Gold Rush Days Returns With a High-Noon Gallows Tour

DOWNIEVILLE — Downieville Gold Rush Days returns Friday, September 18, through Sunday, September 20, with gold panning along the riverfront, mining talks at the Yuba Theatre, a gunfight on Main Street, and a guided tour of the county’s historic gallows. Comstock Gold Prospectors, a Reno, Nevada, nonprofit, presents the festival with Discover Downieville and HWY 49 Adventures, and organizers say the event has run on and off for more than 30 years. The Downieville Community Hall serves as headquarters, and one wristband covers all three days.

The gallows tour is Saturday’s centerpiece. Sierra County Supervisor Lee Adams will lead it at 12:56 PM, a time the schedule bills as high noon.

The Sierra County Sheriff’s Gallows stands in the jail yard beside the courthouse and is the only authentic standing gallows left in California. Built in 1885, it was used once, on November 27 of that year, when Sheriff Samuel C. Stewart hanged 20-year-old James O’Neill for the murder of Webber Lake dairyman John Woodward. A change in state law in 1891 moved executions out of the counties, according to the state Office of Historic Preservation. The structure is California Historical Landmark No. 971 and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Gold panning runs along the Downieville riverfront from 10 AM to 4 PM Friday and Saturday, with instruction and demonstrations on the first day. The vendor market opens at the Community Hall at 10 AM each morning, and organizers say it will carry gold, mining equipment, historical displays, crafts, and food. The market closes with a prize drawing every afternoon.

The Sierra County Historical Society will sell tickets at a booth Friday and Saturday for its annual raffle, which awards several prizes of real gold. All of the proceeds go to the society’s preservation projects, museums, and educational programs.

Main Street belongs to the Nevada Gunfighters, a Wild West theatrical group, from 3:00 to 3:30 PM Saturday, followed by a fire auxiliary silent auction at the Community Hall. On Maiden Lane, Ricky Magiera, the Lake Tahoe wood sculptor who works as Tiny Bear Carving, will run chainsaw carving demonstrations from 10 AM to 3 PM each day, and his finished pieces will be for sale.

The Yuba Theatre carries the speakers, and Saturday’s lineup is the longest. David Lawler, a minerals geoscientist with more than 40 years in mineral exploration, opens at 10 AM, followed at 11 AM by Rick Solinsky’s “Mining Claims 101” and at 12:30 PM by Ray Mills on the Minelab Gold Monster 1000 and other gold detectors. Jason Foreman brings his Tavern Talks series to the theatre at 2:15 PM, and Larry Schack, who founded the prospecting equipment company GoldiBox, speaks at 4 PM.

Solinsky co-founded the Western Mining Alliance and spent years mapping original mining claim records across eight counties. He also photographed and indexed more than 40,000 articles from every Sierra County newspaper published between 1854 and 1950, then handed the collection to the historical society.

On Friday, doors open at 10 AM, an award presentation is set for noon at the Community Hall, and Lucia Patterson, a geologist with the Nevada Division of Minerals, speaks at 2 PM on claim data and land research tools. Sunday opens with a community pancake breakfast from 8 to 10 AM at the Masonic Hall, Tin Cup, and Diggins Park area, and Tami Force, who has explored ghost towns and mining camps across Nevada and the eastern Sierra for 25 years, speaks on eastern Sierra ghost towns at 10:30 AM.

Evening entertainment moves to the Boomtown Lounge on Main Street. Old Soles, the fiddle-and-banjo duo of Masha and Geff Crawford, plays Friday from 5 to 7 PM, and Chris Hescock, frontman of the Nevada County country-rock band The Dyin’ Breed, plays a solo set Saturday evening. Both acts are also listed for the carriage house lawn on Friday and Saturday.

Organizers say the festival will reach beyond Downieville for the first time, with a shuttle carrying visitors up the canyon to Sierra City for guided tours of the Kentucky Mine Museum and Stamp Mill. The Big City Rod Run, a car show that fills Sierra City’s Main Street, is still set for Friday and Saturday as a separate event, and organizer Larry Breed said earlier this year that it would return without registration or entry fees.

Hours are 10 AM to 5 PM Friday and Saturday and 10 AM to 3 PM Sunday. The Community Hall sits at 327 Main Street, with outdoor activities spread across downtown, and volunteers there can point visitors toward activities and give directions. Organizers say the wristband admits visitors to the weekend’s activities, demonstrations, speakers, and entertainment, and they ask that it stay on throughout.

Presale prices are $10 for an adult all-access weekend pass and $25 for a family or group bundle covering up to four people. Teenagers 13 to 17 pay $5, and children 12 and under are free. Veterans, seniors, students, and Comstock members pay $8 at the door with valid identification.

Presale buyers redeem their receipts for wristbands at the gate. Tickets, the schedule, and more information are available at discoverdownieville.com/gold-rush-days-2026.