Monteverde Store Museum

The Monteverde Store Museum sits at the corner of Randolph Street and Boston Alley in downtown Sutter Creek, preserving an 1890s general store almost exactly as it appeared when it was a working business. Giovanni Monteverde, an Italian immigrant from Genoa who arrived in Sutter Creek in 1861, opened the store with his wife Rosa, and the Monteverde family operated it continuously until Rose Monteverde — the youngest of their seven children — closed its doors on October 27, 1971. She bequeathed the building to the City of Sutter Creek with the wish that it be used as a museum in memory of her family.

The city reopened the store as a museum in June 1992, and today visitors can browse the original shelves still stocked with dry goods, hardware, apparel, penny candy, sewing patterns, and wallpaper sample books. A carved oak icebox stands in the grocery section, a cast iron pot belly stove anchors the hardware area, and some containers on the shelves have never been opened. Admission is free, and volunteer docents are on hand during open hours to share the store’s history. A California Point of Historic Interest, the Monteverde Store is one of the best-preserved examples of a turn-of-the-century general store in the Gold Country.