{"nrhp_refnum":"75000490","name":"Knights Ferry","other_names":[],"category":"district","location":{"address":"On Stanislaus River 2 mi. from Stanislaus","address_restricted":false,"city":"Knights Ferry and","county":"Stanislaus County","state":"CA","lat":37.82000097950004,"lon":-120.66598603369317,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-04-23","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Other","Commerce","Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district covering the town of Knights Ferry on the north bank of the Stanislaus River in northeastern Stanislaus County, California. It grew from William Knight's trading post and ferry crossing of the Gold Rush era and covers about 107 acres.","why_significant":"The town was an important Gold Rush mining, trading and river-crossing center in the 1850s and served as Stanislaus County seat from 1862 to 1872. It keeps many buildings from the late 1850s and early 1860s, including Abraham Schell's Classical Revival buildings, Gothic Revival houses, the Tulloch grist mill ruins and the longest covered bridge in California. Together they present a relatively intact picture of a 19th-century river town.","narrative":"Knights Ferry is a small Gold Rush river town on the Stanislaus River, where the river leaves its canyon and heads toward the Central Valley. William Knight set up a trading post and ferry here, and gold traffic and nearby placer mining made it a major crossing and commercial center in the 1850s. It was the Stanislaus County seat from 1862 to 1872. Main Street and the terraced hillside behind it still hold buildings from that era, among them the hotel, the General Store operating since 1852, the Odd Fellows hall, Gothic Revival houses and two Classical Revival buildings built by Abraham Schell. At the east end stand the ruins of David Tulloch's 1862 stone grist mill beside the long covered bridge built after the 1862 flood. Floods, alterations and a few mobile homes have affected the setting, yet the district keeps much of the feeling of an early mining and trading town.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Abraham Schell (Schell House and Masonic Hall); T. Vincent, stonemason (mill and bridge piers and abutments); David Tulloch (1862 grist mill); David Locke (first bridge)","architectural_style":"Vernacular with Greek Revival and Gothic Revival elements; Classical Revival (Schell buildings)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition given as fair and altered, on its original site. The town is occupied and used for commercial, residential, park and agricultural purposes. The covered bridge still carries vehicle traffic, the grist mill is in ruins, and some mobile homes intrude on vacant lots.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:32.042387-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/75000490.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000490/0158f913b5-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000490/0158f913b5-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"OsotedeMonte","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KnightsFerryGS.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">OsotedeMonte</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KnightsFerryGS.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123862160","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Ferry,_California","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1755284"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/stanislaus-county/knights-ferry-75000490/"}