Originally built in 1850, the Craycroft Building has been home to a courthouse, Masons, a men's clothing store, a restaurant, a jail, and a printing office, but its always been a saloon at heart. Rebuilt during the gold rush as a saloon after the first hewn log structure burned in the town's first of many fires, the huge brick building was erected by Jack Craycroft using locally fired brick and stone. The gorgeous interior was just as grand as the outside of the massive watering hole with a suspended platform for musicians that hung from iron rods above the dance floor and a 70-foot long bar for the miners to belly up to. The building is a key player in many of Downieville's local tales.With nearly a 160 year history, the Craycroft building began life as Jack Craycroft's Saloon. One of the community's first imposing structures, the Craycroft also housed the county court of sessions and county jail. In the fall of 1853, Sierra County's first district attorney Thaddeus Purdy was shot and killed outside the building during an attempted lynching.
