One of the grandest buildings in California gold country is the town hall in Copperopolis. The three-story brick-veneer building is festooned with columns, balconies, and a clock tower. However, it never actually served as a town hall. Built in 2008 to anchor a $53 million faux-historic town center, it is part of a developer’s vision of a massive new community. Here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the unsettling dissonance between a generic simulacrum and the actual past raises a question for small communities throughout the West: Is history just fancy window dressing for the next growth opportunity?
“I want the new town square to thrive, but