Food for Thought

November, 1852: Documented Diggin’s Businesses.
Eastman from Columbia Gazette.

21 Produce and Grocery Stores (these are primarily general merchandise stores)
4 Hotels
7 Boarding houses
4 Banking and Exchange Offices
2 Book and Stationery Stores
5 Doctor’s Shops
5 Law Offices
3 Tobacconists
7 Bakeries
1 Tin shop
1 Paint shop
2 Barber shops
3 Meat Markets
3 Blacksmith shops
8 Carpenter shops
3 Silversmith shops
1 Printing Office
3 Drug stores
2 Wagon maker shops
3 Laundries
4 Livery stables
1 Reading room
1 Brewery
1 Ground Coffee depot
1 Daguerrotype room
1 Boot and Shoe shop
1 Wine and Liquor store
1 Fruit and Confectionery store
1 Mexican Fandango house

“In addition to these we have a large hall for a theater, as well as an amphitheater for bull & bear fights; and last, though not least, we have a church, with regular preaching at two different places every Sabbath. A Sunday School which is well attended; a Masonic Lodge, a Division of the Sons of Temperance and a Vocal Music Society."

There were also many businesses that were not able to be classified by the Gazette as they were “kept by European, Asiatic and South American; taking our town in the aggregate, we have as heterogeneous a mass of human beings as can be found in any other mining town in California.”