Bear Valley - California Ghost Town

BEAR VALLEY

NAME: Bear Valley
COUNTY: Mariposa
ROADS: 2WD
GRID #(see map): 3
CLIMATE: Mild winter and summer
BEST TIME TO VISIT: Anytime

COMMENTS: On highway 4, Semi-ghost.
REMAINS: Some adobe remants.

When only 41 years old John Charles Fremont, army general and explorer, started hard rock mining in1851 along the Merced river and was hugely successful. Fremont had received a 44,000-acre grant from the federal government in 1847. When gold was discovered, he changed the boundaries of the grant to include land where gold had been discovered. Not exactly the right thing to do, but he did it. As a result, a local war was about ready to brake out between Fremont's forces and those of the Merced Mining Company which had captured earlier several of Fremont's properties. The Supreme Court finally settled the dispute in 1859 by validating Fremont's right to the property. He built a hotel and among its visitors was Ulysses S. Grant. Fremont tired of all the problems he was having and sold the 44,000 acres in 1863 for $6 million. Having paid only $3,000 for the grant, one would have to say he made a rather tidy profit. Bear Valley is truly a ghost town now. The hotel burned down set ablaze by careless tourists but there is still much to remind the visitor of life in the gold rush days. Bear Valley Courtesy Dolores Steele Bear Valley Courtesy Dolores Steele	Bear Valley Courtesy Dolores Steele Bear Valley Courtesy Dolores Steele Bear Valley Courtesy Dolores Steele Simpson & Trabucco -- and -- I.O.O.F. Hall Courtesy Dolores Steele

When only 41 years old John Charles Fremont, army general and explorer, started hard rock mining in1851 along the Merced river and was hugely successful. Fremont had received a 44,000-acre grant from the federal government in 1847. When gold was discovered, he changed the boundaries of the grant to include land where gold had been discovered. Not exactly the right thing to do, but he did it. As a result, a local war was about ready to brake out between Fremont's forces and those of the Merced Mining Company which had captured earlier several of Fremont's properties. The Supreme Court finally settled the dispute in 1859 by validating Fremont's right to the property. He built a hotel and among its visitors was Ulysses S. Grant. Fremont tired of all the problems he was having and sold the 44,000 acres in 1863 for $6 million. Having paid only $3,000 for the grant, one would have to say he made a rather tidy profit. Bear Valley is truly a ghost town now. The hotel burned down set ablaze by careless tourists but there is still much to remind the visitor of life in the gold rush days.

Bear Valley
Courtesy Dolores Steele

Simpson & Trabucco -- and -- I.O.O.F. Hall
Courtesy Dolores Steele

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