Known as Cold Spring Ranch, Woodruff’s Upper Ranch, Gardner’s Station, and now as Dorrington , the present community of Dorrington was named for Rebekah Gardner’s maiden name.  The present hotel was built in the  1880s.  The first extant deed to the property was in 1853, and in 1862, a log house was noted there.  John Gardner and Wm. A. Gibson purchased the 160-acre parcel in 1868, and John and Rebekah Gardner homesteaded it that same year.  The first hotel built by John Gardner lay across the highway from the present Dorrington Hotel.  It burned in the 1880s and the present hotel was built across the road from the original and in its current location.

Calaveras County Deed Books and Assessment Books, Big Tree-Carson Valley Turnpike, Ebbetts Pass and Highway Four, R. Coke Wood and Frances Bishop, 1985).

Judith Marvin, 2021