San Andreas

Black Bart robbed twenty-eight stages and was convicted of one. He dropped a handkerchief at Funk Hill in November 1883, and Wells Fargo detectives worked through about ninety San Francisco laundries before the mark on it gave them a name. Brought here, he confessed, showed them where the gold was buried, and pleaded guilty in the courthouse to the single robbery. He insisted on being sentenced as Charles Bolton and denied in court that he was Black Bart at all.

What the plaque says

SAN ANDREAS. HEART OF THE SOUTHERN MINES. SETTLED BY MEXICANS IN 1848. NAMED AFTER CATHOLIC PARISH OF ST. ANDREW. FIRST NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED HERE SEPT. 24, 1856. DESTROYED BY FIRE JUNE 4, 1858 AND IN 1863. COUNTY SEAT OF CALAVERAS COUNTY SINCE 1866. RENDEZVOUS OF JOAQUIN MURIETTA. BLACK BART, NOTORIOUS STAGE ROBBER TRIED AND SENT TO PRISON FROM HERE. NOTED MINING CAMP SINCE EARLY DAYS. GOLD FROM THE SURROUNDING ANCIENT RIVER CHANNELS AND PLACER MINES CONTRIBUTED GREATLY TO THE SUCCESS OF THE UNION DURING THE CIVIL WAR. ERECTED BY CALAVERAS COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, OCTOBER 26, 1930.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Columbia State Historic Park — 18 mi
  The Gem of the Southern Mines, still open for business on a car-free Gold Rush main street.

More markers nearby

• Pioneer Cemetery — 1.6 mi
• Chili Gulch — 1.7 mi
• Double Springs — 3.4 mi
• Calaveritas — 4.6 mi