Site information:

On Clear Creek Rd, 6.5 mi W of Market St (Hwy 273), Redding

40.493740, -122.493349

Plaque information:

State plaque

Plaque text:

Reading's Bar

Major Pierson Barton Reading, California explorer and participant in the Bear Flag Revolt, discovered gold on this bar in 1848. Soon afterwards he made a similar find on the Trinity River. News of these discoveries opened the entire northern region of California to the Gold Rush of '49. By 1851 the town of Clear Creek Diggings had been settled near the bar. Later renamed Horsetown, it was the commercial center for this mining area. Horsetown was destroyed by fire in 1868.

First registered August 1, 1932. Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Shasta Historical Society, Darrell Moss Historical Fund and Trinitarianus Chapter 62, E Clampus Vitus. May 16, 1998.

OHP description:

Major Pierson B. Reading and his Indians washed out the first gold in Shasta County on a bar at the mouth of the canyon of Clear Creek in March 1848.

Registered 8/1/1932