y Via Colfax and Grass Valley. Ben Taylor and His
Home

After surmounting the canon of the South Fork of the American River,
you gradually enter a open country, the outskirts of the great deciduous
fruit belt in Placer County, which supplies New York and Chicago with
choice plums, peaches and pears. About three miles from Auburn, the road
plunges into one of the deepest canons of the Sierras, at the bottom of
which the Middle and North Forks of the American River unite. Just below
the junction, the river is spanned by a long suspension bridge. Auburn
is remarkably situated in that one sees nothing of it until the rim of
the canon is reached, at least a thousand feet above the river. Thus
there are no outskirts and you plunge at once into the business streets,
passing the station of the Central Pacific Railway, which line skirts
the edge of the canon on a heavy grade.

I had accomplished a good thirty miles but that did not prevent me from
accompanying my friend on a long and protracted hunt for comfortable
quarters in which to eat and spend the night. There was quite an
attractive hotel near the railroad, but actuated by a desire to see
something of the town, which we found to be more than usually drawn out,
we passed it with lingering regret. Whether by chance or instinct, we
drifted to the ruins of the old hotel, now in process of reconstruction,
and were comfortably housed in a wooden annex.

Auburn marks the western verge of the mineral zone, but in the fifties
there were, rich placer diggings in the immediate vicinity. There are
some remarkably solid buildings of that period, in the old portion of
the town, which, as customary, is situated in the bottom of the winding
valley or ravine. Practically a new town, called "East Auburn," has been
started on higher ground, and a fight is on to move the post office; but
the people in the hollow having the voting strength, hang on to it like
grim death. Along the edge of the American River canon and commanding a
magnificent view, are the homes of the local aristocracy. In christening
Auburn, it is scarcely credible that the pioneers had in mind
Goldsmith's "loveliest village of the Plain;" nor, keeping the old town
in view, is the title remarkably applicable today.

Our next objective point being Colfax, distant in a north-easterly
direction only fifteen miles, we made a leisurely inspection of the town
and vicinity in the morning. The old town proved of absorbing inter