Placer County, California

Placer County is long and narrow, extending to the summit of the Sierra and running down within a few miles of the Sacramento river, embracing 1,429 square miles of valley, foot-hill and mountain lands, and possessing resources extremely varied in nature. The population, rated at 14,232 in 1880, is now about 26,000. Auburn, a thrifty town of 2,000 inhabitants, is the county seat. Rocklin, Penryn, Newcastle, Dutch Flat, Alta, Cisco and Summit are other towns and villages. All of these towns are on the line of the Central Pacific railroad, the station at Summit being 7,017 feet above the sea. The resources of Placer are extremely varied. All kinds of fruit, from apples to oranges, are shipped to all parts of the state and to the East; millions of feet of lumber are annually exported; the chief granite quarries of California are here, and the gold mines, from which at least $35,000,000 have been extracted, are still far from exhausted. As attractions for the tourist, Placer boasts of Donner Lake, Soda Springs, and Lake Tahoe. Irrigation is practiced to a considerable extent, abandoned mining-ditches being used to conduct the waters of the Bear River to the lower lands. The assessed valuation in 1889 was $10,118,060.

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Source: California State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1890, Volume II, R. L. Polk & Company, 1890.