Live as if it’s 1852 at Diggins Tent Town

If you find it difficult to get your kids to help with chores, they might get a little perspective by using a washboard and their muscles to do laundry in Diggins Tent Town.

But really, it’s just one of many fun hands-on and interactive aspects of the event going on through Sunday in Columbia that re-creates life during the Gold Rush in 1852.

You can churn butter, twist rope from twine, gamble, sip on a sarsaparilla, make candles, watch a blacksmith at work and, of course, pan for gold.

Some 150 volunteers make the event possible, all dressed in traditional garb and committed to educating visitors about the period by playing characters including a miner, doctor, phrenologist, proprietor and sheriff.

Troy Dunham of Novato has been volunteering for more than a decade and on Saturday transformed into the town’s only non-“quack” doctor, Dr. Baile.

He explained his methods of using mercury and bleeding techniques to treat just about any disease, the big ones being malaria and scurvy.

“Mercury is going to scour you out one end or the other,” he said. “We are going to purge people and bleed them for pretty much anything.”

He said his high-quality leeches from France help control the bleeding better than just using a knife.

“If a doctor cuts you and puts you in the bleeding bowl, he might not pay much attention to how much blood he takes because a doctor like me, we’re not really sure how much blood is in the human body,” Dunham said.

For the pain, the doctor had an assortment of opiates, including watered-down versions for children.

A competitor in a nearby tent, however, claimed he had a cure-all tonic.

Phrenologist F.B. Dodge said the tonic originally was developed to remedy cholera but he claimed it aids everything from digestion and “female troubles” to insect bites and hair growth.

A customer learned the latter when he tripped while holding a bottle of the tonic and hair grew on the floor where it spilled.

“People used it to wipe their feet,” he said.

Dodge, who says the F.B. stands for “Flat Broke,” is really Ken Knott, a Sacramento resident who’s been a Diggins Tent Town volunteer for 15 years.

Some volunteers refused to break character.

Sheriff R.W. Phillips, Esq., wouldn’t divulge his given name. The sheriff in this tent town is also the attorney and justice of the peace.

He held civil court on Saturday, one of the many performances throughout the day.

During the hearing he ruled in favor of a boardinghouse owner who said the cook she hired drove away patrons by making terrible food.

Other events include stagecoach deliveries, theater performances and a boxing match.

The annual event, in its 34th year, is set in 1852, two years after gold was discovered in the area.

All the same festivities continue Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Columbia State Park, 11255 Jackson St. in Columbia. Admission for adults is $5, $1 for children 12 and under.

This story was originally published May 30, 2015 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Live as if it’s 1852 at Diggins Tent Town."