Fort Ann, Amador County Ghost Town

Local tradition asserts that Fort Ann was brought into being by the stationing ~ here of twenty men, a commissioned officer, and one or two sergeants. We may believe that in a very short time they all deserted to go mining; this is the second part of the tradition.

There were rich outcroppings of paralleling veins of the East Lode directly beneath the site of the fort itself. Surface scars and old shaft openings bear witness to extensive operations. An old arrastre close to a vein of exposed quartz still possesses its drag stones. The Fort Ann Mine and the Posey Mine, both being ventures of considerable substance, operated until the early years of the 20th Century.

The outlines of the log barracks, headquarters, and stables may still be traced. A flat-topped cone of stone near a comer of the headquarters building held, until a few years ago, the base of the flagpole. Close at hand a flat meadow of perhaps 5 acres was used as a parade ground.

We do not seem to have a scrap of information leading to the origin of the name. Fort Ann is the commonly accepted version, though a few early references to it label it Fort Anna

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