La Panza

Tucked into the La Panza Range of San Luis Obispo County at roughly 1,880 feet elevation, La Panza is a former gold boom town that today qualifies as a ghost town. The name itself traces back to Spanish-speaking Californio hunters who used beef paunch — panza — as bear bait in the area, and that association was formal enough that the location was recorded under the name paraje la panza as far back as 1828.

Visitors today come for the history and the quiet setting rather than any developed attraction. What remains is modest: the bones of a once-active community in a rural foothill landscape. Access is by road through sparsely populated ranchland, and the site rewards those with an interest in California's gold-rush geography and its Spanish-era place-name heritage.