Wells Fargo Building, Jackson, California

First structure on site built in 1851. Bar portion of building erected in 1856 as drug store. Wells Fargo Express Agency moved to store briefly in 1887. Two story section built in 1858, used as a general store. Easterly one story section built in 1898. Wells Fargo Express located next door 1884-1919.

Ginocchio family owned building from 1857 until sold to present owners. Dan Vukajlovich and Jim Smallfield opened Wells Fargo Club in 1955 and purchased building in 1965.

In 1855 the legislature established law to provide for the indigent sick of the state, secure the hospital fun, and enable counties to employ medical aid, set salaries, provide suitable building for contagious disease and levy a tax (not to exceed a quarter percent) for care and protection of the indigent sick.

In 1855, Amador's 3-man board of supervisors established a 10-cent tax rate for the indigent sick, and more importantly, nameed Dr. William Sharp of Jackson as the county's first physician to tend to jail inmates and indigent sick.

The easterly one-story section, formerly the Wells Fargo Restaurant, was added in 1898. It also faces Water Street.

Dr. Sharp, also a merchant, built a brick drug store the following year of Main and Water. It is the bar portion of the once Wells Fargo Restaurant. Thus, by the summer of 1855, Amador had a county physician, tax monies from state and county, a hospital fund, but no hospital. Dr. Sharp had to locate a building to serve as one... (More that part of the story later).

On February 15 and 16, 1963, John Wayne, Tom Rasica of Pine Grove, and Tom Kalim , then of Jackson had drinks here in the Wells Fargo Club and then proceeded to a round of Stud Poker, an illegal poker variety. After Dan Kalim (then bartender) discovered the game was Stud Poker, Vukajlovich asked Kalim et al to play elsewhere. Hence, after maybe an hours's play, they crossed to the National Hotel.

Return to our Jackson Tour or click on our Minor to end your tour

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