118 



GEOLOGIC GUIDEBOOK ALONG HIGHWAY 49 



[Bull. 141 



FIG. 63. Rhyolite tuff block fence just east of Altaville, DMBS Cal-H4. 



VALLECITO 



Fio. 64. Rhyolite tuff quarry, 1 mile east of Altaville, DMBS Cal-H5. 



Vallecito is on Highway 4, six miles from Angels Camp. Vallecito 

 preserves the Wells Fargo Office, later Sanguinetti 's and then Dinkel- 

 spiel's Store (Pig. 65) built in 1854. It is constructed of dressed blocks 

 of rhyolite tuff which came from the Altaville quarry (Fig. 64). Across 

 the road are the ruins of the Wells Fargo Stables put up in 1851 and 

 made of the same material (Fig. 66), and up a side street is the splendid 

 Cuneo building built in 1851 complete with iron doors and made of 

 rhyolite tuff blocks (Fig. 67). 



Beyond Vallecito at Douglas Flat, a distance of 2J miles to the 

 northeast, are a number of stone ruins which may be seen on either side 

 of the road. The rough-quarried limestone here has served as a fence 

 material. The Gilleado building built in 1851, now stabilized with con- 

 crete and with a new tin roof (Fig. 68), serves to illustrate the use of 

 rough limestone blocks as a construction material in this vicinity and 

 at Murphys not far beyond. 



MURPHYS 



Murphys, also located on Highway 4 to the northeast of Douglas 

 Flat, is almost unique in preserving the atmosphere of a substantial 

 Mother Lode town of the 'fifties (Fig. 69). Permanent buildings are 

 of brick or quarried limestone. The Mitchler Hotel at Murphys (Fig. 70) , 

 made of rough quarried limestone chunks set in lime mortar, was built in 

 1855 by J. C. Sperry and J. Perry. It is supposed to be the one referred 

 to in Bret Harte's "A Night in Wingdam. " In the hotel register may 

 be seen such names as Mark Twain, Thomas Lipton, Henry Ward 

 Beecher, U. S. Grant, and J. J. Astor, Jr. Across the street is a typical 

 Mother Lode brick-fronted, limestone rubble-lime mortar walled build- 

 ing which was in 1851 a miner's supply store and bakery. The simple 

 charm of the St. Patrick's Catholic Church made of brick and dating 

 from the 'fifties is a direct link with Murphys historic past (Fig. 71). 

 The P. Travers building made of heavy limestone rubble and erected 

 in 1856, is now Morley's Garage. It housed a store and the Wells Fargo 

 Office. The Jones Apothecary shop (Fig. 72) with brick front and lime- 

 stone rubble walls and Victorene Compere's Store (Fig. 73) with facing 

 blocks of dark rhyolite tuff and walls of limestone rubble and now 

 remodeled into an attractive private residence, complete our list here, but 

 the visitor will identify many more structures which have come down to 

 the present from nearly a hundred years ago. Less than a mile beyond 

 Murphys on the road to Altaville there may be seen to the right several 

 remnants of buildings made of schist slabs and rubble (Fig. 74). 



