Biohazard Cleanup Near Browns Flat Sonora, CA

Sonora was founded in 1848 by miners from the Mexican state of Sonora, who called their settlement Sonorian Camp and named it after their homeland.

Known as the "Queen of the Southern Mines," Sonora was the largest and most important town in the southern Mother Lode gold region.

The first documented discovery of gold in Sonora was in Woods Creek on March 17, 1849, near the site of today's Sonora High School.

The Sonora placer mines were credited with producing about $11 million in gold, and the famous Holden Chispa nugget, weighing over 28 pounds, was taken from within the city limits.

Even after the placers gave out, underground "pocket" mines kept Sonora alive - in 1879 the Bonanza Mine, inside the town, yielded a single pocket worth $300,000.

Sonora was incorporated on May 1, 1851, making it one of the first cities incorporated in California.

Sonora is the county seat of Tuolumne County, one of California's original 27 counties established on February 18, 1850, and it remains the only incorporated city in the county.

By 1849 Sonora already had roughly 5,000 residents - almost exactly its population today, which the 2020 census put at about 5,000.

Sonora has roughly 2,200 households, and they are small, averaging only about 2.3 people each.

The Sonora Herald, first published on July 4, 1850, was the first newspaper published in California's gold country.