Coloma hopes Gold Rush festivals spur funding

COLOMA -- With "happy birthday" telegrams coming in from prospectors and history buffs in England, Australia and France, a few thousand people returned here on Sunday to conclude celebrations of James Marshall's Jan. 24, 1848, gold discovery that eventually led to California statehood.

Meanwhile, people behind the scenes want to harness the renewed interest in the Gold Rush to seek public and private support for some $13 million in preservation projects for Coloma, in addition to other historic improvements across the Mother Lode.

	"People became aware that the gold country is really the heart and soul of what California is about." -- Matt Sugarman, superintendent of Marshall Gold Discovery State Park

"I think we got a tremendous shot of awareness," said Marshall Gold Discovery State Park Superintendent Matt Sugarman.

"People became aware that the gold country is really the heart and soul of what California is about."

Sugarman and others hope that state officials will support funding for private grants and that gold country communities can tap into donations from corporations, including pioneer California firms such as Wells Fargo and Levi-Strauss.

In tiny Coloma, where the Gold Rush began, park officials recently published a "legacy wish book" of improvements they hope to bring about over coming years.

They dream of sponsor fees to cover the $1.3 million, for example, to re-create the legendary Winter's Hotel and gambling house or the $247,000 to rebuild the cabin of early settlers Peter and Jenny Wimmer or the $150,000 to get river water cascading through the replica of Sutter's Mill.

But given the failure of bond initiatives for state park improvements and the competition for private dollars, Sugarman said many of the Coloma improvements could be 10 years away at best.

In Saturday's opening ceremonies for California's three-year sesquicentennial commemoration, Gov. Pete Wilson gave impetus to preservation efforts by announcing he was adding $300,000 for Coloma in his budget.

Marshall Gold Discovery State Park officials say they hope to use some of the money to spur long-term improvements to the park museum, replacing antiquated, 1960s-era display cases with higher-tech presentations of the Gold Rush.

Chief ranger Rosanne McHenry said she's also hoping to find ways to display thousands of artifacts still stashed away. On Sunday, she led an informal tour, pulling out indexed drawers containing everything from antique gold pans and mining scales to period clothing, photographs and even opium pipes from that era.

Meanwhile, members of the park's volunteer Gold Discovery Park Association celebrated the opening of a new museum annex -- a gold history research library. The addition was paid for with $112,000 raised by the volunteers through an annual Coloma Christmas festival and educational events.

On Sunday, the research room -- which includes a vast collection of Gold Rush history books and eventually is to have a computer hookup to university research centers around the nation -- was filled with authors regaling guests with tales of early California.