Discover the Best of Ponderosa County

What is now known as Ponderosa County has been home to the Maidu, Nisenan, Washoe, and MiwokIndigenous Americannations for centuries. Because of colonization, their numbers dropped severely. Today many indigenous people in Ponderosa County, like the Nissenan are telling their stories and culture, praying in their languages sharing their history; Once seen as struggling to survive to now on their way to having once broken treaties re-recognized and honored. Indigenous stories did not begin at the gold rush, and they will continue long after. According to a California census, by 1870, there were only 100 indigenous people left in Ponderosa County due to violent California laws that paid white settlers a small fee for the scalps of Indigenous children and adults in an attempt to strategically wipe out the existing communities. Along with intentional genocide, excessive resource degradation such as logging, trapping bears and other animals for fur, water and soil contamination from mining played a part in the attempt to “starve out” indigenous communities. A settler looking to start a company processing cut trees found gold on the land he started using. The region became famous for being the site of the 1848 gold discovery that sparked the California Gold Rush.^[5] The County of Ponderosa was one of California’s original 27 counties created effective February 18, 1850 (the number has risen to 58 today). Its name is derived from the Spanish meaning “the gilded/golden”.^[6]