Angel's Camp was the site of several important gold discoveries. One of the richest finds occurred in November 1854 at the Morgan Mine, which was located about four miles south of Angel's Camp. Discovered there was a mass of gold weighing 195 pounds, the largest nugget known to have been found in the United States.
Such discoveries lured people of all races and nationalities. Among those who rushed to California were miners from the Mississippi River Valley called "Pikes," East Coast Yankees, Australians, Irishmen, Englishmen, Hawaiians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen. Mining towns and camps sprang up overnight, quickly gaining distinctive characters as revealed by their names: Whiskey Bar, Humbug Creek, Gouge Eye, Lousy Level, Devil's Retreat, Flapjack Canyon, You Bet, Git- Up-and-Git, and Chicken-Thief Flat.
Despite their colorful names, however, most mining camps were rather ugly places, extremely dusty during the summer and muddy during the winter. People threw garbage everywhere, empty sardine boxes, old boots, and bottles littered the ground. Not surprisingly, dysentery, scurvy, diarrhea, malaria, and other maladies flourished in these camps.
Early miners lived in shanties, often made from shirts tacked onto wooden frames.
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