El Dorado County, California along with the population since the 1960 Winter Olympics, hosted at Squaw Valley Ski Resort in neighboring Placer County. The present-day site of El Dorado County was once home to the Maidu, Washoe, and Miwok Native American tribes, and is notable for being the site of the 1848 gold discovery that sparked the California Gold Rush. The County of El Dorado was one of California's original 27 counties created effective February 18, 1850 (the number has risen to 58 today). Its name is derived from the Spanish meaning "the gilded/golden". The final segments of the Pony Express mail route ran
El Dorado on horseback into Los Llanos, where they engaged in battle with a large number of Omaguas and Hutten was severely wounded. He led those of his followers who survived back to Coro in 1546. On Hutten's return, he and a traveling companion, Bartholomeus VI. Welser, were executed in El Tocuyo by the Spanish authorities. In 1535, Captains Anasco and Ampudia were dispatched by Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar, one of Francisco Pizarro's chief lieutenants, to discover the valley of "Dorado" in pursuit of the splendid riches of the Zaque, or chieftain of Cundinamarca, described by a wandering Indian of Tacumga.