Agua Fría: California's First County Seat That Isn't There Anymore
Near Mariposa, California
Three miles west of Mariposa on State Route One Hundred Forty, a historical marker stands near a creek at a crossroads called Agua Fría, which is Spanish for cold water, the name that Sonoran miners gave to the springs they found at a bend in the creek when they arrived in the summer of eighteen forty-nine. Those miners established the first substantial settlement in the area, and the California legislature designated Agua Fría the seat of Mariposa County on February eighteenth, eighteen fifty. The town at its peak had a hotel, stores, gambling tables, a billiard room, a bowling alley, and a post office.
It served as county seat for less than two years. By November of eighteen fifty-one, county government had moved to the site of present-day Mariposa, and the post office at Agua Fría closed in eighteen sixty-two. The end of Agua Fría as a settled place came when fire destroyed much of what remained of the town.
Unlike most Sierra mining towns destroyed by fire, Agua Fría was never rebuilt. One often cited reason is that the buildings stood on land within the Las Mariposas land grant, where residents had no clear title to their property. Only the stone monument remains today.
The creek still runs cold. The springs are still there. Everything else is gone.
