Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony

Twenty-two people came here from Aizu-Wakamatsu in June 1869, refugees from the war that ended the shogunate, and they brought mulberry, tea seed, bamboo and fruit stock with them. It was the first Japanese settlement in North America. Their patron's money stopped, the ground and the water would not carry mulberry or tea, and the colony was finished within two years. Okei Ito, who came as a seventeen-year-old nursemaid, died here at nineteen and is buried on the hill. The plaque calls all of that a failure to prosper.

What the plaque says

Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony Site of the only tea and silk farm established in California. First agricultural settlement of pioneer Japanese immigrants who arrived at Gold Hill on June 8, 1869. Despite the initial success, it failed to prosper. It marked the beginning of Japanese influence on the agricultural economy of California. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 815 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Japanese American Citizens League, El Dorado County Historical Society, and Friends of the Centennial Observance, June 7, 1969.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park — 2.4 mi
  The tailrace at Coloma where a carpenter found gold in January 1848 and the world came running.

More markers nearby

• Marshall Monument — 1.7 mi
• Coloma Road-Coloma — 2.1 mi
• Gold Discovery Site — 2.1 mi
• Marshall's Blacksmith Shop — 4.2 mi