The Spenceville Wildlife Area is an wildlife preserve managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. It is located in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, within Nevada County and Yuba County of northern California.
The Spenceville Wildlife Area contains the site of the former town of Spenceville, a 19thâÂÂcentury ranching, farming and copperâÂÂmining community. Early settlers were ranchers and farmers; in the early 1860s copper ore was discovered on PurtymanâÂÂs Ranch and the Well Lead (WellàCopper) Mine and surrounding ranch became the town of Spenceville. Copper mining expanded with the Last Chance Mine, and by the midâÂÂ1870s the town had a post office, three general stores, a hotel, a school, a Methodist church and a Templar lodge, with about four hundred residents. Mining declined after WorldàWaràI and Spenceville was abandoned; during WorldàWaràII the U.S. military acquired much of the area for training. Following the war, part of the land became Beale Air Force Base and part became the Spenceville Wildlife Area; major cleanup of mine waste was completed in 2013.
In Juneà2025 the Nevada County Board of Supervisors designated Kneebone Ranch and Cemetery within the wildlife area as County Historical LandmarkàNEVà25âÂÂ06, recognizing the Kneebone familyâÂÂs 20âÂÂmule freightâÂÂwagon business and burial site.
The preserve is approximately east of the town of Marysville and Beale Air Force Base in the eastern Sacramento Valley. The elevation of the area varies from .
Spenceville is a foothill oak woodland of Blue oak (Quercus douglasii) and Foothill gray pine (Pinus sabiniana), and a grassland habitat. It is notable for many species of native birds and wildflowers, including the California endemic Yellow mariposa lily (Calochortus luteus).
The geology of the Spenceville area is part of the Smartville Block formed during the Middle Jurassic epoch 200 million years ago. The Smartville Block is a part of the California Mother Lode for gold, and consequently Spenceville has had its share of mining activity. Cleanup from copper and zinc mining continues to this day.
The area was originally home to the Maidu and Nisenan Native Americans and evidence of their grinding holes and lodge pits still exist.
Spenceville hosts a variety of activities: hiking, biking, hunting, hunting dog field trials, target shooting, camping, equestrian trail riding, birding, and primitive camping. A popular trail leads to a double waterfall called Fairy Falls (a.k.a. Beale Falls, Shingle Falls, or Dry Creek Falls). There can be a high level of rattlesnakes seasonally.
The Spenceville Wildlife Area may be environmentally impacted by the Waldo Dam Project proposed by the Yuba County Water Agency, and by housing development proposed between Beale Air Force Base and the wildlife area.