Horsetown was a major historical mining town on the Clear Creek in Reading, California in Shasta County.

Lots of water is needed for mining gold, so the miners built a small dams along Clear Creek.

A second and much large water system was built in 1855, the Clear Creek Ditch, with 49 miles of flumes.

The water intake for the ditch was near the stagecoach stop at Tower House on the wagon road to Yreka.

In 1850, a wagan road was built from Red Bluff and Shasta, with a stop at Briggsville and Horsetown.

[4][5] In 1868, the town of Horsetown was destroyed by a fire and was not rebuild, the site, Grant Redding, on Clear Creek Road, is now back to oak trees in a rural canyon, 10 miles east of the Redding Municipal Airport.

[6] From Horsetown the gold rush moved out to a number of small mining towns on and north of the Clear Creek including: Briggsville, Muletown, Lower Springs, Texas Springs, Middletown, Piety Hill, Igo, Larkin, Jackass Flat, Ono, Bald Hills, Janesville, and to the north Whiskeytown, Shasta, Tower House, and French Gulch.