Cameron Park/Shingle Springs History
Welcome to Cameron Park and Shingle Springs, two small towns with big hearts.

Area History -- Cameron Park
Is a census-designated place (CDP) in El Dorado County, California, United States. The population was 14,549 at the 2000 census. Cameron Park is a relatively new community situated in the Northern California Gold Country of the Sierra Nevada foothills, approximately 30 miles east of Sacramento and 70 miles west of South Lake Tahoe.

The original inhabitants of the area surrounding Cameron Park were the Niesnan branch of the Maidu Indians. Grinding rocks and burial mounds serve as glimpses of the past and are still visible in various locations around Cameron Park.

Major development began in the area when Larry Cameron purchased 5000 foothill acres in the 1950s for ranching purposes. In the years since then, the land has slowly been divided into lots of varying sizes, including ranch-sized properties and medium and high density residential neighborhoods. Today, Cameron Park contains a mix of large ranches, single family homes, apartments and businesses.

Sites of Interest
Cameron Park has several shopping areas, a championship golf course and country club, a recreational lake and the Cameron Airpark Estates. The unique Airpark Estates provide an opportunity for pilots to commute from home to destination without leaving their airplane. Wide streets double as taxiways between homes and the airstrip. Oversized garages house personal airplanes.

Cameron Park was once known as the home of "Sam's Town" where many travelers stopped on their way to and from Lake Tahoe. This restaurant and amusement complex was torn down in 2002 and is now a shopping center.

Parts of the Skinner Vineyard and Winery from 1865 can be seen at the intersection of Green Valley Road and Cameron Park Drive. All that is left of Skinner's ranch is a portion of the cellar (integrated into the Cameron Park Nursery), a tiny remnant of the distillery wall (behind mobile homes in the mobile home park near the intersection), and the cemetery. The cemetery itself contains the graves of James and Jessie Skinner (nee Bernard) and three of their sons. The cemetery is located on a small hill just southeast of the intersection.

Area History -- Shingle Springs
Is situated at the eastern terminus of the Placerville and Sacramento Valley Railroad, thirty-seven miles by wagon, and forty-eight miles by railroad, from Sacramento City. It took its name from a shingle machine used for the manufacture of shingles at a cluster of springs, situated at the western extremity of the village.

The first house was built by one Bartlett, in 1850, and was situated on the hill near the springs, was called the "Shingle Spring House" and was occupied as a stopping place for travelers. In 1851, another public house, the "Missouri House," was built a few rods east of the Shingle Spring House. In 1852, the "Planter's House" was built and occupied as a public house by R. S. Wakefield, and has served the same purpose without interruption, since that time. About the same time two blacksmith shops were built here also, and just back of the Planter's House on the so called shingle creek a stream saw-mill was erected, owned and run by A. P. Catlin, now at Sacramento City, and S. C. Cutler now a resident of Sly Park. This mill was in operation about two years, and it is said that lumber was sold at the mill for one hundred and fifty dollars per thousand, immediately after the fire of 1852 in Sacramento.

The place was surrounded by rich placer mines, and the canyons and gulches were soon lined with miner's cabins. We quote only Grizzly Gulch as one of the richest in the county, paying at one time two hundred dollars to the rocker per day.

From 1852 to '56, miners drew their supplies from the village of Buckeye Flat, about one mile east of Shingle Springs, at that time quite a town with two or three stores, but since gone the way of many a mountain mining town. In 1857, the first store in town was opened near the Planter's House and did a good business with the miners of the vicinity.

Through all this stir and bustle Shingle Springs remained nearly in status quo, little more than a way station for the travel on the road to Placerville and Carson, Nevada, and so continued up to the completion of the P. & S. V. R. R., which event took place in 1865. In June of that year the company announced the completion of the road to Shingle Springs, on Sunday June 16th, the road was opened with a free excursion train to this place, which was then, and still is the terminus of the road.

Then a very heavy freighting and forwarding business was done on this road, to Placerville, all the mountain towns, and as the easiest and best mountain road cross over the Sierra range to the State of Nevada; this business was about to center at this place and quite a rush to secure lots for business purposes was commenced.

The town of Shingle Spring had been surveyed, laid out into lots, and maps drawn and exposed, and D. T. Hall, proprietor of the Planter's House, stood ready to transfer to those who wished to purchase. It don't take long to build a California town at the terminus of a railroad; a tribe of aborigines with their ready made tent poles and buffalo skin siding, could scarcely more than furnish an illustration.

This place was no exception to the rule. Houses were hastely* constructed, both for business and residence, a Postoffice, an express and telegraph-office established, the railroad depot 800 feet in length completed, freight trains crowded the place by hundreds, two trains daily (Sunday excepted) were run from Sacramento, and many extra freight trains had to be run to furnish carrying capacity for the freight en route. Stages left daily, laden with passengers for points further east, and in an incredibly short space of time the town became one of business and activity, second to none of its size in the State.

It was not expected, however, that the amount of the business it started with, would long remain with the place, as it was supposed at the time, that the railroad would be pushed on to Placerville as soon as practicable; the buildings erected, therefore, were not for the most part, of a very substantial character. But the railroad did not go to Placerville, and but for a still more formidable obstacle the place would have held its own. In the summer of 1866, the Central Pacific Railroad was completed over the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the freight carrying business and passenger traffic for localities beyond the mountains was diverted from the route through Shingle Springs to the new opened route. The business of the place fell off, merchants and others left for more prosperous locations, and it gradually subsided, becoming "smaller by degrees and beautifully less" until it stands at the present time, what its business as a shipping point and the trade traffic of the surrounding makes it. The P. & S. V. R. R., not running for about a year, on account of a pending law suit, resumed activity about the 10th of July, 1882.

David B. Scott, in company with D. Ashley, who afterward became a member of the Legislature in California and died in Southern California; A. Lawyer, Sweeney, Stephens, Bisby, George Withington, now of Ione Valley ; Buckley, Wilson and Kertland, who acted as the captain of the company, left Monroe, Mich., in March, 1849, to cross the plains, and this was bout the third train en route with Canadian ponies. They proceeded to the spot where Ragtown was built up afterwards, and send Scott ahead to go as far as Sacramento, to look around and find out where the company could to the best when arriving in California. On this trip Mr. Scott, together with a Dr. Ormsby, camped on the present site of Shingle Springs, then heavily dotted with oak and sugar pine, and was so delighted with the location that, after having reunited with his company at Sly Park, and journeying together to Sutterville, where they disbanded,  he made up another company, and with Withington, William Van Alstine and the Bartlett brothers, Henry and Edward, returned to the place, where, not far from the beautiful spring, they erected  shingle machine, from which the name of the town arose. This shingle machine was operated by horse power, producing sixteen thousand shingles per day, worth $50 to $60 per thousand, delivered at Sacramento, and lumber was paid for as high as from $900 to $1000 per mille. Seom* time later Scott sold out to Mr. Bisby and departed for the Yuba river mines, where he staid from 1850 to 1851, and was elected Surveyor of Yuba county in 1851, holding this office for three terms. Then he was engaged as a surveyor of Washoe county, Nevada, and thereafter in the same capacity in Sonoma county, Cal. He also has been engaged in the building railroads for logging and lumbering in the mountains, and was for three years chief engineer of the Marysville and Vallejo Railroad.

The first store at Shingle Springs was kept by E. M. Hiatt, from Missouri, at the place now occupied by Slocum. Bartlett kept the first hotel. He paid to Ed. Perrine's wife $150 for cooking. He sold out to Humphrey Taylor, and he again sold to D. T. Hall. Wakefield kept the Missouri House, a log cabin which stood on the spot where the Planters' House was built afterwards. Mr. Hall was also the first Postmaster in the town. The Postoffice was established in 1855. The first school of the district was kept at Shingle Springs  Boston-Newton Joint Stock Association, which left Boston April 16, 1849, camped here the night before their arrival at Sutter's Fort September 27th

(883 words) Although the hamlet of Shingle Springs is often remembered as a rail town along the oldest railroad in the west, it too like most other settlements on El Dorado County’s western slope saw its humble beginnings as an 1848 Gold Rush mining camp. In the gulches surrounding this fine community once sat hundreds of miners cabins, and gold was the only business of the day.

Shingle Springs was founded by a company of “48ers” who’d followed the Carson Emigrant Trail through Pleasant Valley. Not much more then a crude miner’s camp, it was Edward and Henry Bartlett who built and operated the first public house here in 1850. The settlement took its name from a horse drawn shingle machine operated by the Bartlett brothers capable of producing 16,000 shingles a day. As the machine was located near the springs at the western edge of camp, the Bartlett’s decided to name their public house the Shingle Springs House.

By typical Gold Rush standards Shingle Springs grew slowly, adding one more roadhouse in 1851. Known as the Missouri House it was a large log cabin type structure built just east of the Bartlett’s place. The Planter’s House followed suit in 1852. Built by R.S. Wakefield it too operated as a public house. By this time two blacksmith shops were in business as was one of El Dorado county’s early steam saw-mills owned and operated by A. P. Catlin of Sacramento and S.C. Cutler of Sly Park. The Catlin & Cutler Mill supplied much of the lumber used to re-build Sacramento after the devastating fire of 1852. It was a stroke of good luck for Catlin & Cuter who were able to charge a premium price for their lumber.

Located in the Shingle Springs House the first post office opened here in 1853, the house was later converted into a store. Surrounded by rich placer mines during the fervor of the Gold Rush, Shingle Springs remained a quiet village that saw little business from the miners in the vicinity. When the miners came into town for supplies they’d go to Buckeye Flat, one mile east of the Shingle Springs House. At the flat a man could acquire supplies, weak liquor, and the comforts of a fine women for a fair price, along with what little society could be found around the gambling tables. Although Buckeye Flat grew into a town with many businesses and established a school district later, once the mines played out, it, like so many others became a ghost town.

The Shingle Springs Mining District recorded some excellent gold strikes. Grizzly Gulch was one of El Dorado county’s richest, paying $100 to $200 per rocker, per day. The Shirley Mine kept a five-stamp mill busy. Frenchtown was known for its rich pocket mines, the Pocahontas Mine was considered one of the best paying in its day. Production at the Pocahontas reached 12 tons of rock per day, paying $25. in gold to the ton.

In the late 1850’s Shingle Springs served travelers along the road between Sacramento and Carson City, Nevada during the Comstock excitement. It remained a small settlement and roadside way-station escaping the boomtown experience which many of its neighboring towns saw during the Gold Rush period. It remained so until June, 1865 when the Placerville & Sacramento Valley Railroad completed its line to the tiny settlement.

Connected for the first time by rail to Sacramento, El Dorado County had a new industry at Shingle Springs. The village witnessed sudden growth and almost overnight became a bustling freighting and transportation center in the mountains. The depot was 800 feet long and saw the arrival of one freight and two passenger trains daily from Sacramento. Stages ran daily from Shingle Springs to Placerville and all stations east, burdened with passengers and express. All shipping to the Comstock mines passed through Shingle. From here freight was transported by wagons pulled by teams over the Sierras.

For sometime Shingle Springs could boast it was the busiest center for business and traffic second to none in California for its size. This however did not last long. In the summer of 1865 the Central Pacific Railroad completed its section of line passing north of El Dorado County through Auburn which completed the transcontinental railroad. The opening of the Central Pacific R.R. delivered a death blow to Shingle Springs. In 21 years the Central Pacific outright owned the P&SVR.R., which meant little to Shingle Springs as the shipping of freight and passengers had long since been diverted to the Central Pacific line.

Although Shingle Springs declined with the coming of the Central Pacific R.R. by 1883 there was only one resident still living in the town proper. Surrounding communities such as Buckeye Flat and Frenchtown although large trade centers during El Dorado County’s Gold Rush era vanished like Shingle Springs did when the mines played out.

From the days of the Gold Rush Shingle Springs has its own genuine tale of buried treasure. Little information is available but I am currently researching this one for an article to appear in Lost Treasure Magazine. It has been called “The Pack Rat’s Treasure” and involves an undetermined amount of gold coins which were cached in the immediate vicinity of the old Forty Mile House near Shingle Springs. Happy Hunting!