Hangtown Fry

“We had gone into Hangtown one night for provisions, when we heard that a great strike had been made at a place called Coon Hollow, about a mile distant. One man was reported to have taken out that day about $1,500,” recalled Edinburgh-born artist John David Borthwick, of his 1851 tour of Hangtown’s gold fields. “The town of Placerville—or Hangtown, as it was commonly called—consisted of one long straggling street of clapboard houses and log cabins, built in a hollow at the side o