Murphys California
— — the stone the gold rush left standing.
Not only on a wall.
“A Main Street of low limestone storefronts on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, in Calaveras County. The town began as a gold camp staked by the Murphy brothers in August 1848; the buildings that went up through the 1850s are mostly the same ones that line the street today. The Murphys Hotel guest register carries the names of Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, and Black Bart. Those storefronts now pour Calaveras County wine instead of taking gold out of the creek. Cooler than the Central Valley below, an hour's drive from the giant sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees.
Murphys California, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Murphys sits on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, in Calaveras County, at about 2,170 feet of elevation. The town is on California State Route 4, roughly 60 miles east of Stockton and an hour's climb above the Central Valley floor. It began in August 1848 as a gold camp on the creek now called Murphys Creek, staked by the brothers John and Daniel Murphy, whose family had crossed the Sierra in 1844 with the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party, the first wagon train to bring its wagons over the range intact. The current population is about 2,200. The downtown is registered as California Historical Landmark No. 275. Calaveras Big Trees State Park, with its grove of giant sequoias, lies fifteen miles further up Highway 4.
Murphys' historic Main Street is lined with low, thick-walled storefronts of locally quarried stone, most of them rebuilt after the 1859 fire that destroyed the original wood-frame downtown. The Murphys Hotel, opened in 1856 by James Sperry and John Perry, was already standing in limestone when the fire came through; its walls saved it. The guest register holds the signatures of Mark Twain, Ulysses S. Grant, Susan B. Anthony, Horatio Alger, and the stagecoach robber Black Bart. Many of the neighbouring storefronts retain the iron shutters hung against the next fire, which came in 1874. The Murphys Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Murphys' downtown now functions as the de facto tasting-room district for Calaveras County wine, with more than twenty tasting rooms inside the old gold-rush storefronts on and around Main Street. Most are open daily through the afternoon, with tasting fees of $10 to $25 per flight commonly waived with a bottle purchase. Murphys hosts the Calaveras Wine Alliance, which coordinates the county's seasonal grape stomp and wine-tasting weekends. The town is also the staging point for trips to nearby Mercer Caverns, Moaning Cavern, and the upper Stanislaus River. There is one stoplight in town. From downtown the climb continues another fifteen miles up Highway 4 to the giant sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park.