Historic Photo of City of Old Shasta, including the Empire Hotel and the Court House. Photo courtesy Gail Jenner Collection. As with the rest of California, it was the great Gold Rush of 1849 that opened the doors to Siskiyou County. Harry L. Wells, in HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, credits the first mining in this region to Lindsay Applegate who traveled south from Jacksonville, … [Read more...] about Gold Mining – Part 1 of 2