Doschville, Amador County Ghost Town

The first use of the great clay resources around lone occurred in 1854. In previous years the discovery was probably made incidental to the frantic quest for the yellow metal. The first pit was opened to commercial use close to the present position of the Indian Hill Plant of Gladding McBean or Interpace.

The town of Doschville grew within a stone's throw of these works. We draw upon local tradition for the statement that one Mr. Dosch was the individual responsible for this first successful venture in the exploitation of the county's resources of usable alumina. Very little or nothing seems to be extant upon his life or background. Perhaps the archives of the State Bureau of Mines if thoroughly researched would yield something.

Several of the Doschville business buildings, quite typically Mother Lode in pattern-stone with iron doors and shutters formerly lined the south side of the Michigan Bar Road directly opposite the Indian Hill Plant. Like the ten little Indians on the gate, they went down one by one until there remained a lone survivor up until around 1950. This was scraped out for no apparent reason other than that someone wanted to se if the blade on the D-8 was performing as it should. It was. And now, of Doschville we have nothing. West of the highway, just north of the railway road crossing to the plant under a grove of great oaks, there are four shallow depressions in the earth of exactly grave­like outline and dimensions.

This saloon was a thing of board-and-batten of fair dimensions fronted not by a road shed but what might be termed a sort of porte cochere. There were many Irish saloons in the Mother Lode. This was a fair example of one that might be termed in the middle range of affluence and decor, and so, fairly typical. Let us go inside and take a look. The two outer comers of the polished walnut bar sported quarter-round shields, one proclaiming the virtues of Guiness Stout, the other of Dublin Stout. Enameled medallions above the respective racks of the product of John Jamieson and Son and Jamieson Ltd. testified to their excellence.

These, by legend, are the last resting places of four horse thieves, seized and hung by a posse sometime in the 1860s. The story goes that they were given the choice of a flogging or the noose. To their eternal credit, in their final moment of truth they stood tall and died like men. This tale has no way of either being substantiated or refuted, but it may well have happened.

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