It currently houses the Fountain & Tallman Museum, which is owned and operated by the El Dorado County Historical Society.

The two-story masonry structure was built as a soda water factory by John Fountain & Benjamin Tallman in 1852.

An odd-looking contraption (a small pressure vessel) housed inside the building, added carbon dioxide (CO2) to the water.

The building was converted into a museum by the generosity of many donors including using funds from the estate of Placerville native Stella Tracy.

Originally called the Placerville Historical Museum, it contains some of Tracy's turn-of-the-century furniture and photos as well as other exhibits of 19th- and 20th-century memorabilia.