Small cute town called “Julian”

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A cute and small town called “Julian” 

Well, this time, I would like to introduce a charming town in California called “Julian” 

 

Julian is surrounded by mountains.

 

By the way, where is Julian?  About 50 miles northeast of San Diego. 

 

 

The red point is Julian.

 

So you can easily stop at this place before you visit San Diego.

 

Julian is located in mixed pine-oak woodland at 4,235 feet above sea level. 

 

You can walk the town just a half of a day.

 

So it is a popular place as a mountain retreat, just an hour from San Diego by car.

 

In winter, especially January to March, snow falls an average of 6.7 inches and the lowest temperature

could get to 14 ⁰ F!

 

The history of Julian 

This town is famous for its gold rush.

 

Julian began as a mining camp when A. E. Fred Coleman found gold at Coleman Creek in 1869

after the civil war.

 

After that, Drue Bailey was a Confederate soldier who heard about the gold mine.  He then move he moved from Georgia to the Julian area.

 

He founded and established this small town and named it “Julian” after his cousin, Mike Julian.

 

Many people came to this town to get rich by mining gold.

 

By the summer of 1872, there were 50 houses, 3 hotels, 4 stores, 2 restaurants, and a schoolhouse.

 

Some buildings which built in the 1870’s are still standing today!

 

An old grocery store which built in the 1870’s is still open.

 

Numerous hard rock mines were established in 1879 in the Julian and Banner area. 

 

The miners took $4 to $5 million of gold during in the gold rush era, which would be worth $100 to $120 million today.

 

Unlike many other similar mining camps, Julian survived after those other mines ran out.

 

But Julian also had a unique climate, rich soil and proximity to San Diego.

 

So, in the early 1870’s, James Madison brought the first apple trees to Julian.

 

Feel nostalgic with these kinds of items on display in Julian stores.

 

The cold-winter climate matches the requirements for growing apples.

 

Julian apples won many blue ribbons at places like the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893,

the St.Louis Fair and the San Francisco World’s of 1915.  So they became popular.

 

The first Julian Apple celebration was held in 1949.

 

Continuing into the present, every October the town holds the Julian Apple Days Festival.

 

Many apple pie shops compete for the best taste 

Julian is famous for apples.

 

There are many signs like this.

 

So we could find several apple pie stores on the main street of Julian.

 

In October, 10,000 apple pies per week are baked in this small town! 

 

What a huge number 

 

I would like to introduce two popular apple pie stores.

 

① Mom’s Pie House

You can order apple pie and also sandwiches and other light items as a light meal.

 

In front of the store.

 

There are many kinds of apple pies in their showcase.

 

For example: simple apple pie, crumble apple pie and so on.

 

There are many choices! I could not make up my mind!

 

Warm up a little and order whip cream or vanilla ice cream with apple pie is the basic way to eat it.

 

It was so hard to choose, but I ended up deciding to order crumble apple pie with whip cream!

 

It was not too sweet and so tasty and the crumble was crispy!

 

One piece is so big.

 

So if you want to taste several pies to compare the taste, it is better to share with someone 

 

◆Address：２１１９ Main Street

◆Business hour：Sun～Fri ８：００～１７：００

          Sat ８：００～１７：００

 

The specific information is here  ↓     ↓     ↓

https://www.momspiesjulian.com/

 

② Julian Pie Company

This place is famous as well.

 

We went to this place at lunchtime, and many people were waiting on line!

 

The most popular place for apple pier in Julian.

 

This place has a small space to sit down and eat.  So most customers were take-out “to go”.

 

Apple pie, berry pie and so on!

 

Cider donuts and cookies!

You can order some toppings as well.

 

◆Address：２２２５Main Street

◆Business hour：９：００～１７：００

※Closed on Thanksgiving day and Christmas.

 

The specific information is here   ↓    ↓    ↓

https://www.julianpie.com/

 

We tasted both pies and they were really nice.

 

It is difficult to decide which is better, but if anything, I love Mom’s pie.

 

If you are planning to visit Julian, I will suggest that you should skip breakfast

and taste apple pies instead.

 

You can try to find your favorite apple pie!

 

But when you go there, you should arrive before lunchtime 

 

If you go after lunchtime, you will have to wait for a long time to get pie.

 

We waited for more than 40 minutes to buy some pies!

 

Join a mine tour and feel like it is the gold rush era 

Well, as I wrote that Julian was famous for gold mines.

 

There are places that used to be gold mines.

 

One of them called Eagle Mine Co. holds a mine tour so we joined it.

 

The entrance of the mine.

 

There are many old tools and machines which were used at that time.

 

And a guide explains how they blasted through the rock in dark and narrow tunnels and so on.

 

This is Eagle Mine Co. office. ($10 / person)

 

We can see some machines.

 

At first, guide demonstrated how to wash the sand and find gold. This is call “panning” for gold.

 

He told an interesting story with some jokes about mining.

 

It is hard to see, but I found gold at the bottom of the plate! (Inside blue circle）

 

Then we entered a narrow tunnel.

 

The entrance to the tunnel.

 

When we entered, we found that the ceiling is low.

 

My husband’s hight is about 6 feet, and he almost hit his head  

 

I wondered if a tall man used to work in the mines, it would be very hard.

 

Probably, they bent their body all the time!

 

The long perspective dark and narrow tunnel.

 

I was so surprised that they dug these tunnels about 400 feet depth 

 

The map of tunnels. Just like an ant’s nest.

 

A newspaper article about the owner of this property who opened this mine to the public.

 

We can see glistening gold as part of the rocks!

 

There used to be two different mines in this mountain. High Point Mines and Eagle Mine.

 

The High Point Mine produced more gold than Eagle mine. However, they dug tunnels from

both sides of the hill and then ended up meeting in the middle of the mountain.

 

But High Point Mine did not own stamp mill.

 

So they worked together to use this stamp mill.

 

These are stamp mills.

 

These big machines pulverized the stones and then separated out the particles of gold.

 

At the peak period, these machines were tremendously noisy for the whole day.

 

This mine was operational from 1870 to 1934, and it took about $100,000 dollars of gold out

of this mountain.

 

This would be a few million dollars in today’s money!

 

What a huge money!

 

I think many people who had big dreams to make a fortune came to Julian.

 

◆Eagle Mining Co. Tour

◆Address : 2320 C St. Julian, CA 92036

◆Business hour: Mon – Fri  10:00 – 16:00, Sat-Sun 10:00- 17:00

◆Price: Adults -$ 10, Kids Age 5-13 $ 5, Children Age 4 Younger $1 

 

The information of the mine tour is here  ↓   ↓   ↓

http://www.theeaglemining.com/

 

A small and comfortable hotel called “Orchard Hill Country Inn” 

This time we stayed at  “Orchard Hill Country Inn” in Julian.

 

The entrance to the hotel.

 

I love this hotel and this place made me relaxed and satisfied.

 

There are just 22 rooms.

 

An somewhat old structure, but very well maintained.  It was a comfortable place and most of the guests were over 60.

 

The lounge from the entrance.

 

Our room was so compact and cute.  Just like a mountainside cottage.

 

Our cute room.

 

Another room was coordinated in white.

 

Although the atmosphere was comfortable, dinner and breakfast were wonderful.

 

They serve dinner only on Friday, so we stayed on Friday night.

 

 

This is a menu for the dinner. We could choose the main course when we checked in.

 

Actually, I did not have high expectations for this hotel.  But the food was so nice, the service was friendly

and also the owners were very cordial.

 

Comfortable dining. We enjoyed the dinner and conversation with the staff and the owner.

 

Breakfast was really nice!

 

Especially the fluffy scrambled egg with cheese, the homemade Strudel were all so tasty!

 

Fluffy scrambled egg and Strudel.

 

Information about “Orchard Hill Country Inn” is here   ↓   ↓   ↓

https://www.orchardhill.com/

 

Well, I wrote about a small town of Julian which we can stopped by on the way to San Diego.

 

I think that you can enjoy Julian in one day which is enough time.

 

Why don’t you visit Julian when you go to San Diego and feel the good old days with eating

tasty apple pie!

 

Thank you for reading my blog today as well!

 

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