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This 1927 photograph shows Jenny Lind nestled among the rolling hills above the Calaveras River about 30 miles east of Lodi. (Photo courtesy of Ralph Lea)
How did Jenny Lind settlement get its name?
In 1849, Gold Rush miners formed a small settlement in the Calaveras County foothills about 30 miles east of where Lodi would later develop.
Like many pioneer towns, including Lodi, there is a good story and debate about how the community got its name Jenny Lind. Was it for a man named Lind and his noisy mule, or for a famous opera singer?
John Y. Lind founded the town on the Old Calaveras River Road which went from Stockton to the Calaveras County gold mines. This region was in the southern mines section of the Mother Lode, a narrow strip of gold-bearing deposits about a mile wide and some 150 miles long extending from Downieville in the north to Mariposa in the south. Lind's settlement became a stopping place along the route for freighters, mule pack trains and later for stage lines.
Originally, the town was known as Dry Diggin's. The river dried up from May to November, so there was no water to wash the gold from the gravel. But many areas in the Mother Lode were called dry diggin's for the same reason, so residents eventually came up with another name.
While miners were pulling gold out the Sierra streams, a very famous Swedish soprano opera singer came to America to perform. Known as the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind was one of the most highly regarded singers in the world during the 19th century. America's great promoter P.T. Barnum arranged for Lind to come to America, where she gave 93 hugely popular concerts from September 1850 to May 1852. Her fame spread throughout the country. People started naming places and objects after the beautiful and popular singer. Parks and streets in England, Scotland, Canada, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts were named Jenny Lind. Since she apparently slept in a bed with turned spindles, American beds and cribs with turned spindles were called Jenny Lind cots or cribs.
As the local story goes, John Lind owned a store in the Calaveras County settlement and made deliveries with pack mules. The animals were trudging up a very steep hill one day when one of Lind's mules started to bray loudly. The town joker reportedly commented, "Mr. Lind, the jenny (slang term for mule or female donkey) sounds like the noted singer."
And the name stuck even though the famed singer never traveled west of the Mississippi River. However, it was told that an imposter used her name and was paid a large fee to perform there.
In 1850, the town's population consisted of many Mexican and Chinese miners, and totaled more than 400. The next year, two brothers with the last name Orango built an adobe store. Next door, Louis Rosenberg built a stone and adobe building. The store opened with a stock of men's clothing. The business advertised that it carried "the correct attire for the miner or prospector."
In the summer of 1856, the town was surveyed and laid out with lots that were 60 feet wide and 100 feet long. All the town lots were sold on the first day.
Also that year, three canals were under construction. The canals were to bring water for irrigation, mining and household use.
At this time, Jenny Lind was a busy and promising town. It had four general merchandise stores, two billiard halls, two hotels, a blacksmith shop, saloons, a church and a schoolhouse.
However, the early Jenny Lind miners failed to amass great fortunes in gold. The gold in that region was very deep and difficult to reach. After the surface placer mines gave out, gold dredgers came along later to mine the gold. But the once bustling Jenny Lind still faded.
Although the town became a sleepy mostly residential settlement while Valley Springs prospered and grew six miles away, Jenny Lind still attracted a crowd to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
On June 6, 1949, more than 1,000 people attended the Jenny Lind Centennial Celebration. The Odd Fellows, Rebekahs and volunteer firemen sponsored the celebration.
Years later, folk singer Randy Sparks and his Back Porch Majority entertained people gathered to dedicate a gravestone honoring a Jenny Lind pioneer. Sparks' son Kevin, who was 13 at the time, delivered an impressive talk to commemorate Ah Lin, a Chinese immigrant who came to mine and lived to be 101 in Jenny Lind.
Today, Jenny Lind is a collection of homes scattered in the rolling terrain along Highway 26. Main Street is several hundred yards long and lined with small homes, a volunteer fire department building, an Odd Fellows building, and the adobe and brick shell of a livery and feed store. In front of the historic building remnant is a town historical marker erected by the Stockton parlor of the Native Daughters of the Golden West.
Vintage Lodi is a local history column that appears on the first and third Saturday of the month.
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