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History of Auburn, CA – Claude Chana
by Lonnie Crider, Auburn, CA
Statue of Claude Chana
Thousands of people fly pass the large statue of a kneeling gold miner on highway 80 at the Maple street exit under the train trestle in Auburn, California, as they travel to and from Lake Tahoe every week.
When thinking about it, one would be tempted to guess that due to the location in the historic gold country near Coloma where gold was discovered in 1848, the statue must be that if the famous James Marshall who discovered the “color” in the bed of a diverted river while building a saw mill for Captain Sutter of “Sutter’s Fort” fame.
Close, but no cigar……….The statue is that of French settler, agriculturalist and gold miner Claude Chana. who was, ironically, a friend of James Marshall.
The majority of settlers who migrated to California in the mid 1800’s to seek their fortune soon found it a disappointing and difficult life. Most went back from where they came or ended up changing their goals and professions in order to survive, especially after the early and easy “placer” mining period where gold could be easily gathered from surface methods as opposed to digging, mine shafting or “monitoring” by use of water cannon.
Claude’s story is quite different in that not only was he a successfull miner, but he also made major contributions to a burgeoning California agricultural industry which eventually became our number one industry for many decades.
Chana came west from St. Josephs, Missouri, in the spring of 1846, and had a brief encounter with the ill-fated Donner party at Weber Canyon, Utah. Chana’s company made a decision to take a different route to California and to press on, which allowed them to arrive at Johnson’s ranch (next to the Bear River in now Yuba county near Wheatland) several weeks before the Donner party was trapped in the Sierra’s.
Chana soon found out that a fellow countryman Teodor Sicard had a land grand just a few miles from Johnson’s ranch across the Bear river and went to work for him in late 1846.
Shortly after this, Chana found his way to Sutter’s fort where he worked as a cooper and where he also met and became friends with James
Marshall of Sutter’s Mill fame.
After 7 months Claude migrated back to Sicard’s ranch where news soon arrived about the discovery of gold in Coloma.
Chana travelled up to Coloma where he saw many of his countrymen panning for gold and immediately headed back to Sicard’s ranch to outfit himself to return to the American River to pan his fortune.
Chana and a group of several countrymen set out under the leadership of Eugene Gendron who had been in California since 1832 and knew many routes to the foothills. He took them on a shorter route than going back through the normal Sutter’s Fort route of the day.
On May 16 1848 Chana’s party was camped next to a stream later known as Auburn Ravine, close to where the town of Auburn, and now non-existent town of Ophir, eventually grew. Claude may have been keeping his hand at panning when he suddenly found 3 large nuggets in his washed out pan. Needless to say, the Chana party never made it to Coloma.
Within 18 months, the town of Auburn was named from it’s original gold mining moniker of North Fork Dry Diggins (Plenty of water in the Winter…much less in the summer) and 1200 to 1500 people inhabited the very small and hilly area of Auburn and Ophir.
Claude had a successful stint as a gold miner but as the easy placer mining days waned he realized that he needed to take his fortune and pursue his other passion which was farming and agriculture.
Chana returned to Sicards ranch where previously in 1846, he and Sicard had planted peaches, apples, almonds, pears, plumbs in the rich loamy Bear River bottom lands. Their trees were healthy, growing and bearing fruit enough to sustain the local area with these rare commodities.
Sicard eventually sold his ranch to Chana for $6,000 in gold and immediately set out to make major improvements to the ranch.
In 1848 Chana obtained 200 Mission Grape vine cuttings from San Jose and proceeded to plant them at the ranch. Claude was among the first winemakers in California and by 1870 he was producing over 12,000 gallons of wine annually!
So the next time you pass the large Statue of Claude Chana as you pass by the town of Auburn, dazzle your family and friends with your knowledge of Claude Chana, Early California Settler, Gold Miner, pioneer and agriculturalist.
I enjoyed this article about Chana. I am a docent for the Placer County Museums and I do walking tours of Auburn. I love to talk about Chana and a I learned one or two new things from this. Thank you.
[...] has a brief article about this work of art and a local Auburn Realtor has a more in-depth article HERE. [...]
[...] this work of art and a local Auburn Realtor has posted a more in-depth article HERE. [...]