El Dorado, "The Gilded One", was first known as Mud Springs from the boggy quagmire the cattle and horses made of a nearby watering place. Originally an important camp on the old Carson Trail, by 1849-50 it had become the center of a mining district and the crossroads for freight and stagecoach lines. At the height of the rush its large gold production supported a population of several thousand. It was incorporated as the town of El Dorado in 1856. El Dorado was a station of the Central OverlandPony Express. On April 13, 1860, William (Sam) Hamilton, a pony rider, changed horses at the Nevada House, he was carrying the first westbound mail of the Pony Express from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento.
The first post office in Mud Spring was opened in 1851, the name was changed to El Dorado in 1855.[4] The town incorporated in 1855 and disincorporated in 1857.[4]
In 1945, a bar in an 1850s building, originally a Wells Fargo weigh station, was converted into roadside barbecue joint, called Poor Red’s Bar-B-Q. Because the town is roughly halfway between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, drivers - including the Rat Pack - frequently stopped there.[6]
^ abcDurham, David L. (1998). California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State. Clovis, Calif.: Word Dancer Press. p. 481. ISBN1-884995-14-4.
^"El Dorado". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved October 7, 2012.
