Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony Farm

On November 1, 2010, the American River Conservancy (ARC) purchased the Gold Hill Ranch, site of the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Colony, a mile south of Coloma and the Marshall Gold State Historic Park.   View a map of the location at 941 Cold Springs Road, Placerville.

This ranch was settled by Japanese colonists from Aizu Wakamatsu (Fukushima Prefecture) in July 1869, and is to the best of our knowledge the first Japanese colony in North America.  It also contains the gravesite of Okei Ito, the first Japanese woman buried on American soil.   It is the birthplace of the first naturalized Japanese-American, and is the only settlement established by samurai outside of Japan.

“America derives its strength and its character from the diversity of its people”, states ARC Director Alan Ehrgott. “The Wakamatsu Colonists were the last of the Tokugawa samurai defeated in the Boshin civil war of 1868-69. They also became the first, the vanguard of Japanese emigrants to arrive in California as skilled workers that advanced American agriculture, medicine, engineering, and other fields. The Wakamatsu Colony story is every bit as compelling as the story of Jamestown or the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock.”

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.

The National Park Service recently placed the Wakamatsu Colony site on the National Register of Historic Places at a level of “National Significance.” The vision of ARC and its project partners is to create a public park at the Wakamatsu Colony site that protects Okei’s gravesite, establishes a memorial garden, creates trails and a house museum within the historic farmhouse, and develops a demonstration and production farm that displays the valuable contributions that Japanese Americans have made to California agriculture and to the United States as a nation of diverse peoples. 

What you can do

Attend the Wakamatsu Colony Festival May 19

Explore the history of the site

Schedule a tour

Become a docent

Help with restoration

Raise funds

Thank the project partners

Download a site map

Envision the future park