Although I have a bit of family history centering on the Yuba City area, I’ve never really explored that region; and I tend to forget that there was a lot of Gold Rush history along the Yuba River back in the 1850s. In fact, a long stretch along the river west of Timbuctoo looks very familiar to me because it so closely resembles the dredger tailings that surround the American River in Sacramento County. This episode of California’s Gold originally aired January 14, 2009, and while Timbuctoo still remains something less than a ghost town, Smartsville is a small but thriving community. Both Timbuctoo and Smartsville are listed as California Historical Landmarks, numbers 320 and 321, respectively.

You’ve probably used this word at some point in your life and never knew that it was actually a town in California. Timbuctoo was once a bustling gold rush town named after that far away place in Africa. There’s not much left, but Huell pays a visit to Timbuctoo, which is now privately owned. Next it’s off to Smartsville, that due to a post office mandate had to lose the “S” and became Smartville. The good citizens never gave up calling it Smartsville and took their case all the way to the federal government, who finally agreed to give them back their “S”.

(Click on the linked image below to see the video.)