The Sierra Nevada mountain range is the final frontier before crossing into California from Nevada.
Before the coming of the Transcontinental Railway, wagon trains would stop in Winnemucca after crossing the Humboldt river and decide whether or not to attempt crossing the mountains. Winnemucca's most exciting moment came in 1900, when Butch Cassidy and the hole in the wall gang held up the local bank for $2000 in gold coins!
Boca was well known in its heyday for lumber - and when the trains came lumber was used to fuel the trains as there was no access to coal. There were many small towns built on lumber trade. Clarke (not of the Kent variety) had distant family who worked in the lumber trade back in the day. Clarke grew up in Sacramento and joined me at lunch - he was making a very sentimental visit back to his old town.
As we travel on we pass through Truckee and cross the Big Truckee river and the Little Truckee river as we climb into the mountains.
Beyond here we circle Donner Lake which is on the eastern side of Mount Judah.
During the winter of 1846-7 the famed Donner Party were stranded here whilst travelling west from Illinois. They were trapped for 5 harsh months and of the 87 strong party only 48 survived. The Party are said to have resorted to cannibalism before they were rescued.
We enter the tunnel at Mt Judah at 7000 ft above sea level and can see evidence of the old water shoots - called flumes that were used to run water to the many mills along the way,
Further up we pass through Snow Sheds that are erected to protect the line from the heavy winter snowfalls These sheds were built before the lines went through so that the men were protected as the line was laid. They are still used today.
This photo is not very clear but it shows the sheds and the entrance to the tunnel.
As the California Trail crosses west of Donner the cliffs are so steep that 1940s pioneers wanting to cross in to California had to lower their wagons on ropes in order to continue.
Sutter's Mill is just south of Auburn and this is where the Gold Rush started When local James Marshall, discovered gold in 1848.
The first to hear confirmed information of the Gold Rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to the state in late 1848. All told, the news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, approximately half arrived by sea and half came from the east overland on the California Trail.
The gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (as a reference to 1849), often faced substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. At first, the the gold nuggets could be picked up off the ground. Later, gold was recovered from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning. More sophisticated methods were developed and later adopted elsewhere. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with little more than what they had started with.
The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849 a state constitution was written, a governor and legislature chosen and California became a state in 1850.
All these factors added weight to the need for a Western portion of the Central Pacific Railroad - thus creating the first Transcontinental Railroad.
No comments:
Post a Comment