At the top of Jackass Hill, west of Tuttletown, California sits a replica of the cabin where Mark Twain spent the winter of 1864-1865. He was a guest of the Gillis brothers, local miners, who lived in the cabin. The original cabin burned and the fireplace and chimney were built in the replica here.

During his stay at Jackass Hill, Twain and his friend Steve Gillis visited a saloon in Angels Camp and heard a story about a jumping frog. Twain returned to the cabin and wrote about “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The book launched Twain’s publishing career. He and the jumping frog would later be recognized throughout the world. He also gathered material here for his book “Roughing it.” Twain would go on to write another 26 books, including “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” before he died in April 1910.

Twain was an author, a humorist and his life was filled with adventures that fed his imagination for timeless storytelling. One of his more famous quotes is, "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

The Calavaras County Fair continues to hold their Jumping Frog Jubilee every third weekend in May.

The glory days of Jackass Hill were from 1851 to 1852 when the diggings were rich with coarse gold. A lucky miner worked a few hours a day to build his fortune. Some claims of 100 square feet yielded as much as $10,000.

Jackass Hill was named for the jackasses in the pack trains that rested on the hill overnight to and from the mines. As many as 200 animals performed a concert each evening and the area was named Jackass Hill to remember their evening songs during the boom days of the California Gold Rush.

The California Historical Marker is located 1 mile northwest of Tuttletown on Highway 49.

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