The creative sign marking the turn-off toward Goodyears Bar Schoolhouse Museum on Highway 49

GOODYEARS BAR — Folks entering the Goodyears Bar Schoolhouse Museum are only a fraction of the 3,000-5,000 visitors the Downieville Museum welcomes each year. What a travesty!

This “treasure off the beaten path” in Goodyears undoubtedly receives less traffic than its counterpart in Downieville due to its obscure location. Drivers must make an intentional stop off Highway 49, four miles downstream from Downieville, turn onto Mountain House Road, follow it down and across the North Yuba River up to the stop sign, and turn left to the Museum. Yet those willing to turn off Highway 49 and visit the Goodyears Bar Schoolhouse Museum will not leave disappointed.Cy Rollins with the slate board and pencil he used as a child

Thanks to the Rollins’ family, the collection of Native American, Chinese, and gold mining artifacts from Sierra County’s history from a long time gone, resurfaced in 2011. The Museum was originally a one-room schoolhouse built with local materials from Snakes Bar in 1862. (Snakes Bar is located between Goodyears Bar and Downieville.) This building is the original structure that survived the great fire that swept through Goodyears Bar in 1864. One visitor asked, “Why don’t they place more artifacts in the middle of the floor?” The building is multi-purpose, and space is left to hold community meetings, etc. This truth should leave readers with a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing this historic building engages the past and the present.Wells Witmer's 1/20th scale gold mine diorama

Additions to the building and property were made in later times. It is precisely in one of these “additions” where Bigfoot Mines - Thunder Ridge Shaft is housed. Here is where the fun for all ages begins. Local Wells Witmer began this “labor of love” back in 1975, constructing a fully operational 1/20th scale diorama of a typical gold mine in 1918. The frame/incline resembles the Empire Mine in Grass Valley, California. An extensive description of Bigfoot Mines can be found at goodyearsbar.com. Less than a foot from Bigfoot Mines, Witmer’s rock, mineral, and fossil collection is an equally impressive display.

Those ready to be wowed should make the turn “off the beaten path.”