Old Shasta

Shasta grew rapidly to be the Queen City of the Northern Mines after news of a second California gold strike reached the ears of fevered and footloose forty-niners. Miners swarmed into what became Shasta County, stopping to rest at Reading Springs, soon to be renamed Shasta. A few, more practical fortune-seekers gained their wealth by supplying the gold-hungry miners with the necessities of life. Stages and wagons rumbled back and forth to Red Bluff on deeply rutted trails bringing supplies...