Tuttletown was first settled in 1848 by Anson AH Tuttle. This was a stopping point on the road between Angels Camp and Sonora. Both placer and hard rock gold were found in the area. Nearby is Jackass Hill where Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) spent part of the winter of 1864-65 with his friends the Gillis brothers. It was about this time that Clemens abandoned the idea of being a gold miner and turned to writing. It was his experiences here and in nearby Angels Camp that gave him the idea for his famous story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog Of Calaveras County".
Tuttletown was a good sized community with stores, a hotel and a school. The road you see across the highway was part of the railbed for the Angels Camp Branch of the Sierra Railway. Making their way through rolling meadows and groves of black oak trees, the tracks eventually passed through the hamlet of Tuttletown on a high trestle This 19-mile long branch line of the Sierra Railway ran from the Sierra's main yard at Jamestown to the mining community of Angels Camp. Completed in September of 1902, the line here utilized many unconventional elements in its design including multiple switchbacks, curves of nearly 30 degrees, and gradients that hit 4.26 percent in some locations. Abandoned in the 1930s, many sections remain visible today.
The cache is a small container hidden not far from the monument.