Long Bar is a bar on the north bank of the Yuba River about one mile east of the mouth of Dry Creek, southeast of Browns Valley. The Dry Creek Post Office was established about one mile north of it from 1854 to 1858. When the Dry Creek Post Office was discontinued, a new post office was established at Long Bar. The Long Bar Post Office was discontinued in 1864.
There used to be another Long Bar on the Yuba River north fork (near Long Point), but that one is now submerged under Bullards Bar Reservoir.
The History of Yuba County, California (Chapter XXVIII: Long Bar Township) by Thompson & West, 1879, described Long Bar this way:
This was the longest bar on the river, and derived its name from that fact. It was developed about the first of October, 1849, by a company consisting of H. B. Cartwright, James LaFone, Henry Irwood, W. S. Pearson, David C. Pearson, Edward Pearson, Oliver Smith, Smith Baldwin, and Henry Bleeker. At Benicia the company met Major Cooper, the pioneer of Parks Bar in June, 1848, and he advised them to "go to the Yuba river, about sixteen miles above the Covillaud ranch, or Adobe ranch, about three miles above a broad stream that has water in it in the winter, but none in the summer." After a hard journey they arrived at the place they supposed to be the one they had been directed to, but which was instead, Long Bar, only fourteen miles above Marysville. Cartwright, Smith, and Baldwin arrived ahead of the others of the party, who were with the wagon. The latter two went back to assist in bringing up the wagon and Cartwright went across the river, and hired out to some men who were working on the upper end of Kennebec Bar. About the first of October the others arrived, and they all went to work on Long Bar. A family by the name of Nash came that fall, the first at the bar. |
There were three girls in the family and they were the recipients of the attention of many young miners, who oftentimes came miles to see them. Mrs. J. V. Berry, now residing in Smartsville, relates an amusing incident in connection with the charming Misses Nash. Mrs. Berry was living at Saw Mill Bar with her husband in the fall of 1849. There was also a young lawyer from Tennessee, named Wiley H. Peck, a handsome man, six feet five inches tall. In the rough camp life of the mines, fine clothes were scarce, and facilities for making an elegant toilet few indeed. One Sunday morning, Mr. Peck asked Mrs. [B]erry to lend him a white towel that was hanging on the line. She readily assented, thinking he desired it to use in making his toilet. After a little while he presented himself before the astonished lady for her approval of his tout ensemble, as he was about to pay a state visit to the Nash girls. He was faultlessly arrayed in a suit of broadcloth that he had brought across the plains. The lady, commencing at his carefully combed locks, could detect not a flaw in his "get up" until she came to his feet, when, lo! what a sight! Having nothing with which to encase his pedal extremities except heavy miner's boots, and being ashamed to make a call with those unsightly things on his feet, he had decorated his bare feet with blacking to represent boots. The towel also, instead of being used in making his toilet, had been placed in his pocket, with the end protruding, to represent a white handkerchief. Thus arrayed he had sallied forth "to conquer or die". |
Claims on the bar were taken up so rapidly that by the spring of 1850, there were one thousand people there. Several hotels, stores, saloons, bakeries, etc., were started that fall and winter, and more were opened the next year. A ferry was established between Long Bar and Kennebec Bar in 1851. In 1856, a bridge was built across Dry creek, on the road to Long Bar. A postoffice was established here in 1850. The bar was one of the largest and most thriving in the county. In 1850, there were a half-dozen stores, eight or ten saloons and gambling houses, six or eight hotels and boarding houses, and about three or four hundred people. This was in the summer, when the miners were scattered along the river. In winter the population of the town was much larger. Work here continued later than at many other of the mining camps, although the place was not so rich as its two great rivals, Parks and Rose Bars. In 1858, work was still progressing on a large scale, while most of the other bars were nearly deserted. At this time there were still five stores there. Water was supplied by the Long Bar, Morris, and Yuba ditches. The place is now entirely deserted, and is covered several feet deep with mining debris. The river flows over and around the site of the old mining camp, forming part of it into an immense sand and willow island. |