Daily Alta California, Volume 1, Number 104, 30 April 1850
REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE
On the Derivation and Definition
of the Names of the several Counties
of the State of California, &c.
El Dorado. — The far-famed fabulous region of genial clime and never failing verdure, where gold and precious stones are as common as rocks and pebbles, where wines gently flow from fountains, where wheat spontaneously grows overtopped with tiny loaves of bread, and pigeons fly already roasted, where nature has converted the rudest things into harmony of shape and appearance, and where, in fine, a creature of the genus malieris, full of symmetry and grace, trips about in natural loveliness the most beautiful of God’s creations. Francis Orrellana, a companion of Pizarro, first spread the account of the supposed existence of this province in South America.
It is so universally known how and when the discovery was made that has caused the star of the west to spring up as if by magic, giving it the appropriate epithet of ” golden,” and will eventually revolutionize the world, that more than the passing remark that gold was discovered in this county at Sutter’s mill, is here deemed unnecessary. The county derives its name from this circumstance.