2 Best Sights in Sacramento and the Gold Country, California

A Main Street icon built in 1851, the hotel hosted entertainer Lola Montez and writer Mark Twain as well as Ulysses S. Grant and other U.S. presidents. New owners who took over in 2018 are renovating the property a section at a time. If it's open when you visit, the saloon is worth a peek as one of the oldest operating west of the Mississippi.

In the center of town, on the site of the original, stands a reproduction of the home of Lola Montez, the notorious dancer, singer, and courtesan whose popularity with gold-rush-era miners derived from her suggestive "spider dance." Lola repaired to Grass Valley after wearing out her welcome in Europe, where her lovers included the composer Franz Liszt and the ill-fated King Ludwig of Bavaria. (Her calls for democracy contributed to Ludwig's overthrow and her banishment as a witch—or so the story goes.) Religion has recently found Lola: a local church now owns this site.