Glencoe, CA

Glencoe is an unincorporated Calaveras County community at about 2,749 feet in California’s Mother Lode country. It was once known as Mosquito and Mosquito Gulch, and later took the name Glencoe after the Scottish valley associated with the 1692 massacre. In the late nineteenth century, quartz mining dominated the local economy, with some placer mining as well. By 1899 Glencoe served as a trading center and post office for the area’s mines, while ranchers and farmers were settling into the surrounding hills.

ATTRHyperCar1 / CC BY-SA 4.0

Glencoe lies about nine miles east of Mokelumne Hill, along the upper Highway 26 communities where old mining roads became routes between small settlements. The mines are no longer the center of work, but their imprint remains in the steep roads, scattered buildings, and names carried through Calaveras County history. Glencoe’s later ranching and farming families added another layer to the mining camp, helping the community persist after the rush years passed. It is a small place, but the name, the gulch, the post office, and the old quartz workings all point to the same Mother Lode past.