The Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission, about 50 years old, preserves and promotes local history by designating over 200 landmarks and promoting them via its website, Facebook, an interactive map, and Exploring Nevada County, with plans to highlight five sites to illustrate why history matters. Bridgeport Bridge in Nevada County, built in 1862 by David Carter Wood, is the world’s longest single-span wood-covered bridge and has secured more than $4 million for restoration. Shelley Covert of the Nevada City Rancheria (and CHERP) discusses Nissanan culture; a Nissanan leader describes a healing rock landmark and notes six Truckee sites, including an 1875 jail museum and a memorial garden with an arch from the Masonic Hall. The memorial garden arch comes from the Masonic Hall and features locals such as Charlie Jacobs, a sixth-generation Nevadan who attended Mount St. Mary’s College, which began as a Grass Valley orphanage in the 1860s for mine-accident children. David Galino of the North Star Mining Museum emphasizes local history, sharing his grandfather’s drilling photo from around 1920 and urging people to seek landmarks and hear the voices they preserve.

Full Transcript of the Video:

If you live in Nevada County, you've probably spent time at Bridgeport Bridge.

Built in
1862 by David Carter Wood, it's the longest single-span wood-covered bridge in the world.

And recently, the state approved over $4 million in funding to allow it to be restored and
preserved for future generations.

I'm Fran Cole, and I'm a commissioner on the Nevada
County Historical Landmarks Commission.

Landmarks are remnants of our history, but also connections
to our future.

They remind us of where we've come from, but also promote respect for those
who live in different times.

The word landmark comes from the old English landmark, which
means an object which, by its conspicuousness, serves as a guide in the direction of one's
course.

There are over 200 landmarks recognized in Nevada County, each with its own story
to tell.

Let's look at five of them to learn why recognizing history matters.

The Historical Landmarks Commission was created by the Nevada County Board of Supervisors
about 50 years ago.

Our purpose in a nutshell is to preserve and promote Nevada County's
history.

You can learn more about us, including the process for registering a landmark by
visiting our website at nevadacountylandmarks.

com.

We do principally two things.

We make recommendations
to the Board of Supervisors on applications seeking designation of historic properties
as landmarks.

And we promote the County's landmarks by our website, our Facebook page,
our interactive map, and through our publication, Exploring Nevada County.

Hi, I'm Shelley Covert, and I'm the spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria.

I'm a resident
tribe.

I also sit on the Tribal Council and am the executive director of the California
Heritage Indigenous Research Project, or CHERP, which is our newly formed 501C3 non-profit
that serves to preserve, promote, and perpetuate the Nissanan culture.

Have you ever driven by and wondered about this rock? This is a Nissanan healing rock,
and it was memorialized by the Historical Landmarks Commission as a historic landmark.

So next time you come by, think about the Nissanan people who were here before the Gold Rush.

We steward six different sites, historical sites here in Truckee, and this happens to
be the biggest piece that we have.

It has the old jail museum built in 1875, and it
was open until 1964, the most longest continuously operating jail of its style in the state of
California, and this is our memorial garden.

It is a place for people to come and reflect,
and we built the garden behind it, and the arch is from the Masonic Hall.

My name is Charlie Jacobs.

I'm a sixth generation Nevada County native.

At one time, I attended
this school, Mount St.

Mary's, the oldest continually operating high school west of
the Mississippi until 1968 when they closed it, and I was fortunate enough to be in the
very last class.

Mount St.

Mary's got its origins not as a school, but as an orphanage.

In 1864 or so, Father Dalton showed up in Grass Valley and began an orphanage to take
care of the children that were abandoned when their parents would die, their fathers
would die in the mines.

There were a lot of mine accidents, and there was no place for
the children to go, so they took them in here and started an orphanage.

Good morning.

I'm David Galino.

We're here at the North Star Mining Museum.

I'm a third
generation Grass Valley resident on both sides.

There's a picture of my granddad with a rock
drill upstairs here, drilling in the North Star, somewhere around 1920.

Well, history
is important to me.

To me, it's our roots, and people should know where you're at, where
you came from.

Not everybody's interested in it, but I am fascinated by it, and it has
a draw.

It has a magnetic pull that pulls you.

You want to see where you're at, you
know?
Now that you know a little bit more about landmarks, I hope you take the time to seek
them out and hear the voices that they represent.