Caldor, California facts for kids

Caldor (once called Dogtown) was a special kind of town in El Dorado County, California. It was a "company town," meaning one company owned and ran everything there. This company was called the California Door Company. Caldor was connected to another town, Diamond Springs, by a railway line.

Where Was Caldor?

Caldor was located in southern El Dorado County, California. It was about 5 miles (8 km) southeast of a town called Grizzly Flats. The town was built in a narrow valley, near where two creeks, Dogtown Creek and McKinney Creek, met. It sat quite high up, about 4,400 feet (1,341 meters) above sea level.

Caldor's Story: From Dogtown to a Lumber Town

The Early Days: Dogtown and the Gold Rush

Long ago, during the exciting time of the California Gold Rush, a small settlement called Dogtown was started. People built a sawmill there to cut wood. A newspaper from that time, the Mountain Democrat, even mentioned a man named Jake Schneider who moved to Dogtown to open a butcher shop.

The California Door Company Arrives

Around 1900, many years after Dogtown was left empty, the California Door Company bought a huge area of forest land. This land included the old Dogtown site. The company decided to build a new town there to house all the workers they needed for their new, much bigger sawmill.

The company directors didn't like the name "Dogtown." They thought it sounded bad for their business. So, they renamed the town Caldor. This name came from their company name: California Door Company.

Building the Railway and Growing the Town

In 1904, the company built a railway line from Caldor all the way to Diamond Springs. This railway was very important for moving wood. Hundreds of men worked in Caldor, and they produced a lot of lumber – about 20 million board-feet each year! By 1906, about 120 men and their families lived in Caldor.

The End of Caldor

In 1923, the sawmill in Caldor burned down. The company decided not to rebuild it. Instead, they started transporting the logs by railway to their mill in Diamond Springs, which was about 30 miles (48 km) away.

By the 1950s, the railway wasn't used much anymore because trucks became a better way to move logs. So, in 1953, the railway tracks were removed. Around the same time, the California Door Company was running out of trees to cut near Caldor. This meant the town's purpose was ending. To keep their Diamond Springs mill busy, the company even started bringing in mahogany logs from the Philippines, which was 8,000 miles (12,875 km) across the Pacific Ocean!

Eventually, Caldor faded away as the lumber business moved on.