Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Forbestown, CA

Forbestown is an unincorporated census-designated place in Butte County, perched at 2,772 feet in the Sierra Nevada foothills on the ridge between the South Fork of the Feather River and the Yuba River.

Forbestown was founded in September 1850 by B. F. Forbes, who opened a store there; the camp was also known as Boles Dry Diggins and Forbes Diggins.

Between 1850 and 1860 an estimated 3,000 people lived in Forbestown and its vicinity, working placer mines, farms, and supply businesses for the surrounding diggings.

The placer deposits around Forbestown were described as the richest in Butte County, and miners sank shafts 40 to 50 feet through the dry diggings to reach pay dirt concentrated on bedrock.

The first quartz mill of importance in what is now Butte County was built at Forbestown in 1851 - a sixteen-stamp mill that cost more than $200,000.

By December 1853 Forbestown was spoken of as second only to Bidwell's Bar in size, population, and trade among Butte County settlements, but an 1860 fire destroyed most of its original commercial district, with losses estimated at $90,000.

Forbestown's post office was established in 1854, closed in 1925, and reopened in 1936.

Forbestown's heyday ran through the second half of the nineteenth century as a large mining center, but by the late 1930s it was nearly a ghost town, and foundations and debris from its mining era still mark the site.

Forbestown first appeared as a census-designated place in the 2010 census; its population grew from 320 in 2010 to 396 in 2020, spread across 6.28 square miles at only about 63 people per square mile.

Forbestown had 163 households in 2020 averaging 2.43 people each, and about 89% of its occupied homes were owner-occupied.