Category Archives: Grass Valley

Popular Grass Valley Car Show is this Saturday (video, photos)

April 26th, 2013
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Community, Events & Happenings, Grass Valley

Attend the annual downtown Grass Valley Car Show on Saturday — now in its 28th year. A spectacular and vast variety of pre-1972 classics, hot rods, customs, rat rods, domestics, imports and one-of-a-kind vehicles will be on display on Mill and Main Streets in downtown Grass Valley on Saturday, April 27.

Speak with the owners of these classic automobiles and learn first hand the history behind the car. Come on in and visit our downtown merchants who will be open for your shopping convenience.

Many restaurants will be providing varied menus, or stop by the “pit stop” (located in the City Hall parking lot at So. Auburn and Main Streets) for some delectable treats and sweets to eat.

Enjoy some of our car related vendors faire — from hats, sunglasses and tees to rims and tires. The show will be held 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

A PHOTO GALLERY is here.

(photo credit: Kial James)

Gold Rush going strong in Grass Valley, Nevada City

April 24th, 2013
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Arts & Culture, Events & Happenings, Food & Wine, Grass Valley, History, Locals In The News, Nevada City, Recreation, Restaurants, Shopping

KTXL Fox40 News in Sacramento broadcast from Nevada City and Grass Valley on Tuesday night, focusing on the area’s gold-rush heritage, historic downtowns, gold panning activities and other attributes.

The “On the Road” feature included information about the area’s history — Nevada City got its name before Nevada’s statehood, and Grass Valley was originally called Centerville.

It also included a feature on the Empire Mine and a visit with a longtime local gold jeweler, who was once the mayor of Nevada City.

Stefanie Cruz and Eric Harryman talked to Patrick Dyer, a former mayor of Nevada City, who makes jewelry by hand at Utopian Stone.

The show also featured the historic National Hotel and Holbrooke Hotel, two of the oldest hotels in the west.

The newscast discussed notable residents, including J. Christopher Stevens, the assassinated U.S. Ambassador to Libya; Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier; and others. Famous beat poet Gary Snyder lives in Nevada City.

The videocast “Gold Rush Going Strong in Grass Valley, Nevada City” is here.

The segment about former Nevada City Mayor Dyer in the hand-made jewelry business is here. Watch them both!

For more about gold, gold panning, gold history and historic gold photos, visit here.

(historic photo: Nevada County Historical Society)

Top ten places to take your grandparents in Grass Valley (video)

April 23rd, 2013
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Community, Grass Valley

Grass Valley Charter School Kindergarten classes released a public service announcement that shares the “Top Ten Places to Take Your Grandparents in Grass Valley.” The PSA highlights local business and attractions and promotes the City of Grass Valley as a great place to visit with your grandparents.

A special viewing is scheduled for Friday, April 26 from 11am – noon at Grass Valley Charter School Multipurpose Room, located at 225 South Auburn Street.

Kindergarteners will be presenting the PSA to Dan Miller, Mayor of the City of Grass Valley and to Keith Davies, CEO of the Greater Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce.

The service project was developed and produced by two kindergarten classes with the help of teachers, Chelsea Sullivan and Holly Davatz, along with the generous support of TouchDown Productions and director Gilbert Dominguez.

The PSA is a culminating project for an Expeditionary Learning unit in Social Studies, focusing on family, transportation and the community. The integrated curriculum took Kindergarten students outside the classroom to learn about video production, local businesses, and service to the community.

(credit: Grass Valley Charter School)

Visit Rollins Lake (video)

April 20th, 2013
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Grass Valley, Recreation

Rollins Lake is at an elevation of 2,100 feet in the Gold Country of the Western Sierra near Grass Valley, California. The lake has a surface area of 900 acres, with 26 miles of shoreline. This is a great lake for sailing and water-skiing with many coves and long stretches of open water. Fishing is good from boat or shore to reel in a wide variety of trout. Campgrounds are also available.

2013 Nevada County Farm Guide is out

April 19th, 2013
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Community, Food & Wine, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Penn Valley, Shopping, Truckee

Nevada County Grown is pleased to bring you the Farm Guide each year.  The Farm Guide is the “go-to” publication for finding local agricultural products.  It is available in several formats:

• The printed Farm Guide is distributed widely, in stores, chambers of commerce, etc., and it is included in an issue of The Union newspaper shortly after printing each year (generally in April).  Approximately 25,000 copies are printed and distributed each year.

• It is available to view or download. Click here.

• There is an iPhone Farm Guide iApp available in the App Store for download to your iPhone.

This is your mobile guide to local food in Nevada County. It’s the easy way to find  local, farm-fresh foods and other farm products. Covers 12 areas around Nevada  City and Grass Valley with maps of local farms and farm outlets.

The guide shows  you the local sources for more than two dozen product categories from Alpacas  and Beef to Wine and Wool. Look up farms by name, product or area. Like to shop  at farm stands or farmers markets? They are all in the Farm Guide. Everything you  need to know about local Nevada County farms, their products, and their outlets  is in the Farm Guide

—Nevada County Grown

Nevada County: Cultural center of the foothills

April 4th, 2013
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Arts & Culture, Grass Valley, Nevada City

By Ron Spiller
President of the Nevada Theatre Commission

In Chicago, we had a rather disparaging joke about our neighboring city of Gary, Ind.

The joke went: “What’s the difference between Gary and yogurt?” The answer was: “Yogurt’s got a culture!”

Thanks to Julie Baker, Ken Hardin, Mike Getz and a host of local theater companies, that joke cannot be told about the Grass Valley/Nevada City community.

Consider our St. Patrick’s weekend: On Friday, stand-up comedy at the Veteran’s Memorial Building, Saturday morning, Grand Opera simulcast at the Del Oro, Saturday evening the wit and wisdom of Shakespeare at the Nevada Theatre, Sunday a classical piano concert at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the afternoon and a classic movie at the theater that evening!

All of these offerings to our community are possible because of the entrepreneurial efforts and artistic abilities of the above mentioned and countless others who consistently take the risks of producing musical and theatrical stagings for the entertainment and enlightenment of the citizens of Nevada County … and far beyond.

Thanks also to the members of our community who regularly support these offerings and make it possible for the entrepreneurs to continue with their artistic offerings. The crossover audiences of the various productions are gratifying to see. Many of the same people who attended the Willie Nelson show at the fairgrounds last fall also were at the Nevada Theatre to see “Music Man,” “Our Town” and “Miracle on 34th Street” last year.

Last weekend, I saw many of those same faces at the Dana Carvey show, and the Ang Li piano concert. The appetite for quality entertainment is comprehensive in “our town.”

We are truly fortunate to live in a community that offers such a diversity of opportunities for personal enrichment. In addition to the few mentioned above, we also have our wonderful “Music in the Mountains” musical presentations and a wealth of local talent regularly performing in restaurant and cabaret settings.

We also have a local FM radio station, KVMR, that broadcasts a panoramic selection of music, news and educational airings 24/7 … KVMR’s range extends from Elk Grove to Truckee, and many of the people who come up to Grass Valley and Nevada City hear about our programs and their own towns on that station.

Now KVMR and The Nevada Theatre are embarking on a project that will further enhance and upgrade our cultural infrastructure. Beginning in April, construction will begin on a new 8,000-square-foot building that will enlarge the theater and provide a much-needed home for the radio station.

This is an ambitious project, but one that will afford the community expanded and improved facilities for artistic and civic outreach, including a venue and an opportunity for live broadcasting from the theater … Imagine a “Prairie Home Companion” -type program, employing local talent, performed on the stage of the Nevada Theatre and aired out to a 50-plus mile radius!

The historic Nevada Theatre will celebrate its 150th birthday in 2015, and our goal is to have the new building up and operable in time for that milestone event.

Of course, the continued support of our friends in the community is essential to the success of such an undertaking, but the popularity of our ongoing entertainment schedule substantiates our confidence that this bold investment in the future of Nevada County will receive that same level of enthusiastic support. Certainly it will only enhance our already well-deserved reputation of being the cultural center of the foothills.

(photo credit: Kial James and SierraCulture.com)

Popular county concert band gears up for opener in May (video, photos)

April 4th, 2013
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Community, Events & Happenings, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Penn Valley, Rough and Ready

The Nevada County Concert Band is a direct descendant of the many local concert bands of the 1900s, which played for socials, county fairs, patriotic celebrations, and Sunday afternoon concerts. In the early 1920s, many of the local groups were consolidated into the Grass Valley Concert Band through the efforts of Harold J. George, a renowned cornet player and musical director.

In the early 1970s, a group of musicians started forming the current band to carry on the traditions of the earlier pioneer organizations. One idea fed another and the group grew over time into a full-sized concert band culminating in the present pool of some 70 member musicians. 

Now the band is known for its popular free public concerts in Pioneer Park in Nevada City, at the Fourth of July parade in Grass Valley (this year), Lake Wildwood in Penn Valley and Graeagle Park (also this year).

The first concert — “Spring into Summer” — is Sunday, May 5, at the First Baptist Church in Grass Valley. The season schedule is here.

A new photo gallery featuring the band is here.

—Nevada County Concert Band

2013 Draft Horse Classic at Nevada County Fairgrounds (new video)

April 1st, 2013
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Events & Happenings, Grass Valley

By Nevada County Fairgrounds

Join us in celebrating the 27th anniversary of the Draft Horse Classic and Harvest Fair at the County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley. For 27 years, the beautiful Draft Horses have been delighting fans with their pageantry, elegance and strength — and this year is set to be another crowd-pleasing event.

We’ve become the premier Draft Horse event in the Western United States, and each September more than 20,000 fans gather at “California’s Most Beautiful Fairgrounds” to behold these enormous creatures of grace, power and beauty.

The 2013 Classic is scheduled for September 19-22. There are six performances over four days. In addition to the Draft Horse Classic, the Harvest Fair also takes place at the Fairgrounds.

The Harvest Fair includes the prestigious fine equine art show, “Art at the Classic;” as well as a western trade show, clogging jamboree, agricultural competitions, live entertainment, and delicious food on Treat Street. Additionally, “A Taste of the Gold” is featured on Saturday and showcases local restaurants and wineries; and the Classic Rib Cook-Off will be held on Sunday of the Classic.

(Poster artist: Chris Rankin)

New Visitors Center in Grass Valley set for June opening

March 26th, 2013
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Grass Valley

The Greater Grass Valley Chamber of Commerce (GGVCC) is proceeding with plans to open a 2,200 square-foot Visitors Information Center and new Chamber offices at 128 East Main Street ─ across from City Hall. The facility is expected to open in mid-April when the Chamber offices relocate there from their current location at The Holbrooke Hotel. The Visitors Information Center will open in June.

In a joint venture with the Chamber and private entities, the Grass Valley City Council voted 5-0 in December to fund monthly operating expenses for the Visitors Information Center for the next fiscal year. The council vote allowed the GGVCC to execute a long-term lease with the property owners, represented by Keoni Allen and Jeff Johnson.

“This is a great example of how the private sector and government can work together for the betterment of the community,” explained Keith Davies, new co-CEO and Executive Director of the GGVCC. “It happened because all interested parties wanted it to happen and worked toward that goal. Two private parties and two public sectors came together. Compromises were made and a long-range vision was agreed upon.”

Davies’ wife, Robin Galvan-Davies, also co-CEO of the Chamber, will serve as Executive Director of the centrally-located visitors center ─ providing Western Nevada County with its first significant visitors information center.

“We owe a big thanks to the city of Grass Valley and our city council for their support ─ a special thanks to City Administrator Dan Holler,” Galvan-Davies said, adding that 2012 Chamber chair Patti Ingram, and 2013 chair Susan Rice also played important roles in making the plan become a reality. “It was a positive-thinking team effort,” she noted, “including tremendous support from the building’s owners and the full Board of the Chamber.”

An open house for Chamber members and the community is expected once the Center is in operation and all Chamber activities are emanating for the East Main Street building.

(text: Greater Grass Valley Chamber; photo: Wilfried Wietstock)

GoNevadaCounty.com featured at State Capitol in Sacramento

March 20th, 2013
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Arts & Culture, Community, Grass Valley, History, Nevada City, Penn Valley, Rough and Ready, Truckee

Today we visited the Nevada County exhibit at the State Capitol Building in Sacramento. Dioramas are created by each county. GoNevadaCounty.com is featured prominently in ours: