The National Park Service recently placed the Wakamatsu Colony site on the National Register of Historic Places at a level of "National Significance."
In June of 1869, the Wakamatsu Colonists purchased approximately 200 acres, a farmhouse and farm outbuildings from Charles Graner who settled the Gold Hill Ranch in 1856. Once on the Colony site, the colonists quickly went to work planting mulberry trees, tea plants and other crops. The Wakamatsu colonists successfully displayed silk cocoons, tea and oil plants at the 1869 California State Agricultural Fair in Sacramento and at the 1870 Horticultural Fair in San Francisco.
This historic colony site was first settled by Japanese colonists from Aizu Wakamatsu (Fukushima Prefecture) in July 1869. To the best of our knowledge the Wakamatsu Colony site is the first Japanese colony in North America; contains the gravesite of Okei Ito, the first Japanese woman buried on American soil; is the birthplace of the first naturalized Japanese-American; and is the only settlement established by samurai outside of Japan.
In establishing this colony in western El Dorado County (40 miles east of Sacramento), the Wakamatsu Colonists were the first to introduce traditional Japanese horticulture to California including silk worm farming, the cultivation of tea, rice, citrus, peaches and other stone fruit varieties, paper and oil plants and bamboo products.
In addition, the ranch is an interesting mosaic of springs, streams, wetlands, blue and live oak forest, sweeping vistas and prime agricultural soil. Ranch ponds and the small lake are a draw for wildlife, particularly migratory waterfowl during the winter and early spring.