Museums

500 Jackson Street, Quincy, CA 95971, (530) 283-6320. Open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday (year-round) and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and holidays (May through October). Admission $1 adults, 50 cents for children under 12.

One of the most comprehensive, well-presented museums in rural California. Cultural and home art displays are complemented by the Industrial History Wing, featuring agriculture, gold mining, logging and railroad history. In accordance with the "living museum" philosophy, most exhibits are changed periodically.

Collections include Maidu Indian basketry, pioneer weaponry and natural history, while period rooms depicting early Plumas County life are a main attraction. Outdoors is a blacksmith shop and gold miner's cabin, along with the larger mining and logging equipment, a carriage house containing a beautifully restored buggy, and agricultural implements.

A mezzanine gallery features exhibits of local artisans, and an outstanding archival library is utilized under supervision for research projects. Special events at the museum include the Christmas "Wassail Bowl" and a Summertime Open House, both of which include tours of the 1878 Variel Home adjacent to the museum property. Area literature, histories, artwork and other items are on sale in the museum bookstore.

Historic Variel Home

137 Coburn Street, next to Plumas County Museum, (530) 283-6320. Built by Beckwourth Trail emigrant Joshua Variel in 1878, this restored three-story Victorian is furnished from the museum collection to represent a middle-class family home in turn-of-the-century Plumas County. Old-fashioned gardens around the home provide a delightful rest stop. Open for tours from May through September (call for schedule) and by special appointment.

Plumas-Eureka State Park Museum

Located five miles west of Graeagle on Johnsville Road (A-14 west of Highway 89). 310 Johnsville Road, Blairsden, CA 96103, (530) 836-2380. Open daily, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in summer; open when staff is available during the rest of the year. Admission $1, ages 17 and older.

This indoor-outdoor museum within the Plumas-Eureka State Park preserves the rich heritage of the Feather River Country's gold mining legacy. Housed in a restored miners' boarding house, this museum displays mining tools, photographs, pioneer household items, working models of antique mining machinery and antique skis, as well as animals native to the park. The rustic, five-story Mohawk Stamp Mill, which processed raw, gold-bearing quartz, is among the restored buildings nearby, which also include a blacksmith shop, a bunkhouse and a miner's home. Supervised gold-panning programs are offered in the summertime along Jamison Creek.

Once a month during the summer, costumed docents re-create the life of a miner on Living History Day. Blacksmith demonstrations, mining lore and samples of homemade ice cream and other foods help bring visitors back to the 1890s.

Western Pacific Railroad Museum

Off Commercial Street in downtown Portola, P.O. Box 608, Portola, CA 96122, (530) 832-4131, and Run-a-Locomotive program, (530) 832-4532. Open seasonally (March through October), 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Donation requested.

This world-renowned museum was established in 1983 by the Feather River Rail Society. It preserves general railroad history, equipment, photos, artifacts, historical information and data. Housed in a former Western Pacific diesel shop, it has approximately 12,000 feet of track.

Visitors can climb aboard an extensive collection of train cars and locomotives and can even run a locomotive themselves. Train rides in cabooses are offered around a one-mile balloon track during summer weekends.

Indian Valley Museum

Located at the Mt. Jura Gem & Mineral Society Building, on the corner of Main St. and Cemetery Rd., east of Taylorsville. P.O. Box 165, Taylorsville, CA 95983, (530) 284-6511. Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and from 1-4 p.m. on Sundays and holidays, Memorial Day to Labor Day, or by appointment. Donations accepted.

The museum features displays and data relating to the rich traditions of mining, ranching and logging in Indian Valley. One room, dedicated to the native Maidu Indian culture, features a fine collection of Maidu baskets. Other artifacts represent the early settlers of the Indian and Genesee Valleys from 1850s to the present. Mining equipment is on display outside the museum, along with a blacksmith shop. A museum annex features larger exhibits including a 1934 fire engine and dairy equipment. Also featured is a mineral display.

Chester-Lake Almanor Museum

200 First Ave, P.O. Box 977, Chester, CA 96020, (530) 258-2742. Open Monday through Saturday, with variable hours. Free admission.

Features a photographic history of the Lake Almanor Basin, including dairy farming, logging and tourism. Also includes Maidu Indian basketry and artifacts.

A compact, century-old steam locomotive known as the "Dinky" is also on display on the Collins Pine Co. lawn along Main Street. The "Dinky" was recently discovered at the bottom of nearby Butt Valley Reservoir during repairs to the dam. It was used to help build the dam around 1913.

Jim Beckwourth Museum

Rocky Point Road, east of Portola. (530) 832-4888. Open weekends from 1-4 p.m. Memorial Day through Labor Day; other times by appointment. Free admission.

Plumas County pioneer Jim Beckwourth's authentic 1850s log cabin trading post and "hotel," featuring V-notch construction. Beckwourth was one of the few pioneer leaders of African-American descent. He discovered the lowest pass over the Sierra.

Frank C. Reilly Museum

Main Street, La Porte. (530) 675-1922 or (530) 675-2841. Open Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, Memorial Day to Labor Day, or by appointment. Features displays of La Porte's gold mining and ski-racing history. Named after a longtime La Porte resident, the museum was founded by the Frank C. Reilly chapter of the Clampers, a historical organization of which Reilly was a member. The club's archives are in the museum, along with local artwork and a "hodgepodge" of other items, including an extensive butter dish collection.