Our story begins in 1862, with the passage of the original Homestead Act. To help develop the American West, Congress promised large acreages of land to anyone who agreed to live on and farm the land. The deal was simple- work the land for five years and you got title to the land.Five Murphy brothers took advantage of the deal and moved to California to build a better life for themselves and their future families. They chose Tuolumne County- acreage right on the border between the towns of Sonora and Jamestown. While we do not know exactly why they chose Tuolumne County, the discovery of gold in Sonora a decade before certainly played a big part in their decision. Indeed, even today Sonora is still known as the “Queen of the Southern Mines.”