Coulterville Main Street Historic District

The Coulterville Main Street Historic District is a historical district located in Coulterville, in Mariposa County, California, United States. This area is defined as the historic downtown area of Coulterville along Main Street (State Highway 49) from the western junction of Highway 49 to the location of the old Chinatown on the eastern end. The district has 25 buildings which are representative of the California Gold Rush era and the early twentieth century. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 12, 1982.^[1] Additionally, Coulterville has been designated as California Historical Landmark No. 332.^[2]

There were three significant fires that destroyed the majority of the buildings in the town of Coulterville and each time they had to rebuild with materials readily available to them in the area such as schist, adobe, and brick. Due to this repetitive loss and rebuilding of the town the Mother Lode vernacular architecture of the district is a layering of masonry ground floors and wood-frame upper floors with iron-shuttered windows and wooden verandas.^[3]

Some of the contributing buildings include the Jeffery Hotel (c. 1851), where President Theodore Roosevelt stayed in 1903; the Sun Sun Wo Company Store (1851), which is one of the best-preserved adobe commercial buildings in the Gold Country; and the Coulter Hotel (1860), which is currently home to the Northern Mariposa County History Center.^[4]

Due to the decline of gold mining prior to the modernization of Coulterville, Main Street was neither completely rebuilt nor abandoned. According to the NRHP nomination form, it "remains much as it was in the nineteenth century in scale and character."^[3]

Structures include the adobe and stone buildings constructed in the 1850s, and the wood-framed buildings that date back to after the 1899 fire. There are twelve contributing buildings with masonry shells that date back to the 1850s or 1860s, which were later supported with wood-frame construction around 1900. Some common characteristics of these buildings include walls made of locally quarried schist and sandstone, iron shutters on the doors and windows, corrugated metal roofs, and wooden verandas that project out onto the sidewalk.^[3]

George W. Coulter established the supply point for miners extracting gold from the Maxwell Creek placers when he founded the town in 1850. Initially the settlement was a tent city called Banderita (Spanish for "little flag") due to the fact that Coulter raised an American flag above his tent. In 1852, a post office was established as Maxwell Creek, but the name would be changed to Coulterville in 1853.^[5]

The town suffered from three major fires that affected the built environment of the district:^[6]

• uly 19, 1859: A fire that originated in a store consumed nearly the entire town, resulting in the death of three people.
• July 9, 1879: A fire that began in a bakery destroyed approximately half of the businesses in the downtown area, with losses totaling $27,000.
• July 1899: A fire began in the Bogliogi house where coal oil was used for lighting the stove and quickly spread in the dry conditions. The fire destroyed 67 buildings in just two and one-half hours and resulted in estimated damages of $150,000. Fortunately, no lives were lost in the fire.^[a]

Following each fire, the residents of Coulterville rebuilt their homes and businesses using local materials — schist, adobe, and brick. The repeated fires and subsequent rebuilding created the layered masonry-and-frame architecture that defines the district and the type of Mother Lode vernacular architecture described in the NRHP nomination as representative of the architecture of the region.^[3]

By the late 1800s the district had become the primary supply point for hard-rock gold mines in the area including the Mary Harrison, Malvina, Louise, and Potosi mines. Also, the district became a tourist destination for visitors traveling to Yosemite Valley via the Coulterville Road, which was completed in 1874. After the Yosemite Valley Railroad opened in 1907 and the modern highway along the Merced River was completed in 1940, the district experienced a decrease in through traffic.^[8]

The district contains 24 contributing properties and one non-contributing property (the post office built in 1979). Contributing properties include:^[4]

• Jeffery Hotel (c. 1849–1851; rebuilt after 1899 fire): The hotel was originally a cantina and fandango hall with 30 inches (76 cm) thick walls of rock and adobe. The hotel was extended to three stories. President Theodore Roosevelt stayed here in May 1903 while visiting Yosemite to meet John Muir. The Magnolia Saloon next door still retains its original interior.
• Sun Sun Wo Company Store (1851): The company store was a place of commerce for Coulterville's Chinese community until 1926. The adobe bricks contained remnants of Chinese porcelain. The store is among the best-preserved adobe commercial buildings in the Gold Country and one of the last remaining buildings of the town's Chinatown.

• Coulter Hotel (1860): The hotel was built by the town's founder, George W. Coulter. The walls of the hotel are made of schist slabs with a dressed sandstone exterior. Currently, the hotel houses the Northern Mariposa County History Center.
• I.O.O.F. Hall (c. 1900): The two-story wood-frame building was constructed after the 1899 fire for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The hall has a two-story veranda of turned columns and balusters in an intersecting diagonal pattern.
• Gazzola Building (1850; rebuilt 1899): The two-story building is a masonry first floor and a wood-frame second floor, which was used as a saloon for most of its life.
• Barrett Garage (1915): The garage has corrugated metal siding and a pressed-tin facade, which was built during the transition period from stagecoaches to automobile tourism on Highway 49. The garage was used as a Civilian Conservation Corps dormitory in the 1930s.
• E.E. Warne Store (1899): The two-story poured concrete building has a wood-frame second floor and a two-story veranda.
• Candy's House (c. 1905): The two-story wood-frame building with board-and-batten siding is the only remaining structure from the red-light district of Coulterville.

Other contributing properties in the district include the Bruschi Warehouse (1860), McCarthy Building (1860), Canova House (c. 1860), and several other residential and commercial buildings along Main Street.

Outside of the district boundaries, in the town center, is located Whistling Billy, an eight-ton Porter locomotive used by the Merced Gold Mining Company to transport ore from the Mary Harrison Mine to the Potosi Mill on a narrow-gauge railroad with extreme grades and sharp curves, starting in 1897.^[9]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Mariposa County, California
• California Historical Landmarks in Mariposa County, California
• Coulterville, California
• Mother Lode

• "Coulterville in Ashes". Merced Express. July 14, 1899.
• "Coulterville Main Street Historic District". National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form. National Park Service. 1982. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
• "Coulterville Main Street Historic District". Listed Resources. California Office of Historic Preservation. 2024. Retrieved December 30, 2024.