Known as the “Queen of the Southern Mines,” Sonora was settled in 1848 by Mexicans from Sonora, Mexico. Its city government was established in 1849. The Sonora Herald, the first newspaper in the California mines, was established on July 4, 1950, with a single copy costing fifty cents and a yearly subscription twenty dollars. One pocket in the Bonanza Mine yielded half a million dollars, and the twenty-eight-pound nugget called “Holden Chispa” was found in 1851. Sonora became the county seat in 1852, when Tuolumne County extended to the Coast Range. Mark Twain and Bret Harte found material here for many stories.