Author: Evan Nicole Brown / Source: Atlas Obscura
In the wake of California’s Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history, the entire town of Paradise succumbed to the flames. Paradise, a forested community that boasted a population of nearly 30,000, historically attracted loggers and prospectors searching for new frontiers and opportunity.
The Gold Nugget Museum summarized Paradise’s rich history in a quaint cottage filled with precious metals, scenic replicas, and a blacksmith shop—the very things on which the town built its humble, yet enduring reputation.The Gold Nugget Museum, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, was a community-funded and volunteer-run repository of Gold Rush and local mining history. The Camp Fire originated in Northern California’s Butte County at sunrise on November 8, the same day Southern California’s Woolsey Fire began. Within those first 24 hours, the fast-acting flames rendered Paradise unrecognizable. Video footage showing the burnt remains of the Gold Nugget Museum appeared on the museum’s Facebook page the very next day.
Against the backdrop of the mineral-rich Sierra Nevadas, the Gold Nugget Museum offered daily free admission and reenactments of gold miners’ lives. The opportunity…
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