According to the Daily Mail, Belden—a historic gold-rush town in Plumas County, California—has recently been listed for sale at $4.75 million. The property includes a riverside lodge, a restaurant and bar, colorful cabins scattered among the trees, a natural swimming area, an old schoolhouse, and private frontage along the Feather River. A new owner would not only take over a historic town with a population of 15 but might also find “undiscovered gold hidden beneath their feet.”
Ivan Coffman, the 87-year-old owner who has held the town for 56 years, spent decades turning the place into his home. His connection to the land began during the gold-seeking days of the 1970s. “I was a concrete worker from Fresno; I had a week off work, so I decided to drive up along the Feather River.”
Upon arriving near Belden, he stopped where Yellow Creek flows into the Feather River and ventured upstream. To his surprise, he discovered scattered nuggets of gold—some the size of small stones—among the gravel of the creek bed. He estimates he found about 50 ounces of gold during that single week. At the time, gold was priced at around $35 per ounce; at today’s rate of approximately $4,400 per ounce, that haul would be worth about $220,000.
He called his business partner in Fresno to say he would be staying in Belden for a while—never imagining that “a while” would turn into a lifetime. Over the following decades, Coffman immersed himself in the world of gold. He became a jeweler, crafting various necklaces and rings from the gold he found, while continuing to prospect in the nearby mountains and rivers. He purchased Belden in 1989.
However, the passage of time has turned the town—once a bustling hub of the gold rush—into a place of history and memories. In its heyday, the canyon was home to over a thousand people, teeming with prospectors who flocked there with dreams of striking it rich. By 1989, this once-bustling mining town had fallen into decline.
The subsequent construction of a railway briefly injected new vitality into the area, drawing tourists to the Feather River for fishing and mountain sightseeing. However, the prosperity eventually faded; a series of dam projects transformed the river into a hydroelectric reservoir, and—compounded by dwindling fish populations and a struggling local economy—Belden’s future became increasingly uncertain.
In fact, before Kauffman took over, a fire in the 1970s had already destroyed most of the town’s buildings. It was only through Kauffman’s active reconstruction efforts that the town acquired its current collection of quirky, distinctive structures.
At the heart of the town stands the two-story Belden Town Resort lodge, overlooking the Feather River. Inside, the facility houses a restaurant, bar, retail shop, and guest rooms, all surrounded by an eclectic array of collectibles—including taxidermy, artwork, vintage slot machines, and a life-sized rooster statue. Outside, colorful cabins are scattered beneath the trees; with their murals and hand-painted signs, they give the town the atmosphere of a Western movie set. The site also features an old auto repair shop, a long-abandoned schoolhouse slowly being reclaimed by vegetation and parked RVs, and a telephone booth almost entirely covered in stickers.