After the news of the discovery of gold, two merchant brothers, John and Daniel Murphy of the famed
Stephen-Townsend-Murphys Party, headed to the hills to set up shop. They may have gone with George Angels, who dropped out after finding
a profitable spot downstream. After starting in what is now Vallecito (Murphys Old Diggins), the brothers moved here a few kilometers North. There the brothers hit paydirt, though they found it much more profitable to pay the local Natives to mine it for supplies, in one incidence trading a blanket for a 5lb lump of gold (in their defense, John Murphy paid more than he needed to and married a chieftains daughter, leaving the area a year later with an estimated $2 million. The settlement that quickly sprang up around their camp went through a succession of names, from Stoutenberg, to Murphys Rich Diggings, Murphys Flat, Murphys Camp, Murphy's, Murphy and finally Murphys. The settlement continued to prosper, with some $20 million mined in the area.
Murphys, California