When the narrow gauge San Joaquin & Sierra Nevada Rail Road arrived just across the western Calaveras County border in October 1882 on its way east from Lodi, the railroad honored John Wallace, its chief engineer/surveyor, by naming the town it created after him. The townsite was officially recorded on January 16, 1883, having been surveyed by John’s oldest son, John Herbert.
Wallace
Did you know?
Albert Michelson, who measured the speed of light and became the first American to win the Nobel Prize (1907), attended school in Murphys.
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