GOLD COUNTRY : COLUMBIA: A FLASHBACK TO THE GLITTER TIMES IN RESTORED 1850S TOWN.

Byline: Susanne Hopkins Daily News Travel Editor

Snuggled up against the western edge of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range is a town with a tale to tell.

It's an epic story of a great discovery, of men seduced by the promise of riches, of devastating fires and human ingenuity. It's the tale of the Gold Rush, told in the microcosm of a place now called Columbia State Historic Park.

On a lazy fall day, as a few leaves drop languidly from the trees and the lilting tones of a harmonica playing ``When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again'' drift on the air, I come to hear the story.

It's a tale partly told by the handsome 1850s brick structures that line the tree-shaded streets of this town not far from Sonora off Highway 49. They were erected after the fires of 1854 and 1857 destroyed most of the wooden buildings in Columbia; some even boast the iron shutters used not to deter thieves, but to hinder fire. In its heyday, the town was said to encompass 13 blocks; today's visitors see only about three full blocks of restored and reconstructed buildings and some side streets.

But it's enough.

``This is one of the best preserved (Gold Rush) towns,'' says Betty Canady, a docent at the William Cavalier Museum located in the first building to be rebuilt after the 1854 fire.

Bruce Thomsen, district interpretive specialist for Columbia State Historic Park, goes even farther.

``It's probably the best example of what a Gold Rush town looked like,'' he says.

This is due to two factors - the reconstruction of the town in locally made brick after the two fires and its status since 1945 as a state historic park.

``The buildings were intact when the state got it, but they were in pretty bad shape,'' Thomsen says. Over the years, as money has become available, the state park service has restored many of the buildings (the 1860 school house was restored with the aid of youngsters from throughout the state who donated nearly 90 percent of the $60,000 needed).

``Many of the brick buildings date back to the 1850s,'' Thomsen says. ``You can see what businesses and towns were like (then).''

Columbia's Gold Rush history dates to 1850, when Dr. Thaddeus Hildreth and his party of miners made camp in a gulch after a month of fruitless gold-panning. It rained that night, heavy rain that washed the earth away from the hillsides. Next day, one of the miners went gold panning in the runoff - and found gold. In two days, the men collected 30 nuggets. Within a month, 5,000 prospectors had sent up a tent camp in what was called Hildreth's Diggins'. Its name would soon be changed to American Camp and, as the gold kept surfacing and the town's prosperity seemed permanent, to Columbia.

Columbia soon became California's second-largest city (some estimates place 15,000 residents here at the height of its popularity in the 1850s; most say about 6,000 were here). By the time the easy gold had played out around the 1870s, Columbia's one square mile had yielded $87 million of the precious ore. That earned it the moniker ``Gem of the Southern Mines.''

Placer mining - tapping into mineral deposits - was the preferred form of gold mining here (hydraulic mining, where huge nozzles blasted massive amounts of water at hillsides to wash out the gold, came into practice later). But the town, with no natural streams, suffered from a severe lack of water. The people of Columbia were ingenious, however. A network of flumes and ditches was devised to transport water from the Stanislaus River about 20 miles away to the mining operations. Some are still in use today, as are eight original cisterns to catch rain water.

By 1852, there was a real town here with more than 150 permanent wooden structures: 40 saloons, gambling, fandango and hurdy-gurdy halls, three theaters, 17 general stores, eight hotels and an assortment of other businesses. There were even a church and a school, both of which were usually built last in a mining town (not too much call for them, when most of the inhabitants were men who spent even Sundays in search of gold.)

Today, about 1,000 people live in the area around the historic district. Only one person still resides within the confines of the state park: Geraldine McConnell, now in her 90s, who lives in a tidy, white Victorian structure with a profusion of flowers on Main Street. She and her late husband, Thomsen says, were strong advocates of making Columbia a state historic park - the legislation making the town the new state park was signed just outside her home - and even today, she talks to visitors over the fence if she happens to be in her garden.

Walking down these now-peaceful streets is a little like time travel - an atmosphere heightened by the fact that some of the streets are blocked to automobile traffic and are open only to carriages and the stagecoach. The latter is an 1874 Abbott & Downing Concord Coach that rumbles through the town's back country and visits Matelot Gulch, where folks can still pan for gold and view a typical miner's cabin.

At the southern end of Main Street, the Wells Fargo office appears open for business; a chair is pushed away from the desk, as if the agent had just stepped away. The original scales, which weighed $55 million worth of gold, are here, too. Next door at the stage depot, boxes await loading; at the St. Charles Saloon with its long, handsome walnut bar, folks sip sarsaparillas.

The Columbia Gazette office is still a working newspaper, although it appears more like a museum with its displays on newspapering in California in the early days. And over at the Fallon Hotel and Theater, which was built after the 1857 fire and recently restored, you can stay the night in a historic room and see a show in a playhouse where raucous miners once flocked to see traveling performers.

``There's a blacksmith in town pounding on an anvil and making blacksmithing things,'' Thomsen says. And there's a barbershop (complete with miners' baths at the rear of the building) that dates to 1865; the second barber to run the shop was there for 66 years.

The carpentry shop boasts a display of common tools of the day, when carpenters made everything from barns to furniture. And the livery stable houses a collection of wagons, including a hearse.

At the Cavalier museum, the story of Columbia is spelled out not only in relics from the past, but in words - and pictures, for a short film telling its tale is shown in the rear of the structure.

``I like this, Mama,'' says a little girl, as the 13-minute slide show plays out.

So do I.

Back on Main Street, the harmonica player is still tooting tunes in front of the Columbia House restaurant. Folks - many with their dogs - are wandering up and down the street, some seeking treasures in the little shops that now inhabit these historical buildings.

At the Nelson Candy Kitchen, ``which was there before the state was,'' Thomsen says, noting that it was run by the current owner's grandfather, a youngster is trying to choose from among dozens of glass jars filled with a tempting array of old-fashioned candy. I have a worse time than he has in deciding; I finally leave empty-handed.

Down the road apiece, a couple is peering in the windows at the Franco cabin, a rustic wooden structure that sits next to one of the ditches where water used to roll into town. It's a funny little place - so plain inside and out, yet a marble walkway leads to the front door.

Around the corner from the old Magendie Building, which has been everything from a grocery store to a fandango hall, I find the most unwelcoming 1860s jail, with its tiny barred window and heavy metal door.

Whomever was housed here was pretty uncomfortable, I wager.

There are two firehouses here with old engines and a host of other things to see, as well, including displays dedicated to dentistry and drug store elixirs and even the Native Sons of the Golden West.

I can understand why nearly 400,000 people visit Columbia each year, the bulk of them in the summer.

But like most state parks, Columbia is suffering from a lack of funds, Thomsen tells me. The inability of the park system to fix the old structures is worrisome.

``The brick in the museum, for example, wasn't fired very well and they're crumbling,'' he notes. ``We don't have the money to fix it.''

He sighs. ``We're afraid we're going to lose it, actually.''

I can't help but think how ironic it is that a town that yielded $87 million in gold before its lode played out could crumble away for lack of money.

What a sad end to an illustrious story that would be.

On Location

You could easily spend a couple of days taking in the sights in Columbia State Historic Park. The town is on Parrotts Ferry Road off Highway 49 between Sonora and Angels Camp. The park is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. There is no charge either for parking or for entry to the town; the William Cavalier Museum, however, does ask for a donation.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

Photo: (1--Color) The Columbia Stage Line stagecoach loads tourists in front of the old Wells Fargo & Co. office in Columbia State Historic Park.

Craig Mailloux/Daily News

(2) A youngster waits for his bag of candy at the Nelson Candy Kitchen, which began operating in Columbia before the town became a state historic park.

Susanne Hopkins/Daily News

Box: On Location (See Text)