The mining town of placerville sprung up in the year of 1848 after Indians had spread the rumor that men could almost make 100$ a day off of gold. Within about a week of the news thousands of people began to create a makeshift tent encampment and search for gold. Over time as more people came to the town building and houses were built and it became the third most popular town in the whole state of California. Placerville miners extracted the ore from the ground by using the open pit method, panning, and underground mines. Many of the mining was done by hand because the majority of people were not able to afford more than a pickaxe and shovel. Currently there is no longer mining in the town and has had little activity since the 1930’s. Overall the environmental damages of the gold mining was that people were carelessly mining in every single spot they could think of because it all had a chance to contain gold. Many river beds and terrain was unearthed in the hope of having the precious metal. Overall cleanup was minimal because as soon as people stopped finding gold in the town, it quickly became a ghost town and the population quickly dropped below nine thousand people. At the current point in time slot of the mining area had just been paved over to build roads and expand the housing.