In 1854 Amador County was created, named after native Californian, Jose Maria Amador. Amador County's largest city is Jackson, founded in 1848. The early gold rush camp turned city was, like so many other gold rush towns along Hwy 49, destroyed by a raging fire in 1862. The city was rebuilt with as many as forty-two of those Civil War era buildings still standing today on and around Jackson's Historic Main Street. The town originally bore the name Bottileas given by the Mexican and Chilean miners who were, as the story goes, impressed by the number of bottles dropped at a spring that served as a watering hole for passing miners. The site of the original well is memorialized with a plaque behind the National Hotel at the foot of Main Street.   Jackson became the county seat of newly formed Amador County in 1854. Visitors will find a brass plaque set in the sidewalk of Main Street in the historic downtown area that claims; "Judge Smith proclaimed Jackson the seat of Justice after Clerk Collier canvassed the votes of the May 1851 election in which 1,224 votes were cast for Moquelumne Hill and 1,014 for Jackson. An armed party from Moquelumne Hill pursued Judge Smith to lynch him. Another party stole the records from the Clerk's office. Later Judge Smith shot and killed Collier on Main Street over another disputed election count. A perfect example of Mother Lode politics" There are many such plaques adorning the sidewalks through this historic area for visitors to enjoy.       From early 1850 until W.W.II Amador County's three main mines, the Eureka, Kennedy and Argonaut mines produced 4,630,000 ounces of gold, more then half the counties entire gold production of 7,851,000 ounces produced from nineteen mines. Jackson produced more than half the gold mined in the Mother Lode. The Argonaut and Kennedy mines have shafts that drop over 5,000 feet into depth of the Mother Lode. They are reported to be the deepest mines on the continent.