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Mountain Ranch (El Dorado)

May contain: housing, building, house, human, person, nature, shelter, outdoors, rural, countryside, and cabin
The 1850s stone house at the original Mountain Ranch (Courtesy Wally Motloch),

The stone house at Mountain Ranch was constructed in the early 1850s and operated as asupply store.  A one-story stone building, it served the growing community of miners and farmers for several decades. In 1924, Howard and Margaret Joses acquired the ranch, cleared the land, and raised cattle, sheep, horses, and angora goats.  The property is still owned by the Joses family.

 

The nearby community of El Dorado had its name changed to Mountain Ranch at the behest of the US Postal Service as other towns of this name already existed in California.  Although by 1871, it was noted as a "decaying mining town," by the late 1890s several stamp mills were noted as in operation.  Today Mountain Ranch serves as an important commercial and social center for Calaveras County's central up-country.

May contain: human, person, pub, bar counter, worker, and bartender
In the early 1900s these men "bellied up to the bar" in the Raggio-Dughi Store in El Dorado (Courtesy Calaveras County Historical Society).