On May 16, 1848, in Old Town Auburn where North Rich Ravine meets Auburn Ravine, a Frenchman named Claude Chana discovered gold after he and three other men stopped on their way from Bear River to join James Marshall at Coloma and tried panning in the stream. They found three sizable nuggets, and the town that became Auburn was born as the second mining settlement after Coloma in the great gold rush. Nearby Rich Ravine and Auburn Ravine became extraordinarily productive, yielding six million dollars worth of gold by the end of 1848, and some of the earliest gold rush photographs were taken at Auburn Ravine. Before the Gold Rush, North Rich Ravine flowed from Crutcher Spring through marshes, meadows, and low hills across what later became central Auburn before joining other streams in Rich Ravine and then Auburn Ravine on the way to the Sacramento River. As Auburn grew, the stream was put into a pipe for land use and flood control, making it largely invisible until rains overwhelmed the system and sent floodwaters through Old Town Auburn. Repeated flooding led the City of Auburn, the California Department of Water Resources, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to return North Rich Ravine to the surface through daylighting, restoring freer flow, improving water quality, recharging ground water, and reducing periodic flooding. Community efforts also created permanent protection for the School Park Preserve oak woodlands through a conservation easement stewarded by the Placer Land Trust, with limits on development, subdivision, and harmful activities, and in 2001 six local partners launched a project to preserve the heritage oak grove and restore Cooper Amphitheater and North Rich Ravine.