Jackson, CA

Jackson is the biggest town on this stretch of Highway 49 and the least museum-like. People live and work here: the main street has a hardware store and a bank as well as antique shops, and the surrounding hills carried the Kennedy and Argonaut mines, which went more than a mile straight down and were among the deepest hard-rock gold mines in North America.

It is about fifty minutes from Chalet Bruin and Koda Loft, and it is the practical hub for the Amador side of a Gold Country day — the wine country, Sutter Creek, Volcano and the grinding rock all radiate out from here.

Kennedy Mine, on the edge of town, still has its headframe and stone buildings and runs surface tours on weekends in the warmer months. Just up the road, Kennedy Tailing Wheels Park preserves two of the four enormous wooden wheels — 58 feet across — built in 1912 to lift mine waste over the hills and away from the creeks.

Both are outdoors, dusty and hot in summer, and both are worth an hour. Tour days and seasons change, so check the mine's current schedule before planning a Saturday around it.

The old part of Jackson runs downhill in a curve of brick buildings with iron balconies, and it has the mix a real town keeps: two or three good restaurants, a couple of bars, a bakery, and shops that are not all antiques. It is the easiest place on Highway 49 to find dinner on a weeknight.

On the hill above sits St. Sava, built in 1894 and the oldest Serbian Orthodox church in the country — a reminder that the mines drew people here from Serbia, Cornwall, Italy and China as much as from the eastern United States.