Way after the Gold Rush, two of the era’s grandest hotels — the Holbrooke and the National Exchange — shine like never before in Grass Valley and Nevada City. If you were to take a stab where these two vintage Western towns have been hiding since their original mid-19th-century heydays, we wouldn’t blame you for searching in totally the wrong spots.
Grass Valley is not in Kansas. Nevada City isn’t in the Silver State.
The storied communities, barely four miles apart, are pure California Gold Country pedigree, with all the heady history