Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park — Attraction in Placerville

Great place to visit, the problem is the guide who was telling everyone the story on how when people use dredges they take vacuum cleaners and float them down the rivers to suck up gold but also sucking up the food for the fish therefore starving the fish, this is a big fat lie, and if you are going to be a tour guide KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT AND TELL THE TRUTH, all the guide wanted to do is fill people's minds with false information to make dredging look bad, here is the TRUTH ABOUT DREDGING AND HIBANKING ON THE RIVERS, I have been gold mining for over 20 years so I know what I am talking about, here are the facts, when we dredge or hibank all the dirt that we shovel or suck up in our dredge ends up in a sluice box so this means all the WORMS, SCUDS, STONE FLY LARVAE AND ANY OTHER FOODS THAT FISH EAT comes right out of the sluice box and into the creek, IN FACT YOU ASK ANYONE WHO GOLD MINES if this the case, here is the other TRUTH when all this food comes out of the sluice box we ALWAYS SEE SALMON FINGERLINGS, TROUT AND OTHER FISH BY THE DOZENS RIGHT THERE HAVING A FEEDING FRENZY while we are running our equipment THAT IS A FACT, WE ARE ACTUALLY FEEDING THE FISH contrary to the fake lie your tour guide is telling everyone, SECOND FACT our tailings provide soft spawning beds for SALMON, STEELHEAD, TROUT ECT, further more our foot valves that we use have to be in such a way that it protects any fish from being harmed are getting sucked up into the pump, those are regulations that we must follow, here is another FACT THE TOUR GUIDE DOESN'T MENTION, How much MERCURY AND LEAD we pull out of these creeks and rivers every year when we run our equipment, YES WE GOLD MINERS CARE ABOUT THE FISH AND THE ENVIRONMENT TOO, so if you are going to put information out to the public KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT INSTEAD OF PUTTING OUT INFORMATION THAT NOT ONLY FALSE BUT DOING IT TO BRING BAD PUBLICITY TO RECREATIONAL GOLD MINORS, it's pretty sad and pathetic you would do that seeings how my donations and tax dollars helps support you....GET YOUR...

I'm giving the overall experience 3 stars. The park could be a 5 star park if the state would fund completion of the displays, ie the sawmill replica. The whole thrust of the park seemed to be collecting money. We stopped to have lunch at the Argonaut restaurant (nice little place with good sandwiches) and were never informed that that side of the hi way was a fee area. There are no signs to that affect except on the visitor center side of the road. After having lunch we did go through the visitor center. We tried to get the attention of the ladies behind the counter but they were both busy dealing with the same person. It wasn't very busy on this day. There were only about 5 or 6 tourists in the museum. When we came out we discovered a reminder notice on our wind shield stating that we had to pay the entrance fee. Not a problem except that we were parked on the hi way not in the parking lot and there is no signage indicating it is a fee area just to stop and eat lunch. As we are trying to figure out where and how to pay the fee a ranger walks by and we start asking questions about the park, etc. Either he didn't know anything about the park and was only writing tickets or he was having a bad day because we couldn't get more than two words out of him. Overall, it was a poor experience. It is worth the stop as long as you understand that it is an incomplete park with unhelpful people only looking for revenue. I don't blame the people there for this situation though. It all starts...

This is a really great place to take your family and kids. You only have to pay to park and it's not that expensive. You should have on good walking shoes and comfortable and clothes to fully enjoy the park. There are a lot of walking trails to follow along. If you come at the right time there will be volunteers at certain areas such as the miner cabin that will give you a small history lesson where you may find a woman walking around with her goat trust in Pioneer clothing. You can check out a group of pioneer wagons, an old reconstructed log Mill, an ancient Chinese store, and much more. There's a nice gift store on site as well as a small Organic Cafe across from the store. There are plenty of places to sit out with your family and have a picnic. You can also cross the bridge to get to the Coloma campsites. If this is your first time here I would recommend taking the gold panning lessons. We took them and learned that there's a lot more to panning for gold then we originally thought. It actually takes a little bit of knowledge and a lot of patience mixed with a little...