In 1922, a cabin was first built to commemorate Mark Twain’s presence in Tuolumne County during the winter of 1864-65. Sam Clemens came over the mountains from Virginia City, Nevada, to San Francisco with his friend Steve Gillis, and although his biographers gave different reasons for his coming to Jackass Hill, he arrived there on December 4, 1864. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, stayed until about February 25, 1865, with Steve Gillis’s brothers Jim and Bill and with Dick Stoker, local pocket miners. While living on the hill, he heard the story of the “Jumping Frog” in an Angels Camp saloon, and his version later found its way into Mark Twain’s writings. That short stay in the Sierra had a significant impact on American literature. After time and the elements took their toll on the first Mark Twain Cabin, the Sonora Sunrise Rotary Club restored the cabin during 2002-05 as its centennial project, celebrating 100 years of Rotary from 1905-2002, and the cabin was dedicated on February 23, 2005, the 100th birthday of Rotary International.