Historic Folsom: A Self-Guided Walking Audio Tour

of the town’s oldest houses on Scott Street. Merchant Simon Cohn built the street-facing mansion in 1894; only the kitchen survives from the original 1859 house. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

It anchors Figueroa Street’s row of Gold Rush-era Victorian homes and has been home to a Baptist congregation since 2010. A quiet, photogenic stop before you reach Sutter Street.

The tour passes by the Folsom Historical Museum.

A 1997 replica of the 1867 A-frame turntable sits on the original site, where crews once turned locomotives by hand. Look across to the brick roundhouse built over an 1869 engine house, now home to Scott’s Seafood and Willamette Wineworks.

The tour passes by the Sutter Street Theatre.

The tour passes by the Folsom Powerhouse State Historic Park.

The tour passes by Lake Natoma.

Hear how Johnny Cash wrote “Folsom Prison Blues” in 1953 and played two shows for inmates in 1968, and how Gold Rush mining camps like Mormon Island once lined this stretch of the American River. PLEASE NOTE: If you walk the trail, expect about 50–60 minutes each way at a normal pace, or 5–5.5 miles there and back.

Built in 1893 from pin-connected metal, this bridge was dismantled and moved to the Klamath River in 1931, then brought home and reassembled on its original stone abutments in 2000. Today it’s a walking and biking bridge with views of Rainbow Bridge and the American River.