SURVEY OF BUILDING STRUCTURES OF THE SIERRAN GOLD BELT, 1848-70 HEIZER AND FENENGA 



139 



PLYMOUTH 



Of Plymouth 's Gold Rush days when the town was called Pokerville, 

 little meets the visitor 's eye : farming has replaced placering as a means 

 of extracting wealth from the earth. About one-half mile out of town on 

 the main road leading west is an old and curiously constructed building 

 with a brick front and rear walls which merge step-like into the side walls 

 constructed of undressed fieldstone of meta-andesite agglomerate (Fig. 

 113). 



FIDDLETOWN 



Off the main road a few miles east of Plymouth, is Fiddletown which 

 preserves a considerable measure of its early 1850 's flavor. Entering 

 town one sees a dilapidated rammed earth "adobe" (Fig. 114) made by 

 Chinese, a two story brick-covered stone walled store (Fig. 115) and a 

 representative of the common early 1850 style building with a brick front 

 and schist-mud lime mortar walls (Fig. 116). The brick was fired locally, 

 as was the case in nearly every town where the lateritic clays furnished 

 readily available brick earth. Near the east end of town is the Schallhorne 

 Blacksmith and Wagon Shop (Fig. 117), a massive and excellently con- 

 structed building erected in 1870 of rectangular hewn blocks (measuring 

 12 by 18 by 10 inches) of Valley Springs rhyolite tuff which is easily 

 worked when first quarried but hardens after exposure. The source of 

 this tuff, a quarry about 1.5 miles east of Fiddletown, may be seen across 

 a field to the south of the road. 



BUTTE CITY 



Two and a half miles south of Jackson the old Benoist Store (later 

 owned by Ginnochio), built in 1854, stands beside the road (Fig. 118). 

 It is the only substantial remnant of a once thriving community known 

 as Butte City. The door and window frames are of brick, the walls of 

 Calaveras schist fieldstone and the upper openings still bear the iron-plate 

 doors so familiar to anyone who has any acquaintance with the Gold 

 Rush country. 



FIG. 112. Brick store, Drytown, DMBS Ama-H9. 



FIG. 113. Stone and brick building on west edge of Plymouth, DMBS Ama-IIlO. 



