The Velvet Rocket

First settled in 1853 when mines known as the Union Company and California Company were discovered, Howland Flat was once second in size and importance only to La Porte. Located twelve miles north of Downieville on the East Branch of Slate Creek and at the base of the dramatic 7,000′ elevation Table Rock Mountain, Howland Flat is still well worth a visit.

The population during its year of greatest activity, 1863, was approximately 1,500. In the same year, there were about 100 inhabitants at Potosi, and several hundred more were living and mining within a mile radius of Howland Flat. Thus, the town and vicinity comprised approximately 2,000 people.

In its prime, Howland Flat played host to several hotels, saloons, general stores, dentists and barbers. However, the town also was home to a surgeon, a bath house, a post office, a jewelry and watch repair shop, a theater, a notary public and at least one attorney.

Some pictures of Howland Flat during its heyday:

You can just make out Table Rock Mountain in the top part of this picture:

Howland Flat with its houses barely visible in the winter… In 1890, the snow in January was sixteen feet deep:

Today, the first indication that one is entering Howland Flat (when traveling from the direction of La Porte) comes just after the Lady Be Lucky mine when one will encounter this crumbling Wells Fargo building:

Located near this site was a clearing that used to house several stores serving the Chinese community in the area. One store sold firecrackers and rice. Another sold liquor and groceries. In back of the stores were opium dens, gambling houses and a Joss House.

The Joss House at Howland Flat was the only one in the Northern Mines. This place of worship for the Chinese was a one-room wooden building with an altar and many chairs.

Although Howland Flat had a large Chinese community, the largest number of immigrants were actually Irish.

Continuing past the Wells Fargo building, one will next come to this white house:

Most summers when I have visited Howland Flat, there have been people staying here on a seasonal basis and using this home as a vacation cabin.

An outbuilding near the white house pictured above:

There are a number of foundations near “the white house” and so obviously this area housed a number of other structures in the past.

Nearby the white house one used to find the sign and structure pictured below… This picture was taken in 1986:

Now, there is nothing left of the above.

This structure, which is in close proximity, hung on for a while:

But, it too is quickly being consumed by the elements:

Farther back in the trees, one will discover this mini house… This picture was taken in 2005:

Unfortunately, the front section of the mini house has now collapsed:

This is my friend Ian, who is of average height, standing inside the mini house to demonstrate its scale:

A stone just outside the mini house is carved with the following:

Pressing on, one will very shortly come to this meadow… The Sierra Nevada Hotel would have been located near here:

There are a number of ruins to be found across the meadow:

However, in the center of the meadow, an intact structure still stands:

Another view of the structure with the ruins of another building in the foreground:

When I first visited Howland Flat as a child with my father (mid-1980s), this home in the meadow was still occupied. This is what the interior looks like today:

Toward the bottom part of the main meadow, several smaller open areas branch off:

These have their own sets of ruins:

The girls examining some of the historical curiosities left on the ground… The first time I came here with my father, someone had just come through (I assume with a metal detector) and uncovered all sorts of interesting items such as a boar’s tusk, unused ammunition and Chinese dishes:

Farther up the road (on the left side) and at the top of the meadow, one can find this structure:

The interior:

This is how the home pictured above looked in 1986… Even back in 1986, this structure was well over one hundred years old and had been lived in until just a few years before. So, a lot of history is being lost here:

Mines located around Howland Flat were/are:

Alturas, Black Hawk, California Consolidated (Table Rock Mining Company), Cox, Knowles & Company, Cox & Downer, Doherty Flume, Down East Company, Eight-nine Quartz Claim, Empire (White & Company), Fair Play, Gardner & Company, Golden Age, Golden Hive, Golden Scepter Placer Group (Golden Anchor, True Friendship and Golden Shaft), Hayes Placer Claim, Hibernia, Ina Drift Claim, IXL & South IXL Group, Knowles, Fant & Hewitt, Last Chance (Ah Quock, Young America, Busy Bee), Loftus Blue Lead, Mammoth Drift Claim, Midas Mine (Wehrle), Miner’s Home Mine (Kewana, Table Rock Mine), Minnesota, Morgan, Donahue & Cox, Mountaineer, Nip & Gouge Company, Noyes & Company, Pennsylvania Tailing Claim (Molter Mine), Pennsylvania Placer (Doherty, Hong Fat), Shirley Mining Company, South Fork Mining Company (Chittenden, Stout & Company), Southern Cross, St. Julian, Susquehanna Quartz Ledge, Union Company (Bright Star), Wabash, Wagner & Company and the Wah Kee Tailing Claim.

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This next section is a bit of a gray area for me. According to my (albeit limited) skills at reading the old maps that exist of this region, the area below may actually be in Potosi. However, everyone seems to refer to this area as the “Howland Flat graves” or the “Howland Flat cemetery”. So, I shall include the following in both the Howland Flat article as well as the Potosi one. Potosi and Howland Flat were right next to each other and so some overlap is understandable.

If one continues past Howland Flat, one will come to a fork in the road (this fork is where the town of Potosi was located). The road to the right leads to Poker Flat and the road to the left winds a little way up the hill overlooking the town. Soon, one will come across a small cemetery next to the road.

As I understand it, there is/was both a Catholic and a Protestant cemetery covering this area. I believe the cemetery next to the road is the Catholic cemetery:

Below, is a picture that shows the Catholic Church that used to stand next to the graves pictured above. In the background, Table Rock can be seen much more cleary than at present day:

I must mention that the historical pictures in this article come from the outstanding and exhaustively researched Roar of the Monitors by Jann E. Garvis. If you’re interested in this area’s history, you’ll find a staggering amount of information in this book and I highly recommend it.

If one crosses the road onto the land marked as being a claim controlled by Winkeye Mining, one will see a number of other graves in two areas. I believe this is what is left of the Protestant cemetery. The tailing ponds of the Winkeye Mine operation bisect the graves, with one section being below the ponds on the flat area overlooking Howland Flat and the other being in the brush next to the other side of the pond. If one wanders through the brush in this area, one should come across a number of graves.

The below are pictures of the graves from both sides of the tailing ponds:

I have it on very good authority that there is also a Chinese cemetery in the Potosi area, but I have never been able to find it. Apparently, the cemetery (empty of bodies) was hidden in dense manzanita, with the dead finding their final resting places in their homeland.

A listing of the graves that have been found in the Catholic and Protestant cemeteries can be found here.

As with the others in this series, this remains a long-term project. I shall update these articles anytime new information comes into my possession.

As rapidly as these remaining towns are disappearing, my goal is to get something up to try and collect some of the memories of those that still remember this area as it was and to document what little is left of these towns before they are gone completely. The impetus for this comes from seeing how much has disappeared just in the brief decade or two that I have been visiting.