An 1882 granite brewery in Nevada City's Gold Rush district, built by Chinese laborers over tunnels where local legend holds several workers died.
107 Sacramento St, Nevada City, CA 95959
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Restaurant/bar pricing for food and drinks. Paranormal investigation tours run separately at $35 per person through Outlandish Experiences.
Access
Limited Access
Historic granite building with underground tunnel access. Tunnel areas have uneven surfaces and low clearance.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1882 · Gold Rush Era Commercial Architecture · National Register of Historic Places · Chinese Immigrant Labor History
Nevada City grew rapidly after gold was discovered at nearby Sutter's Mill in 1848, and by the 1880s it had the infrastructure of an established town — including a temperance hall on Sacramento Street. George Gehrig replaced that structure in 1882 with a granite brewery designed to supply thirsty miners with lager. The building is constructed from locally quarried granite blocks, a material choice that gave it permanence most wooden Gold Rush-era structures in the region lack.
Gehrig contracted Italian stonemasons and Chinese immigrant laborers for both the above-ground structure and a system of tunnels running beneath the facility. The tunnels served practical functions — cooling, storage, and transit — that were common in Sierra Nevada commercial buildings of the era.
The building operated as a brewery from the 1880s until it closed in 1899. Over the following century it was converted to other uses: at various points a restaurant, a bowling alley, and a dance hall. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (Reference #85002303). The current tenant operates it as a bar and restaurant known as The Stone House, retaining the granite bones of Gehrig's original structure.
Sources
The tunnel legend is the center of the Stonehouse's paranormal reputation. According to accounts collected by local journalists and ghost-tour operators, Chinese workers who helped dig the underground passage died in a collapse during construction; the tunnel was sealed rather than cleared, and the workers were left inside. No documentary evidence for a specific collapse or death toll has been located in public records, and the account should be treated as persistent local tradition rather than confirmed history.
Nevada County journalist accounts describe three distinct presences in and around the building. The first manifests as a sharp, rotten odor that emerges from a room behind the bar as the building closes for the night, reported by multiple closing staff over the years. The second is a scruffy male figure seen sitting at the bar, distinguished by the absence of legs below the knee — a visual detail too specific to be a trick of dim light, in the words of one bartender who described the encounter. The third account, recorded by a visitor who entered the tunnels with a candle, describes a woman in old-fashioned clothing who appeared in the darkness, identified herself as 'a staff member from a long, long time ago,' and stated that the dead do not age before the visitor fled.
The Stonehouse has been included in Ghost Adventures television content and in Haunted Nevada City walking tours that have operated each summer since the early 2000s.
Media Appearances
Restaurant and bar operating in the historic 1882 granite brewery building, one block from Nevada City's Broad Street. The underground tunnel system is accessible from within the building.
Saturday evening walking tour beginning at Cornerstone Realty near the Stonehouse (corner of Sacramento and Broad Streets). Runs June through August, starting at 8pm. Contact (530) 265-6877 for tour guide Mark Lyon.
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