Drought exposes abandoned Gold Rush village in Folsom Lake
As the waters of Folsom Lake recede to levels rarely seen, the remnants of a long-ago abandoned, flooded Gold Rush village are reemerging. Visitors can now see building foundations, bricks, broken pottery and rusty nails that were all once part of Mormon Island. The town was settled in the late 1840s by prospectors. By 1853, it had a population of more than 2,500 settlers, according to California archives. What was left of the town got flooded in 1955 when Folsom Dam was built.