Comstock's magazine 0919 - September 2019 | Page 28

n MAIN STREET
REVIVING HISTORY
One of Placerville’s most famous buildings now dishes out ice cream
BY Tom Couzens
HANGMAN’S TREE
ICE CREAM SALOON
Owner: Sue and Tim Taylor; daughter
Jamie Nutting is the manager
Where: 305 Main St., Placerville, El
Dorado County
Facebook: @HistoricHangmansTree
Founded: 2017
Business: Ice cream parlor
WHAT ABOUT THAT NAME?
Jamie Nutting came home to Camino to
manage Hangman's Tree Ice Cream Saloon
for her parents. She graduated from nearby
Union Mine High School.
PHOTO BY TOM COUZENS
28
comstocksmag.com | September 2019
Placerville has been known as Old
Hangtown — it’s even on the welcome
sign — since the gold rush days, be-
cause of several hangings from a giant
white oak near the center of town, ac-
cording to town lore. And for more than
100 years, one of the most famous es-
tablishments was Hangman’s Tree bar,
a classic dive like many others in small
Sierra Nevada foothill towns. What set
Hangman’s Tree apart was the dummy
infamously hanging above the entrance,
perhaps the most photographed thing in
town. Hangman’s Tree closed in 2008,
when the building was deemed unsafe,
and the structure was unoccupied until
Sue and Tim Taylor purchased it and the
adjacent Herrick Building in 2012 and
began restoring both buildings. “We
can fix this,” Sue Taylor recalls telling
the previous owners. “The city was go-
ing to tear it down.” The Taylors restored
the saloon, saving what they could and
recreating what they couldn’t, and re-