Dog Town, California

Dog Town is a ghost town in Mono County, California. Today, Dog Town is a defunct gold rush era town in Mono County, California. It is located at, on Dog Creek, near the junction of Clearwater and Virginia Creeks, about 6mi south-southeast of Bridgeport, at an elevation of 7057 feet .HistoryThe town was established in approximately 1857 by Carl Norst as a placer mining camp. By 1859, a group of Mormons had arrived as miners at the site and a mining camp arose. Dog Town became the site of the first gold rush to the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Prospectors rushed here after hearing rumors of gold being washed out near Mono Lake. A small camp and trading center sprung up immediately. Dogtown did attract attention to the area as a whole, including the subsequent discoveries of much richer gold deposits in nearby areas such as Bodie, Aurora and Masonic.Town nameThe name "Dogtown" was often applied by miners to camps where living conditions were miserable. It was derived from a popular miner’s term for camps made of huts. A cemetery and ruins of the makeshift dwellings that once formed part of the “diggings” here are all that remain of this rugged, yet historically significant town; making the name "Dogtown Diggings."