El Dorado County History

Growlersburg

Which, though depopulated, retains its name if not its reputation.

How one after another all the old relics of early days are going shows the old Marion England place, north of town, owned by T. Lebouf, and of late occupied as the residence of M. P. Baldwin. This house was built by B. C. Currier and party in December, 1849, and probably was the oldest house on the Georgetown divide. Originally it had been a log cabin, but was remodeled in 1852, by leaving the old logs as they were first placed; and notwithstanding its thirty-three years of service, was yet a substantial building, when lately in the absence of the occupying family it was consumed by fire, with all its contents. Near the house was a remarkable fine specimen of arbor vitae tree, Californian cedar, measuring one foot six inches in circumference in 1849, and nine feet six inches in 1879, a growth of eight feet round in thirty years.

One of those separate identifiable sites was a small cluster of miners' cabins a quarter mile or so west of Georgetown. Actually, according to an early Georgetown settler, Thomas Gibbs, they were less than cabins, but were "canvas hovels, distributed in one of the least hospitable areas to be found in this beauteous county due to constant spring seepage." The miners who lived there griped so frequently and so vociferously about the area that it came to be called "Growler's Gulch" and the cluster of hovels "Growlersburg."

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Last Updated on: 30 December 2001