Carbondale

The men who found coal here in 1878 formed the Santa Clara Coal Mining Company and sold to the Southern Pacific, which turned out to own the ground. The railroad took the mine over, and a camp first called Harrisburg, for superintendent Tom Harris, became Carbondale, with a post office from 1881. When Silverado's office closed in 1883, the silver camp up the canyon took its mail here. The coal was gone by 1884. No state plaque stands here; the county's bronze is its Historical Site No. 1.

What the plaque says

Site of Carbondale In 1881, after the Southern Pacific took over the Santa Clara Coal Mine northeast of here, a bustling mining camp complete with hotel, saloons, shacks, store, and post office sprang up on these flats. Three years later the mine played out and Carbondale disappeared without a trace. Historical Site No. 01 Orange County Board of Supervisors Orange County Historical Commission Placed 1976

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Planes of Fame Air Museum — 16 mi
  On the field where the country smelted its surplus warplanes — and about thirty of the aircraft here still fly.
• California Citrus State Historic Park — 17 mi
  A state park that is still a working orange grove — the last big piece of Riverside's citrus landscape left standing.
• Sherman Institute & the Sherman Indian Museum — 18 mi
  The federal Indian boarding school Riverside lobbied to get — still a school today, its 1902 building now a museum.
• Riverside Chinatown Site — 22 mi
  Riverside's second Chinatown — an empty lot on purpose, with eighty percent of it still underground.

More markers nearby

• Modjeska's Home — 3.0 mi
• Flores Peak — 3.1 mi
• Black Star Canyon Indian Village Site — 4.0 mi
• Silverado — 4.2 mi