The Forum Café/Union Hotel/United States Trio Hall

The Forum Café/Union Hotel/United States Trio Hall. The Forum Café/The Blue Bell Café/The Bookery. Saloons and gambling halls provided the main form of entertainment for miners during the gold rush. One of Old Hangtown’s largest gaming halls, The United States Trio, once stood on this site. Owner and entrepreneur, Benjamin Nickerson, first engaged in the business of promoting the short-lived bloody sport of bull and bear and donkey fighting on Circus Hill. When public opinion shut his bull ring down, Nickerson turned his marketing skills toward liquor and cards. The gaming tables of his large canvas tent groaned with bags of gold dust and glittering piles of coins., Business proved so lucrative that Nickerson soon replaced the hall with a two story wooden building in 1852. The prosperous proprietor enlarged the structure which offered 75 sleeping rooms and included two parlors and a ten pin alley. He then gave his establishment the more dignified name of the Union Hotel. Flames razed the hotel in 1856., Years later the Forum Café occupied this spot until fire forced it’s (sic) closure in 1938. That year one of Placerville’s most famous landmarks, The Blue Bell Coffee Shop, opened it’s (sic) doors at the same location. For many years the restaurant served “Hangtown Fry” which consisted of a mixture of bacon, oysters, and eggs. Originally the Blue Bell housed a candy store, soda fountain, and a cocktail lounge. On opening night, Owners C.A. and Veva Butts hired a vaudeville troupe from San Francisco to entertain it’s (sic) first customers., Today The Bookery provides readers with a treasure of quality used books covering a multitude of subjects.