Community Overview

Community Overview

 Mariposa -  It was just over 200 years ago when the Spanish explorer, Gabriel Moraga camped along a creek in the Sierra Nevada foothills that was painted a golden glow by the thousands of yellow butterflies in flight above it and gave the name Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly) to the creek.

 It would be 43 years later with a golden discovery of a different sort in 1849 that would bring American settlers to this land of the Southern Miwok Indians, and the Mariposa that we know today came into existence.

 The first American owner of Mariposa Real Estate was General John C. Fremont who owned a Spanish land grant that stretched from the Merced River to the San Joaquin River, a distance of 70 miles. The streets of Mariposa to this day bear the names of him and his family members, as does the local hospital.

 The Mariposa County Court House is the oldest continuously operating Court House west of the Mississippi River. In the 1850's California residents from as far away as Stockton in the north and the San Fernando Valley to the south were required to make the arduous journey to Mariposa to tend to their legal necessities, as the original Mariposa County encompassed that vast territory, which was over 1/4th of the entire State of California.

 In these days, however; for a sense of community and small town atmosphere, one would be hard-pressed to find a community as unique anywhere else in the Golden State of California.

 Whether it's visiting Mariposa's historic downtown, with many buildings dating from the town's Gold Rush origins, or passing through on your way to visit the grandeur of Yosemite, Mariposa is described by it's residents with the motto, "Mariposa; above the fog, below the snow .... and delightfully behind the times".

 Should it be for a vacation home, a place to spend your retirement years, or to just start life anew, Mariposa offers a way of life, that many thought had disappeared ages ago, and in it's own amicable way, makes all those who pass through it's portals feel warm and welcome.

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