Placer County, California Bridges: Yankee Jim's Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (2)

August 2012 (39.04000 Degrees, -120.90278 Degrees) Yankee Jim's Bridge

Another photo looking up at Yankee Jim's Bridge. The bridge carries the Colfax-Foresthill (or Yankee Jim's) Road across the North Fork of the American River. This area was heavily populated after the California Gold Rush of 1849 and even today you see people working mines, sluices, or just panning for the remaining 'Placer' gold deposits (hence the name of the county).

Yankee Jim was a prospector but also a horse thief. Back then, people were very dependent on horses and so Yankee Jim was arrested, escaped, but eventually hung for his crime. However, he was the first to discover the rich deposits of gold in these hills and so the nearby town and this bridge still bear his name.

Placer County, California Bridges: Yankee Jim's Bridge across the North Fork of the American River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.