La Grange is a small unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in rural Stanislaus County, California.

The community was founded in 1852 around the same time French miners struck gold on a bar in the Tuolumne River.

In chapter one, Muir describes leaving French Bar and moving with the flock into the hills near Coulterville.

He writes, “This morning provisions, camp-kettles, blankets, plant-press, etc., were packed on two horses, the flock headed for the tawny foothills, and away we sauntered in a cloud of dust: Mr. Delaney, bony and tall, with sharply hacked profile like Don Quixote, leading the pack-horses, Billy, the proud shepherd, a Chinaman and a Digger Indian to assist in driving for the first few days in the brushy foothills, and myself with notebook tied to my belt.

The home ranch from which we set out is on the south side of the Tuolumne River near French Bar, where the foothills of metamorphic gold-bearing slates dip below the stratified deposits of the Central Valley”.