Then it was a busy, lively camp, and from its shelter have gone forth stalwart pioneers who were prominent in the activities of the valley towns. The town, at one time the county seat, glories not in its history of the present or the future, but in the history of the past. Nestling in the foothills of the Sierras lies the town of La Grange, from whence flow the waters that fertilized the vast valley below. The 1921 publication History of Stanislaus County details some of the town's early history (the rest of the text on this page is quoted from the book): Today La Grange is a town of a few hundred people, with a small collection of historic buildings from the mid-1800s. Some of the largest dredges ever built worked the ground in this area. It's population was diminished, but La Grange outlived most Gold Rush towns as a center of hydraulic mining, and later gold dredging. La Grange lost the county seat to Knights Ferry in 1860, an event which ended the great prosperity of the town. "Renamed La Grange, the new town prospered as a mining and agricultural community, and served as the county seat of Stanislaus County from 1856 to 1862" After the destructive floods of 1851-52, citizens of French Bar relocated one mile up stream above the flood plain." "French Settlers originally established the community of French Bar along the Tuolumne River in 1850. A historical sign at La Grange gives a brief history of the settlement:
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