Spenceville Wildlife Area is an 11,448-acre protected landscape in the Sierra Nevada foothills of northern California that preserves both oak woodland and grassland habitat and the site of the former town of Spenceville. After copper discoveries in the early 1860s at Purtyman’s Ranch and nearby mines, a small ranching, farming, and mining community grew there by the mid-1870s before being abandoned after mining declined following World War I. The land also holds evidence of earlier Maidu and Nisenan use, later military training during World War II, and ongoing traces of mining’s environmental impact, while remaining a popular recreation area with destinations such as Fairy Falls.