Dog Town

This was the first substantial rush to the eastern slope of the Sierra, in 1857, two years before anyone struck gold at Bodie. The name was not affectionate. Dog town was miners' slang for a camp thrown together from huts and hovels, and that is precisely what stood here. The ruins along the cliff above Dog Town Creek are the remains of those dwellings, and they are very nearly all that the rush left behind on this stretch of the valley.

What the plaque says

Site of the first major gold rush to California's eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, Dog Town derived its name from a popular miners' term for camps with huts or hovels. Ruins lying close to the cliff bordering Dog Town Creek are all that remain of the makeshift dwellings which here formed part of the "diggins."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bodie State Historic Park — 10 mi
  A gold town of ten thousand left exactly as it emptied, held in arrested decay at 8,375 feet.
• Mono Lake — 17 mi
  A saline lake older than most of the Sierra, with tufa towers and a water fight it eventually won.

More markers nearby

• Bodie — 10 mi
• Trail of the John C. Frémont 1844 Expedition — 15 mi