In April 1868 the editor of the Marysville Daily Appeal reported on a visit to “The Town of Chico,” situated on the ranch of General Bidwell and “on the living waters of Chico Creek.” He found it to be a busy place, with “twelve to fifteen stores, several hotels, livery stables, blacksmith shops, carpenter shops” and everything that could be found in any thriving town in the state. (It also had “innumerable whiskey shops” but he doesn’t mention that in this glowing report. That turns up in another article later that year.)

He was given a tour of Bidwell Mansion by Mr. P. M. Craig, the carpenter foreman. (General Bidwell was not at home — he was in Washington, busy getting married.) He saw every feature of the mansion, “from base to dome.” He enjoyed the scene from the tower, viewing the ranch spread out before him, with the Sierras to the east, the Coast Range to the west and “to the south the famous Sutter Buttes — the Sphinx of California.”

The superficial measurement [the perimeter] is nearly 8000 ft. upon which the building stands, including the verandah, surrounding the entire building and observatory, which fronts the main wall, and is 65 ft. high. The basement is abundantly capacious. The first story is 14 feet, the second, 12 and attic 11 in height, containing in the aggregate 54 rooms, including closets and bathrooms.

It is furnished with a well in the basement which supplies a large cistern in the upper part of the building, from which every room is abundantly furnished with pure, soft water. The walls are 2 feet thick with a 6-inch opening in the center [for insulation]; neatly stuccoed on the outside with the best hard white finish on the inside.

Marysville Daily Appeal 25 April 1868

The house boasted “every modern improvement of the modern age.” It was truly a state-of-the-art building, and the finest house north of Sacramento.

“The cost of this magnificent residence is estimated to between fifty and seventy-five thousand dollars.” Readers would have gasped at those figures. According to the website Measuring Worth, $50,000 spent on a purchase in 1868 is equivalent to $1,107.071 in today’s dollars, and the same amount spent on a construction project is a whopping $18,449,419! Eighteen million dollars to build the equal of Bidwell Mansion today.

Chico had over 400 registered voters (men only, of course), and a population “equal in number to an average of one half the smaller counties in the State.” All in all, he concluded

It is one of the most inviting places in the interior for settlement.