Waldo

The real history of Waldo. Just north of the California state line, Waldo was first known as Sailor's Diggings. In 1852 some sailors, hearing rumors of gold in southern Oregon, jumped ship and found gold in a gulch in the headwaters of the Illinois River. It was later named Waldo in honour of William Waldo, the Whig Party candidate for governor of California (oops they thought it was in California). By 1850 the town had several hotels, saloons, school, a boarding house, blacksmith shops, a livery stable, a butcher shop and a brewery. Outlaws were also drawn to the area and in 1852 the Triskett Gang shot up the town, killing men, women, and even a few children, sixteen bodies lay on the street that afternoon. Law arrived years later when Judge Mathew P. Deady sat at the bench, in a log cabin in 1856. Waldos population swelled to hundreds at the height of mining but declined when gold was discovered elsewhere. When the Redwood Highway bypassed it in 1926 the end was near. Soon after the townsite itself was hydraulically mined. Family names in the cemetery include Baker, Bennett, Childs, McIlwain, Scott, Waldo is now considered a ghost town. My version of Waldo is an early mining town. There is a freight station to transfer cargo to the Waldo Gold Mine RR as well as workers, with a bunk house near by. Back down the gulch is the main street if one can call it that. At the end of the cliff is Graham Lumber, Wire and Nails which is just a shack, the Grocery Company, John Munro Boot and Shoe Maker which also repairs harness and the TL Ranch Boarding House. On the wrong side of the street is the Gold Rush Saloon and Hotel, where the miners and lumberjacks unwind. Down the road is an open depot situated on the main line of the Cougar Ridge Lumber Co. RR.