ok more
time to it. You came to Sacramento on the river boat. Then if you
were rich, you bought a horse or a mule and rode for the rest of your
journey. If you were poor, or thrifty perhaps, you walked, or tried to
get a ride on one of the ox-freight teams which plied their way across
Haggin Grant to Auburn and Dutch Flat, or to Folsom and Coloma.

Later a railway was built as far as Auburn station, then situated at a
point three miles east of Loomis which was at that time called Pino.

Nothing remains of Auburn station. But the road bed of the old railway
is still to be found in certain wooded tracts which have not given way
to the fruit ranches; and the highway from Fair Oaks into Folsom follows
the old cuts and grades for several miles.

In the days preceding and immediately following the discovery of gold
in California, building was very difficult. Every stick of lumber in my
grandfather's house came by ship "around the Horn," and the fruit trees
grape vines, flowers, even bees, for his lovely garden: were all sent
from Europe.

In the smaller settlements there was seldom more than one large building
which could be used for social purposes, and this was often the card
room or bar room in connection with the hotel of the town.

So here is the tale that was told of one Sunday in Stinson's bar room,
in the late '50s at Auburn Station:

They tried to give a ball once a year at Stinson's. Persons came to it
from 30 miles about, particularly if they were women, and every woman
divided each dance among four men. When a man invited a lady to come to
a dance, in many instances he insisted upon the privilege of buying her
a silken gown and slippers to wear, and this was not considered unusual,
nor was she in any way obligated to him for it. There were so few
"ladies" that they were treated as little short of divinities.

This Saturday night there had been no dance, and the men at Gentleman
Jack's table at Stinson's had played "three-card monte" on through the
dawn and the sunrise, and into broad daylight. The door was pushed open,
letting in a rush of cool, sweet air which guttered the candles set
in old bottles, and drove the heavy fog of tobacco smoke toward the
blackened ceiling. A voice boomed forth:

"Come on, now, gentlemen. Two ladies have come with posies in tall
silver vases and a white altar cloth for this table. The preacher's
coming over from Folsom, and there will be church held here in one hour.
He's a