One glance, and you just know this Markleeville cottage has a story! And quite a story it is. In 1864, this was the site of the Empire Meat Market, owned by a butcher named M. Peltier. To help promote sales, Peltier hired Augustus T. “Gus” Lee to run a meat wagon peddling his meat to outlying communities […]
Markleeville’s Oldest House?
This charming cottage may hold a giant secret: it just could be Markleeville’s oldest surviving original structure from its Silver Rush heydays. We know that the home is over a century old – photographs show it in 1905, when it served as the residence of George and Nellie Koenig. (George owned a bar known as Koenig’s Exchange, conveniently located […]
Silver Mountain City’s Stone Jail
If you’ve ever traveled California’s lonely Highway 4, you may have seen these mysterious stone ruins. They’re one of the few tangible remains of Silver Mountain City, Alpine County’s original county seat. This was the county’s jail, built in 1867 and built to last! Eighteen-inch outer walls were hewn from the volcanic cliff east of […]
Charles Fiske
Charles Fiske (or Fisk) was born in Vermont in 1813, and operated a store in Old Town, Maine for many years. He and his wife, Mary Ann (Eaton) had 13 children. Charles’ older brother Royal was a merchant in California, and although Charles wrote that he wished to see “fancy places,” he felt he […]
The Unsung Founder of Markleeville
Poor Jacob Markley. A century and a half after his death, the man who bestowed his name on the town of Markleeville remains mostly a mystery. Still, a few details of his life remain: Markley was born March 6, 1821 in Dundas, Ontario, Canada and emigrated to Virginia in his youth. In the late 1840s […]