Our next stop on our tour of the Georgetown Divide is the 1855 Meyer's Dance Hall and Saloon, just up Beach Street from the site of the old bridge at Lotus. You can read about the old bridge crossing at our first post of the tour here. Following the map and turning around in the church parking lot, we head back towards Highway 49, where we find the ruins of the old hall on the left.
Before the town was named Lotus, it was known as Marshall, named for the discoverer of gold. In 1850 the name was changed to Uniontown in honor of California's entrance into statehood. The name of the town was changed again to Lotus in 1881. This road was the old route from Sacramento to the goldfields, and many would pass this business. Dancing was quite the entertainment back in the days before electricity, and this spot was known as a "miners delight."
Now we head back towards Highway 49 and turn left onto Highway 49, but the old road went straight, behind Marco's Restaurant and back out towards Highway 49. You can see the old route as a green line on our maps. It's good to know the old way as the descriptions of various features often relate to their location with "the road," which usually implies the historic route, not the road we travel on today.
Just a short distance to the north we will arrive at the site of the long-gone town of Michigan Flat, the place where the Stanford Brothers, Leyland, and Thomas, laid the foundations for their great wealth as proprietors of a general merchandise store.
We’ll talk about that place with our next post.