While Auburn was considered a retirement town for many years, the city has grown to include some 44,000 residents within its sphere of influence. Auburn offers its residents plenty of amenities and an excellent quality of life. As the Placer County seat, the city has benefited from the creation of jobs and associated businesses. The town is home to a 108-bed community hospital and has its own school district. Sierra Community College is located in Rocklin, 12 miles from Auburn.

The centerpiece of the city is the County Courthouse -- a grandiose three-story Classic Revival structure topped by a bracketed cornice and simple Renaissance Revival inspired dome. The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1894. The building itself was renovated during the late 1980s and continues to serve the public today with courtrooms, a historic sheriff's office and the Placer County Museum.

The building is one of four surviving northern and central California courthouses that retain most of their architectural ornamentation and magnificent domes. Before the formation of Placer County in 1851, the hilltop where the present courthouse now stands was the site of bull and bear fights and public hangings. The county's first courthouse, built of wood and cloth with an adjacent log jail, was erected on Court Street. The building is listed on The National Register of Historic Places.

Another historic location is the Auburn Iron Works that has been operating as a blacksmith's shop in the same locality for over one hundred years. By 1888 George Allen and Joseph Sandhorfer had established this shop at Auburn Station, becoming one of the first blacksmith's shops to operate near the Central Pacific Railroad Station. At that time, the main part of Auburn was one mile to the southwest and Auburn Station, or East Auburn, was just starting to develop. Although the business, as well as the property the shop is on, has changed ownership several times through the years, it has always been run as a blacksmith shop. Built over the Boardman Canal, this shop may well be the oldest continuously operating blacksmith shop in Northern California and it continues to provide a necessary service to the community.

Auburn is filled with the historical reminders of California's Gold Rush days. As best said by local writer Tom Homer: "Arriving in Auburn, California is like traveling back in time -- a time when life moved just a little slower, when people appreciated a well-designed community building, and took time to say hello to their neighbors."

Auburn is one of California’s earliest mining towns, situated in the heart of the Gold Country. During the Gold Rush in May of 1848, a miner by the name of Claude Chana was taking a short cut to meet his friend James Marshall and discovered gold in the Auburn Ravine. Auburn then became a shipping and supply center for hundreds of gold camps. In 1853, Auburn became the seat of Placer County, an honor befitting its stature as an important trading center and supply depot for the mines.

Placer County took its name from the Spanish word for sand or gravel deposits containing gold. Miners washed away the gravel, leaving the heavier gold, in a process known as "placer mining." Gold mining was a major industry through the 1880s, but gradually the new residents turned to farming the fertile foothill soil, harvesting timber and working for the Southern Pacific Railroad.