The Ghost of the Gold Coin, Part I

Editor’s note: Dr. Charles Mosher is veering from his normal medical column (sort of) this month, featuring the first of a four-part series of stories focusing on the legend of the Gold Coin. The series will continue over the next three weeks.

Before I moved to Mariposa County, I researched its gold rush history. From both the writings of John Muir and the archives of the Gazette, two characters stood out.

John C. Fremont was a politically connected, wealthy landowner who struck gold in large quantities. Joaquin Murrieta (Carrillo) was a poor citizen of the country that once included Mariposa County — Mexico. He, too sought gold, but on a more humble scale.

These two historical figures eventually came together in my mind after an ambulance driver friend showed me around town and took me into the dark, seedy Gold Coin bar. There he introduced me to red beer. Gradually, through anecdotes of dubious origin, I was informed that the bar was haunted. Helen Kwalwasser, during her ownership of the place, allowed me to explore the cellar. From all this was born the following :

I got the final pieces of this story from a snaggle-toothed Harley biker who smelled like a public toilet. It cost me $15 in beer. But he had details I needed about a cardiologist who vanished somewhere between last April 16 and July 25 of 1853.

When I first moved to Mariposa, the Gold Coin was severely weather-beaten on its exterior, paint so faded you couldn’t read the name of the bar. Its interior was so dark it took three full minutes for your eyes to adapt. You could smell every one of its years as if it had never once been washed.

In short, the bar had a lot in common with the few remaining miners in town.

On an early spring day, I went inside for the first time, and groped for a bar stool within the gloom.

“I’ll have a Bud,” I told a lurking shadow behind the bar.

“Why don’t you have a red beer?”

“What’s a red beer?”

“You’ll see.”

So I sat down, and locked eyes with a pretty girl — a bit on the heavy side, but pretty — reclining on the wall above the bottles.

She kept my attention until she was eclipsed by the shadow of the barkeep.

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“I call her Daisy. Some people say she’s the ghost of this place.”

“Ghost?” I asked.

“Place is haunted,” he said casually. “Has been for more’n a hunnert years. News to you, huh?”

“News to me.” Small bits of gunk clogged the spaces between my teeth as I sucked. “What’s in this?” I inquired.

“Tomato juice. Tomato juice and beer.”

The floor began to shudder. A low pitched rumble oozed through the walls. I spun and sprinted for the door.

“Hey you! Get back here and pay for that drink.”

“Earthquake!” I yelled at him.

“Ain’t no earthquake. Just bikes.”

The door slammed open, missing my nose by an inch. A blast of wind whooshed across my face. The black leather hoard poured in.

They cussed and belched and farted their way over to the barstools and took the ones they wanted — including mine. Their noise ricocheted within the bar, fracturing words into cacophony. The clamor could have been the echoes of long dead miners, muscle-sore from the desperate gold fields, unbridled and quickly drunken.

“Hey, Red Beer! Pay up.”

Oh, yeah.

So I walked over to squeeze between a couple of black leather shoulders to pay for, and leave behind, my beer.

“Fresno Freaks,” the dim light revealed on the back of their jackets.

“Oh, sorry. Am I in your place?” said the one sitting right in front of my half consumed drink.

“Well, that drink’s not yours, is it?” flashed into my brain as a retort, but survival instinct suppressed my urge to say it.

“Just leaving,” I mumbled, my eyes downcast to avoid meeting his.

“No. No. I’ll move,” he insisted.

His first comment I took as brutal sarcasm. Perhaps, the prelude to a fight. But two polite exchanges in a row? How strange. I looked up.

No beard. Hair cut short and trimmed carefully around his ears. Intelligence sparkling in his eyes. Things didn’t fit.

He turned to the biker next to him, said something, and he moved over to his buddy’s suddenly vacated stool.

“There you go,” he said. “Sit down.”

I wanted to leave, but the safest move, I figured, was to do what he told me. I sat down. What to say? What to say…

“What are you drinking?” he initiated.

“Barkeep calls it a red beer.”

“Vile,” he retorted.

“That was my response,” I agreed. “How about you?”

“Yellow beer. The way it should be. I like my beer to look the same going in and coming out.”

Good Lord, I thought. This guy must have graduated at the very top of his fifth grade class before dropping out to begin his life of crime.

“You come here often?”

I couldn’t believe I’d said that. I cringed at myself.

“Actually, yes. The whole group of us makes this run every spring, but I’ve been back a few times since last year. I’m doing research. You live here? Maybe you can help me. I’ve been coming up to research the ghost of this place. The Gold Coin ghost. You know about it?”

Ah-ha.

“Well, some say it’s Daisy up there,” I pointed, “Me, myself, I —.”

“Daisy? That’s not Daisy. That’s Darlene.”

“Oh, well,” I said turning sheepish, “I call her Daisy. Others call her by different names.”

“Only the bartender calls her Daisy, that I know of.”

“Really? What a coincidence.”

“And I’ve heard that conjecture about the ghost’s identity. Got any other local information?”

Silently, I was forced to upgrade my assessment of his education from fifth grade to — “You know, you’re blowing my preconceived ideas of outlaw bikers. Aren’t you afraid you’ll be burned at the stake or something?”

He laughed, which was a considerable relief.

“My name’s Jerry,” he extended his hand. “I’m a cardiologist.”

I gave him some false name and said I was a nuclear physicist.

He laughed again. “Monday through Friday I do heart caths at a Catholic hospital in the Valley, exploring the insides of people who spend their lives smoking and eating donuts. On the weekends I change my clothes, my mode of transportation and my persona. Keeps me sane.”

You sure of that? my head wanted to say.

“Good for you,” my mouth said. “And you chase ghosts?”

“Yep. And it’s time to go to work.” He slid off of the barstool. “Want to come along?”

Dr. Charles Mosher, M.D., M.P.H., was Mariposa’s county health officer from 1988-2014. Prior to his work at Mariposa County, Mosher served in the Peace Corps, worked for the state of Georgia and served for 11 years with the Merced County Health Department. He can be reached at author@greaterstory.com.