Wells Fargo & Company
29349 State Route 49
North San Juan
Built 1854

A marker on the building reads:

Wells Fargo & Company

Office and holding center for gold and currency, 1854-80.
Block & Furth Co. clothing store, 1861-69. Chinese laundry and store operated by Happy Go Lucky, 1890-1920.
Bar and liquor store since 1934.
First saloon owner "Ma" Cunningham, 1934.

Dedicated October 7, 1978 By
Wm. Bull Meek - Wm. Morris Stewart No. 10
E Clampus Vitus - Nevada City, Calif.

Gold Rush Stonemasons

Mining camps started as clusters of tents and other makeshift shelters. If the mine was productive, wooden buildings were erected and a town was born.

Conflagrations were a recurring curse. Often entire town were repeatedly destroyed by fire. Stonemasons, especially Italian immigrants from Liguria, began building "fire proof" banks and stores of stone or brick with iron doors and iron window shutters to protect the contents from fire.

Many of these stone buildings survive. Some of them, such as the Butte Store, are the sole reminders of a lost mining town.

Some of these buildings are: