In 1851 three miners headed northeast of what is now Nevada City for a less crowded area to prospect. One miner went back to town with a pocket full of gold nuggets for supplies and was followed back by many prospectors, these followers, however did not find any gold and declared the area "Humbug", thus the stream was so named "Humbug Creek".

  Around 1852 settlers began to arrive in the area and the town of "Humbug" sprang up, by 1857 the town had grown to 500 residents. Locals felt the name "Humbug" was too undignified and renamed the town "Bloomfield", but California already had a town by this name so they renamed the town "North Bloomfield".

  By 1860 the surface claims had played out and the miners left for the mines of Nevada. These claims were bought up and consolidated into the North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company. Because the gold in this region was small and hard to extract, hydraulic mining was seen as the only profitable way to extract it. Dams were built and ditches dug to deliver the water needed. Over 300 Chinese worked on this project and two Chinese settlements existed in North Bloomfield. By 1876 the mine was in full operation with 7 giant water cannons, called monitors working around the clock. By now the town had grown to a population of around 2000 with various business and daily stage service. In 1880 electric lights were installed in the mine and the world’s first long distance telephone line was developed to service the mine.

  North Bloomfield and the Malakoff Mine became a ghost when hydraulic mining was brought to an end in 1884 by a suit filed by Sacramento valley farmers. Debris, silt, and millions of gallons of water used daily by the mine caused extensive flooding in Marysville and Yuba City. San Francisco bay was estimated to be filling with silt at a rate of one foot per year.