Amador City

One of California's smallest incorporated communities, beautiful little Amador City has a official population of 212 souls. The block-long town is located on Highway 49 a few miles north of Sutter Creek in Amador County. Amador City features shops, restaurants and several renovated historic hotels and bed and breakfast inns. The little Amador Whitney Museum features early-day artifacts and focuses on the role of women in the Mother Lode. Admission is free to the museum, which is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m.

Amador City is named for José Maria Amador, who was a rancher in what is now the San Ramon Valley.

The Keystone Mine, located close by, produced $24 million in gold. Today the Mine House Inn, orginally the headquarters for the Keystone Mine, does duty as a bed and breakfast inn. During the Gold Rush, Amador City was larger than Sutter Creek, but today the opposite is true.

For more information on Amador City, visit this website.

You can easily explore Amador City on foot. Upon close inspection, special surprises await you, such as this gift shop (above). Details include this door handle. In the 1850s, most of the towns in the Gold Country burned to the ground more than once. As a result, the buildings that rose on the ashes of the old were built of stout brick, stone or adobe and embellished with iron doors such as this one.

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Little Amador City features many specialty shops along its tiny, walkable street.

Interesting surprises await visitors to back streets in Amador City.

The dining room at the Mine House Inn overlooks downtown Amador City.