Calaveras Heritage Council

Calaveras was served by three railroads: the Stockton and Copperopolis Railroad, the Sierra and San Joaquin, and the Sierra Railway.

“A more beautiful, as well as favorable location for a village could not have been selected…From the outset it was the intention…to make Valley Springs a desirable point of resort

Since the Gold Rush, Valley Springs has been Calaveras County’s Gateway to the Mother Lode.

“Burson (Calaveras County)…The name commemorates David S. Burson, a railroad man.” (California Geographic Place Names, 1998)

Burson was founded by Daniel Smith Burson in September 1884, the same month that marked the arrival of the San Joaquin & Sierra Nevada Railroad.

For nearly 40 years, brothers John and Alfred Russel Wallace were separated by an ocean and a continent.

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