Placerville, CA

Placerville sits at the crossing of US 50 and State Route 49, about 1,800 feet up in the Sierra foothills, on the long road between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe. In Gold Rush days it went by Hangtown, and the nickname survives on shop signs and menus all over town. The city is small, which is why the center feels so contained. Main Street is the center of that, with historical markers along it and the Druid Monument, a stone column topped with a torch, standing at the corner of Cedar Ravine Road. The Fountain & Tallman Museum occupies an old soda works, and the El Dorado County Historical Museum tells the rest of the story. At 305 Main Street, the stump of the Hangman's Tree sits under a building that now holds an ice cream saloon, where a mannequin named George plays along with the joke. Wine country wraps the city. Boeger Winery on Carson Road and Fenton Herriott Vineyards are among the tasting rooms in the surrounding hills, and the Apple Hill farms begin a short way east. Geartooth Alewerks, out on Green Valley Road, draws a crowd for pulled pork sandwiches and smoked jalapeno poppers. In town, Buttercup Pantry has served all-day country breakfast since 1985 under a ceiling of antique collections, and Amore Mio, at 451 Main Street, does lasagne and cioppino. Sourdough & Co. And the cafes up and down the street handle lunch. US 50 carries the commute to Sacramento to the west, and weekend traffic toward Tahoe goes through here too. The local airport has a runway but no commercial flights, so the highway and the bus are how most people get anywhere. The same highway that makes Placerville a convenient base also fills it on winter and summer weekends, when ski and lake traffic streams through. Few foothill cities still run like a real town where antique dealers and winemakers share the same few blocks of one street.