American Flat, Amador County Ghost Town

In the press notices of the time and the comment upon the anarchy, riot, and bloodshed rampant in the area of the Rancherias-incidentally, American Flat is at the point of a triangle formed by the two Rancherias at the base much material is given to the formation of posses and armed citizens' groups. And also, one notes with sadness the rise of bands of hoodlums and vandals who were the main contributors to these happenings. Documentation is here that this community on the Dead Man's Fork was in this terrible business right up to its neck.

In the whole area of these three towns, one does not need to be psychic or over sensitive to experience a feeling of depression and a desire to terminate the visit as soon as possible. This was observed by several members of the U.S. Geological Survey who mapped the area in the early 1960s and had no previous knowledge of the dark history in the background.

The topography of the town shows that part of it was built upon a boat-shaped bit of ground and that this was overflowed. The buildings pushed up the steep north slope. This portion is pretty well obliterated by the returning forest. Trees, their trunks 30 inches in diameter and growing close together, make any study or tracing of the walls and foundations a real obstacle course.

On the south side of the boat, the tall pines march in stately ranks up the mountainside. Through them, an ancient road that once resounded to the drumming hoofs of the mounts of Claudio, Three Fingered Jack, and Luis Guerra, turns, twists, and loops to a point at the summit that leads to nowhere.

Information, photographs courtesy of the Amador County Archives, The Historical Marker Database, The Chronicling America Database, and Larry Cenotto, Amador County's Historian