody that needs to come out there, we'd sure open it up to where they can do a tour and sure go up there and get involved and look at all of it. [00:13:13] Speaker A: We're going to take a short break. Be right back. [00:13:19] Speaker D: Welcome to the real estate minute with remax expert Michael Hatfield. Michael, tell us about home inspections. [00:13:24] Speaker E: Inspections are key elements in the home buying process. Professional inspectors determine the condition of a property. If a problem arises in an inspection, your agent guides you with solutions to keep your deal intact. [00:13:36] Speaker D: Who pays the expense of doing an inspection? [00:13:38] Speaker E: Sellers often conduct pre market inspections before placing their home on the market. Most buyers get their own inspections when in contract. Whoever orders this service typically pays for it. If repairs are needed, repair costs may be negotiated. [00:13:52] Speaker D: Does experience help with inspection issues, the. [00:13:54] Speaker E: More experience an agent has, the better he is able to solve inspection problems. [00:13:59] Speaker D: For you, call 925-322-7775 now to schedule an appointment or complimentary home analysis for excellence in real estate, call the Michael Hatfield remax team at 925-32-2775 or go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com. [00:14:16] Speaker A: Now back to our show. So what do you do when you're up there? Beautiful, clean, crisp blue skies. Breathe in the smells of the trees, those big, what? Pine trees, I guess, at that. Yeah, just beautiful and fresh air. And you walk around the little town and there's not a lot to cater to tourists yet, is there? [00:14:41] Speaker B: Well, there is. The Dutch Flat Hotel is open and abes across the street. And then the community center, the church, the local one. There's a lot of touring where you can go up to the cemetery. Robin Reynolds is the one that runs that. And they do that for the. I guess they were born back in the 18 hundreds. They grave sites and they do a lot of Mason. The Masons are up there at one time. And then you get into, of course, Mike Mudo and the pool. And you get into the community center. And the community center. They run a lot of different events. They have a white elephant sale. They go through that. And all of them there, let's see, there's 2501 C, three s, the community center and the pool. And they're always looking for different things, donations and having fun. And, gosh, you get back into the time of where Leaf and Wendy are the ones of the Dutch Flat Hotel. They came in and they redid that about two years ago. And it really is something. [00:15:45] Speaker A: It's amazing, just really to go back in time. I keep looking out for the, you know, interesting. Dutch flat also was the first town to ever use dynamite in their mining. I don't know if most people would know that, but it was originally black powder and later known as Dynamite. So they would be able to blast out to find that also precious gold. Is there any gold at all comes out of the area now? Or is that. [00:16:19] Speaker B: Well, there's. There's a lot of people that are saying they found some gold up there. And of course, you just don't know. And the ones that find gold, they probably don't want to tell you and have that rush up there. But I'll tell you, if you need to come up and you want to tour around and look at some of the gold areas and the mining and all, just call us. [00:16:39] Speaker A: Okay? [00:16:40] Speaker B: I don't know what else to say. About that, other than it'll be a great experience for you. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Now, can you actually pan in the Bear River? [00:16:49] Speaker B: I don't think so. In the Bear river they have some good fishing where you can fish. You can't use a motorboat. You have to use something not paddling at all. I'm sure. I've seen people do that and catch some nice fish and do a little kayaking. They could. Sure. They've got the area there. PG E has a big power area there. Power in road there. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Interesting. And a lot of hiking. Are there any hiking trails or are you just out on your own? [00:17:20] Speaker B: Well, you're pretty much out on your own. You can go back into the Dagans and there is areas there that you can hike. There's different trails. And of course, you go out and you've got a tremendous amount of wilderness out there. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Talk about the school. There was a school there at the 18 hundreds. And is it still there to where a person can see? [00:17:42] Speaker B: Well, that was part of the community center that was there. And it was a one room school. And of course, I don't think they had more than many, a few students, I wouldn't think. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Not many back in the 18 hundreds. So this was built like in 18 something. The Dutch Flat Hotel. And like you say, it's been refurbished. And how would somebody make a reservation to go there and stay there if they really wanted to? [00:18:14] Speaker B: Well, you would get together with Wendy and Leaf and they have the Dutch flat Hotel and I think it's thedutouchflathotel.com. And then they get on there and get together with them and it's easy reservations. I know that I've seen the folks pull up to the hotel, put in a number in the door, they open it up, they're there and I don't see them coming out until the next. [00:18:39] Speaker A: Know, I read a lot of books about the wEst, gunslingers, this kind of a thing. And I like to sing a little bit for my own self. And I keep thinking about how times Must have been during the Gold rush, how times had to be. It had to be incredible times, totally different. The railroad is starting to come through. Towns always would blossom up around the railroad. And now you have the pursuit of goal at the same time that you got the railroad coming through there. It just seems like, wow, what an interesting time. Takes me back in mind to a song called Fire on the Mountain, Lightning in the sky. You could just Visualize this quiet little town with 5000 people in there. Back in the days when things were really hopping. Unbelievable. An opera house. Did they have an opera house there, Dale? [00:19:36] Speaker B: I don't know if they did or not, but the best way is to go over and take the time to go see the museum. And the museum there is real easy to get to. And if you ever get a chance, it's called the Golden Drift Historical Museum and it's easy to look at. And I think the Person in charge of that, her name is Anne and she has a lot of knowledge and she can tell you about the Diggins and about the whole place around there. And it's just truly amazing how at the time, at 05:00 in the afternoon, there is nobody running around except for Folks going to Abes, getting all the Food and necessary things they need to Go out into the wilderness. And you have Starry Nights, cold, and you have some snow up there and you're only like 30, 40 minutes away from Sugar Bowl. So it gives you that area there for having fun. [00:20:32] Speaker A: And what's the elevation? 35? [00:20:34] Speaker B: Yeah, about 33 to 3500. [00:20:37] Speaker A: Hobby. Darn. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:39] Speaker A: One of the big events that they have there is a little Parade, I guess the 4 July. [00:20:43] Speaker B: Yes, the 4 July Parade. It's really something. They're always looking for different sponsors to have a lot of Fun. But what they do is they Register everybody to get in the parade and they start out at 10:00 in the morning, 4 July, they have all the banners around and they go around twice around the town. And what's interesting is the firemen, the CHP officers, the sheriff's department, and just the townspeople, they all get into water balloon fights. They have them and they're a lot of fun. And these firemen, they usually win because they've got the squirters there. They get you real wet. Oh, man. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Sounds like a lot of fun. One of the other draws there is the cemetery. Sometimes when you look in an old cemetery and you see the dates on the tombstones and you think, well, that dash between when the person was born to when they died and you try to project what their life had to be like. Well, I know you know a little bit about the heritage of my family, the Hatfields McCoy's, and going back to Virginia now West Virginia, and how that all started. And one of the things that I've never done is I have not went to the Hatfield Cemetery in West Virginia and I have relatives still remaining that say you need to go there and you need to place the characters in the family with those tombstones and imagine the history that has come out of those individuals that are buried there. And I imagine it's the same way in Dutch flat and its cemetery. Just placing what you may know in history with that person that may be lying in rest there. [00:22:37] Speaker B: That's it. And it's really amazing, Michael, how we're all in the hustle bustle and going so fast, going everywhere. You really need to take the time to drive to Dutch flat, go up and look at these different places, and take the time to walk through the cemetery and see some of these folks that are grave sites that were like early 18 hundreds, 1850s. See how these people lived. They must have was a harder life at that time, I imagine so. [00:23:09] Speaker A: Millions. And that's a lot of money back in those days. Million then was a whole lot more than it is now. Millions in gold were actually taken from the plasters. And they said that there was like one nugget in history that they recorded a value of over $5,000. That's a lot in today's terms. What would that be, I wonder? Probably 100,000? [00:23:32] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:23:33] Speaker A: It'd be a lot. [00:23:33] Speaker B: It'd be Priceless. Yeah, you'd probably get some bids on that one through an auction house locally. [00:23:39] Speaker A: Absolutely bad. [00:23:42] Speaker B: And you can tell, I don't know a lot about that, because just the normal things that go on PG E, you get your service and all, but you get out into the Diggins, you don't get that. You have to go with the propane and you have to. Solar. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Septic tank. [00:23:59] Speaker B: Septic tank. And they do approve it through the county. And of course, the Board of Supervisors, they have control over that area because it's a town, not a city. And I think the Board of supervisor in that area, her name is Cindy. And just really a fine person gets together with a lot of folks. And it seems like everything is pretty nice and quiet up in that. [00:24:20] Speaker A: You know, I've been friendly with a supervisor, former supervisor from Calaveras county, and he was just the most amazing guy. We would go out in his old. Pick a truck and go out in the country, and he would tell me, oh, well, this happened over here and that happened over there. And then there was this there. And he would be so interesting because he knew so much about the history of that area. In Calaveras County, I imagine a lot with the same with this supervisor that you've just referred to there. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's also a local person that lives right across the street from me. And her name is Vicki. Miss Vicki, they call her. She's a story writer and artist, and she knows a lot of history about the area. [00:25:07] Speaker A: Sounds like it. Charming old place, isn't it? [00:25:11] Speaker B: It really is a charming old place. By the time you get up there, you have to just release all the different things that are going on. And you get up there at nighttime, five, six night, starry nights. And when you get the snow, it comes in, it covers the road and they clean it up real quick. Everybody is really conscious about that. And not to leave anybody stuck in the snow. And if there's anybody that does, they just have to call and they rescue them out. [00:25:37] Speaker A: Now, Nancy has known Dale for some time. And I said, what do you think about Dale? And her word was sincere guy, nice man, big heart. And he's following his passion, whatever it may be. And this obviously is one of them. Dale, thanks so much for coming and talking. What a wonderful time we've had this morning. Mr. Dale Bridges telling the story of treasure in a gold rush town. Thank you for coming on the show. [00:26:11] Speaker B: Great. Thank you, Michael, for having me. And Nancy, thank you again. [00:26:14] Speaker A: You bet. Great guy. Realtor. Thank you, Mr. Bridges. You've been listening to real estate and more interesting people like Dale. Topics of the Day like Dutch flat. That's topics of the day like Dutch flat. And of course, we talk about real estate. You can listen to archived real estate and more [email protected]. Radio that's Michaelhatfieldhomes.com radio. Tune in next week and until then, have a blessed week. [00:26:45] Speaker F: The views and opinions expressed are based on current economic and market conditions and are subject to change. Information on the show provided for illustrator purposes only and does not constitute professional or legal advice. Information from sources deemed reliable but accuracy and completeness not guaranteed. Michael Hatfield and the Michael Hatfield Remax team have no liability for information discussed on the show. Consult with qualified professionals prior to taking action. [00:27:15] Speaker G: We at the Michael Hatfield Remax team enjoy representing our valued clients. If you or someone you know is interested in buying or selling and wishes to schedule a complimentary appointment with the Michael Hatfield Remax team, call us at 925-32-2775 that's 925-32-2775 or go to our website, michaelhatfieldhomes.com. [00:27:38] Speaker A: I'm Michael Hatfield. Thank you for listening today. Join us next Saturday for the next real estate and more when we again sharpen our focus on house the market. [00:27:49] Speaker G: Join us next Saturday and have a wonderful week. Best wishes and blessings to you. You C-R-E 01493.