History

China Walls
This area is full of what we've learned to call "China Walls", although scholars and amateur archaeologists have been puzzled by the walls' origins for over a century, due in large part to their apparent lack of purpose. The modest height would seem to rule out their function as fortifications, and the rambling start-and-stop patterns render them useless as corrals or containment fences.

So who built these walls and for what purpose? In 1904, Dr. John Fryer, professor of Oriental languages at UC Berkeley, declared: "This is undoubtedly the work of Mongolians... the Chinese would naturally wall themselves in, as they do in all their towns in China.

The popular and long-held notion that the walls were built by wandering visitors from Asia is not entirely without historical basis. In 1761, the noted French sinologist Deguignes returned to the West with accounts of a fifth century voyage by a group of Chinese Buddhist monks who claimed to have visited a distant land which they called Fusang. Some historians have interpreted descriptions of the voyage to support the idea that Fusang may have been California, though most agree it was more likely present-day Mexico.

There is a less far-fetched possibility that the walls were built using cheap and abundant Chinese labor left in California at the end of the Gold Rush although no direct evidence supports this view.

A turn-of-the-century ethnologist, Dr. Henry C. Meyers, PhD believed the walls were: "...Undoubtedly erected centuries ago...[could these be the work of the Aztecs? Or perhaps this is where the legendary tale of El Dorado was born.] Neither man nor men of the present day could possibly put the large stones of these walls in place without appliances of some kind."

Dr. Robert F. Fisher, the former president of the Mission Peake Heritage Foundation (there are many more such walls in the Bay Area) stated: "These walls are just enigmas. They predate the Indians. They predate the Spaniards. It doesn't fit in with any of the later history."




The Miwok & Miadu Indians
The indigenous people to this region were the Miwok & Maidu Indian tribes who split the southwestern portion of what is now El Dorado County. The Maidu tribe had vast territories to the north, while the Miwok were south with a small band along the coast. Both of these tribes were hunter gatherers. The grinding rock shown was probably used to grind the acorns from the oak trees. They would grind flour and eat it raw as a paste, they used it in soups and other dishes. Because it kept throughout the year, it was an essential part of the Indian diet


Exploration
When Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to sight the region that is present-day California in 1542, there were about 130,000 Native Americans inhabiting the area. The territory was neglected by Spain for more than two decades (until 1769) because of reports of the region’s poverty and a general slowdown of Spanish exploration. The merchant Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed from Mexico to the southern California coast in 1602, naming San Diego, Santa Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, and Monterey. Working with inaccurate maps, Vizcaíno and several later explorers believed that California was an island and were discouraged when they were unable to chart its surrounding seas.

Settlement
Pressure for settlement came from missionaries eager to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, from the intrusion of Russian and British traders, primarily in search of sea otter pelts, and from the quest for the Northwest Passage across the North American continent. In 1769 the Spanish viceroy dispatched land and sea expeditions from Baja California, and the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra established the first mission at San Diego. Gaspar de Portolá set up a military outpost in 1770 at Monterey. Colonization began after 1773 with the opening of an overland supply route across the southwestern deserts that was intended to link other Spanish settlements in what are the present-day states of Arizona and New Mexico to the coast.
The 21 missions established by Serra and his successors were the strongest factors in developing California. While attempting to Christianize the Mission Indians, the padres taught them farming and crafts. With the forced labour of the Mission Indians, the padres irrigated vast ranches and traded hides, tallow, wine, brandy, olive oil, grain, and leatherwork for the manufactured goods brought by Yankee trading vessels around Cape Horn.



U.S. colonization and acquisition
Secularization of the missions was sought by Spanish Mexican settlers known as Californios when Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821. Between 1833 and 1840 the mission ranches were parceled out to political favourites by the Mexican government. The padres withdrew, and the Native Americans were cruelly exploited and diminished. In 1841 the first wagon train of settlers left Missouri for California. The colony grew slowly, but in 1846 the Northwest became a part of the United States, and settlers at Sonoma proclaimed an independent California republic during the Bear Flag Revolt. In May the United States declared war on Mexico, and in July the U.S. flag was raised at Monterey. Minor skirmishes occurred before the Californios surrendered to troops under John C. Frémont near Los Angeles in January 1847. Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding to the United States a vast area of the Southwest that included all of present-day California. For the area of El Dorado Hills there were no Spanish or Mexican land grants.


The Gold Rush
Early in 1848 James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, picked up nuggets of gold from the American River at the site of a sawmill (John Sutter’s Mill) he was building near Coloma. (This discovery occurred just nine days before the end of the Mexican-American War.) By August the hillsides above the river were strewn with the tents and wood huts of the first 4,000 gold miners. From the East, prospectors sailed around Cape Horn or risked disease hiking across the Isthmus of Panama. The hardiest took the 2,000-mile (3,220-km) overland route, on which cholera proved a far greater killer than the Native Americans. About 40,000 people arrived at San Francisco by boat in 1849. Some 6,000 wagons, carrying about 40,000 more fortune seekers, moved west that year over the California Trail. Few of the prospectors struck it rich. The work was hard, prices were high, and living conditions were primitive. The wiser immigrants became farmers and storekeepers.
The Gold Rush hastened statehood in 1850 (as a part of the Compromise of 1850); and, though the Gold Rush peaked in 1852, the momentum of settlement did not subside. Nearly $2 billion in gold was extracted from the earth before mining became virtually dormant.



The Modern history
The modern history of El Dorado Hills dates back to the early 1960s when original developer Alan Lindsey began its development as a master planned community. The original master plan, prepared by architect Victory Gruen, covered the area generally north of U.S. Highway 50, and part of the area south of US 50 now considered to be part of the community. El Dorado Hills was envisioned as a large-scale master-planned community that would be completely planned from its inception as a group of residential "villages". Other land uses in the master plan included a business park, two 18-hole golf courses, community parks, schools, a community shopping center, and small commercial centers in each village. The master plan emphasized open space between villages and opportunity for outdoor recreation.
Between the late '60s and mid-1990s growth occurred at a moderate pace as new families relocated from Sacramento, Southern California and the Bay Area. This growth consisted primarily of residential housing, as retail developments were limited to two shopping centers on the corners Green Valley & Francisco and El Dorado Hills Blvd. & Hwy. 50. Each neighborhood created during this time period was given a name and referred to as a "village" by the local inhabitants. The original villages of El Dorado Hills include Park Village, Ridgeview, Saint Andrews, Crown, Governor's Village, Marina Village and Lake Hills Estates. In the 1980s and 1990s the major part of Lake Hills Estates was reorganized into Lake Forest Village, containing the neighborhoods of Waterford, The Summit, Green Valley Hills, Winterhaven, Marina Woods and Windsor Point. Additional villages that have developed subsequently include Fairchild, Sterlingshire, Highland Hills, Highland View and the master-planned community of Serrano.
By the 1990 census, El Dorado Hills had an estimated population of 6,395 residents. Growth slowed during the early part of the 90's due to an economic recession throughout California, but resumed at a staggering pace by the mid 1990s. Businesses, particularly those interested in escaping the high costs of Silicon Valley began to set up operations in the El Dorado Hills Business Park south of Highway 50. In 1995, the Parker Development Company acquired 3,500 acres (14 km2) along the eastern boundary of El Dorado Hills to create Serrano, one of the largest master planned communities in Northern California. Serrano was the site of an innovative case of recycled water irrigation on a large scale.