Oldtown Yreka, CA: Lay claim and check out this Historic Mining Town.
Along the northern California interstate 5 corridor, you’ll find this town where yesterday meets today, amid the callback to the mining days of old…
Miner Street, Historic District, Yreka, CA
It’s funny how you remember places and things as a child. Your experience is usually completely dependent upon whoever you’re with and wherever they decide to go. I can think back on the experiences and the many times I stopped in Yreka on the way south to Mt. Shasta. If you’re familiar with the area, most of my own family excursions to and from Yreka, involved JC Penny, the dollar store, Carl’s Jr., and Walmart.
They were usually trips to restock on supplies or to stock up before heading further south. Occasionally stopping in Yreka gave you a final chance to get some last minute Christmas presents or whatever you could find for a white elephant gift exchange. On a side note, curiosity gave me a chuckle in realizing that the term white elephant refers to “a possession that is useless or troublesome, especially one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of”-I’m at least glad that most of the gifts at our white elephant parties were fun, unique, simple, and sometimes hilarious.
Back to Yreka…
So flash forward through the many years of going to and from Yreka, CA. The trips to the strip mall that housed the previously mentioned stores, and finally to my surprise, as an adult, in realizing that there is in fact an entire Historic Downtown District. Makes a lot more sense being that Yreka, CA, is not only the county seat of Siskiyou County, but the Yreka European settlement history dates back to 1851.
Not to be confused with Eureka, California, but just like Eureka, Yreka began its boom when gold was discovered near Rocky Gulch by Abraham Thompson. In a number of months, thousands of miners traveled to the area to try and strike it rich. The town was so well known that even Mark Twain mentioned it in a passage, and eluded that the name came from an unfinished see-through canvas sign for a bakery, covered, stretched, and reversed in a way that only the y-r-e-k-a could be seen. Just as a miner found gold in Eureka, CA and blurted out EUREKA!, I’m sure Twain used this analogy and imagined a miner doing the same thing, only this time when seeing the sign for the B(AKERY).
Of course in reality, there were many name changes before the town was officially called Yreka. The name itself, originally “Waik’a”, comes from the Shasta Indigenous language, meaning “North Mountain” or “White Mountain” as it relates to Mt. Shasta, just south of the town.
I’m sure at some point as a child, I was in a car that drove through Historic Downtown Yreka. But it took later visits, heading to one of the local building supply stores, and driving around with my grandparents, for the existence of Miner Street and Historic Downtown to be mentioned (or reminded) to me. From there, it took my own curiosity and sense of adventure to make the stop during one trip between Medford, OR and McCloud, CA that allowed me to enjoy the Historic District on a day when the shops and restaurants were all closed and no one was around. For me, it’s been a reminder of making sure that you enjoy whatever journey it is that you’re on. Stop and smell the roses as they say. There’s a lot more than we realize between where we start and when we get to a destination, allow yourself to at least be willing to stop and see what you can find along the way, and you might come out of it with your own story to tell.
