There is still gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, at the California State Mining and Mineral Museum, in historic Mariposa. This is where explorers John C. Fremont and Kit Carson found the rich Mariposa Vein and opened the first mill to crush ore and extract gold in California. Visitors can discover for themselves California's mineral wealth, colorful history, and geologic diversity as they view the official mineral collection of the state of California. The collection, which began in 1880, contains over 13,000 objects including mining artifacts, rare specimens of crystalline gold in its many forms, as well as beautiful gem and mineral specimens from California and around the world. The museum displays the Fricot "Nugget," a rare specimen of crystallized gold discovered in the American River in 1864. This 13.8-pound specimen is the largest remaining intact mass of crystalline gold from 19th-century California, when these finds were more common but usually were simply melted down. Visitors can also take a trip back in time as they walk through a mine tunnel and see how gold was mined in the mid-1800s, when California was a wilderness, being transformed by rapid development. The museum's assay office and working scale model of a stamp mill will help visitors discover how gold was found and extracted from the rocks.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, and educational and recreational events.

Before European settlement, Native Americans planted their crops of corn and beans on Conanicut Island overlooking Narragansett Bay. In 1789, Job Watson purchased a piece of this rich farmland, and for the next two centuries, five successive generations of the Watson family cultivated the land, changing their crops and practices as needed to adapt to the evolving market. Today, the property is still a working family farm. The farmers raise cattle and sheep for beef, lamb, and wool markets; grow acres of grass for winter hay supplies; make compost for fertilizer; and cultivate a large vegetable garden. The 1796 house, still used as the farmers' residence, is not open to the public. Visitors are welcome to explore the farmland on their own, following a self-guided walking tour. Educational programs and group tours are available by appointment.

The farm offers tours and educational programs.

The historic Lyman Estate Greenhouses, dating back to 1804, are among the oldest examples still in existence in the United States.

The greenhouses offer tours.

At the end of the 19th century, railroads opened the Berkshires, which soon became a summer destination for wealthy New Yorkers. This 1825 brick structure, which dates from the late Federal period, was purchased by William and Elizabeth Doane as a summer home in 1875. Around 1900, the Doanes doubled its size by adding a shingle-style ell and remodeled the interior of the main house. They decorated the house in an eclectic manner with European and American furnishings, much of which they collected during their extensive travels. The house was preserved by the Doanes' daughter, Vipont Merwin, who added her own memorabilia to the decorative scheme.

The house offers tours.

Cogswell's Grant was the summer home of Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little, preeminent collectors of American decorative arts in the mid 20th century. Through her research and innumerable publications, Mrs. Little charted new areas of American folk art (which she preferred to call "country arts"), such as decorative painting, floor coverings, boxes, and New England pottery. In 1937, the Littles purchased this 18th-century farmhouse overlooking the Essex River as a family retreat and place to entertain. They restored it carefully, trying to preserve original 18th-century finishes and carefully documenting their work. In more than 50 years of collecting, they sought works of strong, even quirky character, and in particular favored objects with their original finishes and New England histories. They decorated the house for visual delight rather than historic accuracy. The result is rich in atmosphere and crowded with collections of things—primitive paintings, redware, painted furniture, stacked Shaker boxes, weather vanes, and decoys—that have since come to define the country look.

The house offers tours.

Built on the top of a hill overlooking the Sheepscot River, Castle Tucker presents a vivid record of Wiscasset history. Judge Silas Lee built this Federal-style mansion at the peak of prosperity, when the town was the busiest port east of Boston. Lee's death in 1814, combined with the stunning effect of the Jefferson Embargo, forced his widow to sell. The house passed through a succession of hands until 1858, when Captain Richard Tucker, scion of a Wiscasset shipping family, bought the property, updated the interiors, and added a dramatic two-story porch to the front. Shortly after, he brought a shipload of fashionable furnishings from Boston and moved in with his young bride. The couple raised five children here, while Captain Tucker oversaw various business ventures including the wharves and iron foundry just below the house. In 1871, however, his fortunes collapsed. Renovations and lighthearted family entertainments gave way to subsistence farming and taking in paying guests. After Tucker's death, his daughter Jane returned from New York, bringing with her a passion for Japanese and exotic decoration. Fortunately, she, and later her niece, took an avid interest in preserving the house and contents, making few changes to the decorating schemes. Their dedication preserved Castle Tucker much as it appeared in the late 19th century.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

In 1796, young Daniel Marrett, a recent Harvard graduate, moved to Standish to become the town parson. The grand house he purchased reflected his status as the community's leading citizen. Over the years, his children and grandchildren enlarged and updated the house, but left unchanged many furnishings and interior arrangements as relics of the past. They preserved the southwest parlor exactly as it had appeared on the occasion of a family wedding in 1847. In 1889, the family celebrated the house's centennial by refurbishing several of the rooms with reproduction heirloom wallpapers and bed hangings. Today, the visitor can see the layering of eras and tastes that occurs when a family resides in one house for three generations. The Marrett sisters' extensive perennial garden, which they laid out in the 1920s and 1930s, has been restored.

The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

Roseland Cottage depicts the summer life of a prosperous family in mid 19th-century America. Built in 1846 in the newly fashionable Gothic Revival style, the house provided a seasonal escape from a more formal city existence for Henry Chandler Bowen and his family. Bowen, a Woodstock native, made his fortune in New York and became an active abolitionist, Congregationalist, and Republican.

The cottage offers tours and educational and recreational programs.

A man of great energy and many talents, Eric Sloane (1905&150;1985) was a prolific artist, author, and illustrator and an avid collector of Americana. His extensive collection of hand tools is displayed in a building gifted to the State by the Connecticut-based Stanley Works to mark the company's 125th anniversary. The collection reveals an American heritage of craftsmanship. Adjacent to the museum, Sloane himself built a pioneer cabin as described by Noah Blake in Diary of An Early American Boy, an 1805 diary published by Sloane. The Kent Iron Furnace, which is on the museum property, began production of pig iron in 1826 and continued for almost 70 years. The remains of the granite blast furnace with its Gothic arches can be seen just below the museum.

The museum offers exhibits, tours, and educational and recreational programs.

"Before the turn of the twentieth century, settlers began to flock to the beautiful Sacramento Mountains, encroaching on the Mescalero Apaches who already made their homes in the cool timbers. Some came looking for a better country for permanent settlement. Others were interested in harvesting timber to build a railroad from El Paso to points north. Still others came on holiday, finding respite in the cool breezes and mild temperatures of what the Apaches once termed as Pisacah, 'a place of plenty.'

Come visit the Sacramento Mountains Museum & Pioneer Village and learn the fascinating story of these resilient peoples as they struggled against the elements and against one another to tame the environs and claim a portion of it as their own."