Local History

The El Dorado Hills Area and adjacent Folsom have a rich and colorful history. The area was the home for thousands of years to the Maidu Indians, a relatively peaceful group of hunter gatherers who prospered in this area rich in game, fish and Oak Trees(thier source of acorns to grind into flour). They are conidered to have been among the best basketweavers in North America. However, thier use of implements was primitive and they had no farming skills. With such a large, rich and sparsely populated land such skills had not been necessary.
The first people from the modern world arrived in 1826 led by Jedediah Smith, a well known trapper and mountain man. At this time the eastern half of what is now the United States was settled and large cities were already on the East Coast. The Mexican Governor in the small village of San Diego in the far south of California requested they leave but did not have the infrastructure to enforce such a demand. The now Mexican(previously Spanish) San Francisco area was still a small village(Yerba Buena). Smith and his men found a rich land for trapping and spread the word bringing many more American trappers and others to follow. The American settlement of California had begun.
In 1841 a successful shipper and businessman from New Orleans, named William Leidesdorff arrived in Yerba Buena to start a new life and new businesses. He became a naturalized Mexican citizen and received a land grant of more than 35000 acres encompasssing much of what is Folsom today. He had a spectacular but short career in Yerba Buena as it grew quickly with American settlers. He never developed his Land Grant and died, at age 38, of pnuemonia or typhus as the first reports of rich gold strikes in the Folsom area were received in May of 1848.
U. S. Army Captain Joseph Folsom arrived in 1847 during the Mexican War and remained in the renamed San Francisco after the Mexican war ended with The Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. He bought the rights to the land grant from the Liedesdorff Estate and spent much time and money defending his title to that land for the next ten years. The Gold Rush brought many people to the Folsom and Placerville areas. During this period, in the year 1855, he hired an Engineer named Theodore Judah to survey and layout the new town he called Granite City, near the mining camp of Negro Bar, on the site of present day Folsom. Folsom was also president of a new railroad which was to link Sacramento and Folsom. Unfortunately he died later in 1855 at the age of 38 before the link was completed in 1856. With the rail link complete his development plans for Granite City were very successful with most of the 2048 lots that had been layed out selling the first day they were available in 1856. The town was renamed Folsom in his honor.

For more history of the area please access the links provided on the left side of this page under the heading "Local Area History Websites" covering the Pony Express, Gold rush Days, Stagecoach Lines, Ghost towns and much more.