| Reading's Bar Clear Creek Diggings Horsetown | |
|---|---|
 Clear Creek near Horsetown | |
| Location | Clear Creek Road, Reading, California |
| Coordinates | 40°29′37″N 122°29′36″W / 40.4937°N 122.4933°W |
| Built | May 1848 |
| Architect | Gold Find then 49 mining town |
| Designated | August 1, 1932 |
| Reference no. | 32 |
  Location of Reading's Bar Clear Creek Diggings Horsetown in California  Reading's Bar (the United States) | |
Reading's Bar is a historical site in Redding, California in Shasta County. Reading's Bar is a California Historical Landmark No. 32 listed on August 1, 1932.[1] Reading's Bar was named after Major Pierson Barton Reading, who discovered gold on the Clear Creek bar in May 1848, starting a California Gold Rush in the surrounding area. Later he found gold on a sandbar on the Trinity River that started the Trinity Alps Gold Rush.[2][3] Reading's gold discovery was a major part of the California Gold Rush and news of the find created a rush of gold prospecting in Northern California, well north of the better-known gold fields of the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Following the Reading's Bar gold discovery, a number of small mining towns grew up on and north of the Clear Creek including: Horsetown, Briggsville, Muletown, Lower Springs, Texas Springs, Middletown, Piety Hill, Igo, Larkin, Jackass Flat, Ono, Bald Hills, Janesville, and to the north Whiskeytown, Shasta, Tower House, and French Gulch.
- ^ "Reading's Bar #32". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved 2012-10-07.
- ^ "CHL # 32 Reading's Bar Shasta". www.californiahistoricallandmarks.com.
- ^ "Historical and Archaeological Investigations of the Horsetown Mining Complex, Shasta County, California." Gold and Lumber: Two Papers on Northern California History and Archaeology. BLM Redding Field Office, Bureau of Land Management, California, by Trudy Vaughan and Eric Ritter, 1992.