Volcano St. George Hotel ~ 1880

This lithograph of the venerable St. George Hotel in Volcano was drawn in nature and on stone by the noted lithographers, Britton and Rey of San Francisco, for Thompson and West's 1881 History of Amador County. The hotel is the fifth on the spot since the village's early days. Its immediate predecessor burned down in yet another Volcano blaze in October, 1862. Proprietor BF George had just rebuilt his hotel after an 1859 fire. George, with some insurance money, built again and workmen created what the lithograph shows and the ads in February, 1864, called "the new St. George, 3-story brick." It's probable that the hotel was mostly completed sometime in late 1863 but fully open and ready for all business by that 1864 date. Thus, in Amador, it appears that the National Hotel in Jackson is just a few months older than the St. George. The Louisiana House burned down in August 1862 and was ready the following spring for occupancy.

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One of the most remarkable representations of historic Volcano was this "aerial" view sketched in December 1854, by Charles L. "Parisian" Parish, a Jackson artist, builder and architect. That he did this view was deduced from a similar-styled sketch he did of Jackson in May of 1854, recording the hanging of Swede on Jackson's hanging tree. For years, we wondered where the originals of these and perhaps other Parish sketches might be. Lo, not that long ago, we discovered that a sketch book of his is preserved in a bay area repository, probably Bancroft Library.

The sketch represents Volcano at or near the height of its development. Though a remote village or town, it came close in July, 1854, becoming county seat. Perhaps it came closer in 1856 when a bill to give the town the county seat was stopped in the legislature by Amador senator, Delbert Crandall. Despite that setback, it had its newspaper, the Volcano Ledger, and overland immigration down the Carson emigrant trail had swelled its population and limits. It was a burgeoning town. Many of Amador's pioneer citizens got their start in Volcano, including US Senator James Farley, and Amador historian, Jesse Dimon Mason. Incidentally, a house that Parish built for a raffle c1861 still stands in Jackson. Locals know it as the Voss home.

This sketch by Bayard Taylor in late 1849 is the first known illustration of the gold mining camp named “the Volcano.” The rock formation prominently shown later became the Masonic rock because the Masons had a lodge at its top and a tunnel from a cave in its bottom. Note the tents scattered in the valley behind the rock. Volcano was a thriving mountain town in the 1850s and 1860s as a terminus for the Volcano branch of the Carson Emigrant Trail. It almost became county seat in 1854 and again in 1857. When the newspaper left in 1857, the town began its gradual decline