Columbia State Historic Park is a California state park unit and National Historic Landmark District. With beginnings in the early California gold rush, Columbia was once known as the “Gem of the Southern Mines.” It was declared a state historic park in 1945.
A variety of operating retail businesses stretch along its main street boardwalks including hotels, restaurants, ice cream parlors, saloons, a candy store, leather shop, bookstore, photography studio, a tea house and bakery, children’s crafts, grocery store, clothing shops, live theater, soap and candle shop, a bank, and more. All proprietors and employees are dressed in period wear so visitors can truly experience a mining community of the 1850s.
In addition, there are two firehouses, stagecoach rides, a working blacksmith shop, gold panning, a restored schoolhouse, cemetery, and numerous exhibits displaying artifacts from the area’s rich past when over a billion dollars in gold by today’s dollars were mined here.
Don’t forget your camera when visiting Columbia and relive one of the most colorful periods in our state’s history!