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Where is it?
This Gold Rush town on Highway 49, is three miles south of Placerville.
How did it get its name?
It was the site of crystal clear springs where the arriving immigrants rested and watered their livestock while deciding whether to go north to Placerville and the northern mines or west to the fertile soils of the valley.
What’s the history?
It was settled in the early 1850s by a party of emigrants from the State of Missouri, numbering about 200.
By 1854 one of the County’s first newspapers, The Miner’s Advocate, had moved to El Dorado from Placerville. As the town continued to grow, it appeared that it would soon become the largest town in the county and probably the County Seat. But, after two contested elections, Placerville won that honor.
On August 5, 1856, Diamond Springs became the third El Dorado County town – in about a month – to be destroyed by fire, the other two being Placerville and Georgetown.
In 1927 Diamond Springs Limestone Company built a state of the art limestone processing plant in the northern part of town. For numerous reasons, the plant would be forced to close in the late 1970s.
What’s unique about the area?
To the local Indians, Diamond Springs was the consecrated ground on which they paid the last funeral rites to their deceased. For hundreds of miles around the dead were transported on litters to this sacred spot, where they were ritually cremated.
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