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Sutter Creek in 1850 was a booming mining settlement in what was then Calaveras County. Two brothers from Ohio, James and Samuel Porterfield, operated a dry goods store at the corner of Fiefield and Main Street. The Porterfield brothers, natives of Hancock County, Ohio, had traveled to California in early 1949 with a company of men organized in Findlay, Ohio for the purpose of crossing the plains and exploring the gold-bearing regions of California. While they probably made a good amount of money selling supplies to the miners, in January of 1853 the Porterfield brothers sold the lot to Dwight Crandall and Jonathan Jones, who also bought the lot immediately north which bordered on Spanish Street. The original hotel was constructed on the southern corner lot. The building you see today was first constructed in 1867 and has gone through numerous structural modifications since then. By 1854 the the American House hotel (as it was then known) was a well known hotel under the direction of Dwight Crandall that also served as an office and stage shop for Adams & Company Express, one of the first express companies established in California, preceding Wells, Fargo and Company. |
