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    Slow Travels-California
    Slow Travels-California
    Slow Travels-California
    Ebook461 pages8 hours

    Slow Travels-California

    By Lyn Wilkerson

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    About this ebook

    The updated version of Slow Travels-California explores this State's history along the present and previous routes of U.S. Highways 40, 50, 60, 99, and 395.

    Come explore the rich and varied history of the Golden State. This guide provides in-depth information about historic sites, landmarks, and legends along California's highways.

    Maps and GPS Coordinates for listed sites are included.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLyn Wilkerson
    Release dateJul 25, 2010
    ISBN9781452345239
    Slow Travels-California
    Author

    Lyn Wilkerson

    Caddo Publications USA was created in 2000 to encourage the exploration of America’s history by the typical automotive traveler. The intent of Caddo Publications USA is to provide support to both national and local historical organizations as historical guides are developed in various digital and traditional print formats. Using the American Guide series of the 1930’s and 40’s as our inspiration, we began to develop historical travel guides for the U.S. in the 1990’s.

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      Book preview

      Slow Travels-California - Lyn Wilkerson

      Introduction

      This guide, along with the various others produced by Lyn Wilkerson and Caddo Publications USA, are based on the American Guide Series. Until the mid-1950’s, the U.S. Highway System provided the means for various modes of transport to explore this diverse land. To encourage such explorations, the Works Projects Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Federal Writers Project created the American Guide Series. This series of books were commissioned by the Federal Government to capture the culture and history of the United States and provide the direction necessary for travelers to explore it. Each state created a commission of writers who canvassed their respective territories for content to submit. The preliminary works were then sent to Washington D.C. for final assembly in to a standard format. The result was a travel guide for each state. The series spread to include guides for important cities as well. After the State Guides were complete, the concept of a national guide was developed. However, it would not be until 1949, with the backing of Hastings House Publishing, that a true national guide would be created. Through several rounds of condensing, the final product maintained much of the most essential points of interest and the most colorful material.

      To quote from the California edition of the American Guide Series, romance has been kept in its place. . . The intent of this guide is to provide information about the historic sites, towns, and landmarks along the chosen routes, and to provide background information and stories for what lies in-between. It is not our desire to dramatize the history or expand on it in any way. We believe that the character and culture of this state, and our country as a whole, can speak for itself. The guide has been created, not for just travelers new to the city, but for current residents who may not realize what lies just around the corner in their own neighborhood. The goal of Caddo Publications USA is to encourage the exploration of the rich history that many of us drive by on a regular basis without any sense it existed, and to entertain and educate so that history will not be lost in the future.

      List of Routes

      U.S. Highway 40

      Nevada to San Francisco

      U.S. Highway 50

      Nevada to San Francisco

      U.S. Highway 60

      Arizona to Los Angeles

      U.S. Highway 99

      Oregon to Mexico

      U.S. Highway 395

      Oregon to San Diego

      U.S. Highway 40

      U.S. Highway 40, and now Interstate 80 which replaced it, is the most traveled artery between the Eastern United States and central California. The highway hurdles the sheer, rocky wall of the Sierra Nevada into the valley that stretches to the Golden Gate. From the Great American Basin, it climbs to the granite heights of Donner Pass, traverses the boulder-piled Yuba River bottoms, coasts toboggan-like through forests and along river gorges offering hazy vistas of mountain ranges. It passes the half-ruined mining camps of the gold country and the titanic upheavals of the hydraulic workings. In the western foothills, where orchards appear in forest clearings, it wriggles between rolling evergreen knolls, then strikes across the great Sacramento Valley, and crosses the low Coast Range to San Francisco.

      Nevada State Line

      Interstate 80 follows the route of U.S. 40 for most of this travel route. U.S. Highway 40 was originally designated as the Lincoln Highway. The U.S. 40 designation was replaced by Interstate 80 in the 1960’s.

      The devious California Trail through Truckee Pass ran a few miles distant from what is now Interstate 80. Over this trail in the autumn of 1844, 81-year-old Caleb Greenwood, mountaineer and trapper, led the 12 wagons of the Stevens-Murphy Party, the first caravan on wheels to cross the Sierras. Others followed with terrible hardship in the autumn of the next year—the Swazey-Todd Party of horsemen; trappers on foot; the Grigsby-Ide Party of more than 100 men, women, and children led by Greenwood; and John C. Fremont on his third exploring expedition. In October of 1846, the Donner Party, acting on vague advice, made the Salt Desert crossing and, arriving too late to scale the terrible pass that now bears their name, were caught by the snows.

      A saga of transportation fully as exciting followed in 1846 to 1866, when gangs of Chinese laborers swarmed the mountain, laying the rails of the Central Pacific eastward in a race with the Union Pacific, pushing westward from Omaha, that culminated in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in Utah in 1869. In June of 1864, the Big Four, Stanford, Hopkins, Huntington, and Crocker, had opened the Dutch Flat & Donner Lake Wagon Road. A road had reached Colfax, head of wagon navigation, as early as 1849 and Dutch Flat a few years later. Now the way lay open to the Comstock Lode mines in Nevada. For a brief interval, stagecoaches raced over it, bearing passengers and freight. As the Central Pacific was pushed forward—reaching Clipper Gap in June of 1865 and Colfax in September—it killed all competition.

      Interstate 80 follows the Truckee River into the Sierras. Fremont, camping at its mouth in January of 1844 with his second expedition to the Far West, named it the Salmon Trout River because of the fine fish the Indians brought him. Later in the same year, the Stevens-Murphy Party gave it the name it now bears—that of the Paiute chief who guided them out of the burning alkali desert to the river’s banks and pointed out the pass into California. His answer to all questions was truckee, his equivalent of okeh.

      Floriston (6 miles west of the Nevada State Line on Interstate 80)

      Floriston was once the home of a paper pulp mill, the greatest producer in California.

      Boca (5 miles west of Floriston on Interstate 80)

      Once a prosperous lumbering town, Boca lies at the mouth of the Little Truckee River.

      Truckee (Exit 186) (7 miles west of Boca on Interstate 80)

      The first known white settlement in the Truckee basin was mentioned in the Nevada Transcript on April 20th, 1866. Known as Pollard’s Station after its founder, J.D. Pollard, it grew into a small town surrounding a hotel at the west end of Donner Lake.  Pollard’s Station became an important stopping-off place for the California Stage Company’s stage coach line which connected Sacramento to the rich mines of the Comstock Lode. Pollard’s hotel burned down on April 23, 1867. It was rebuilt but later succumbed to another fire. The community’s few residents moved east to the new settlement at Coburn’s Station. The hotel was never again rebuilt because Pollard knew that once the railroad was built there would no longer be a need for the turnpike stages.  By 1863, Joseph Gray had already constructed a log station along the wagon road at the intersection of Jibboom and Bridge Streets from which he provided provisions to the endless stream of freight wagons. His kept his corral full of cattle to provide fresh beef to teamsters and stored plenty of feed for their horses.  Along with George Schaffer, Gray built a bridge across the Truckee River for which they charged a fee to cross. Henceforth his log cabin became known as Gray’s Toll Station. The cabin still exists, but has been moved to Church Street and currently used as an office building.

      In 1865, a man named S.S. Coburn operated a stage station and public house for teamsters further west along the turnpike in today’s Brickeltown. Coburn himself was apparently a smith; an indispensable craftsman of the era who arrived from Dutch Flat with knowledge of the exact route of the proposed railroad.  When the Central Pacific rails began their ascent into the Sierra Foothills, Coburn’s Station was selected as the advance camp for the railroad construction crews. Workmen poured into the area and the settlement grew overnight into a bustling lumber town. By December of 1867, the first excursion train neared the summit. Despite severe winter storms, a forty-ton locomotive named San Mateo was hauled in pieces on sleighs by George Schaffer and assembled near the site of today’s downtown depot. The engine was used to transport lumber from Schaffer’s Mill west to the summit where crews were laying track from both directions.

      On April 12th, 1868, Coburn’s Station’s name was changed to Truckee, and the post office at Donner Lake was moved here. The first train arrived on June 9th, 1868. The building of the railroad created what was then known as the second largest Chinatown on the Pacific Coast. Although essential to the railroad construction, the Chinese were never assimilated into the town’s population. Racial tensions resulted in Chinatown being burned at least four times. In 1879, following the last fire, tensions were near the breaking point and the Chinese began to arm themselves when they were prevented from rebuilding their homes. Tensions eased for a while, until the 1880s, when the American Workingmen’s movement coalesced under the slogan, The Chinese must go. The industrious Chinese, who had played such a key role in railroad construction, threatened to monopolize the local logging industry. In early 1886, the white citizens of Truckee banded together to rid the town of its Chinese population by forming a general boycott, refusing to buy from or sell goods to Chinese residents. Within nine weeks, the Chinese had been completely driven out of the community so thoroughly that for generations no Chinese could be found in or near Truckee.

      Logging was a key industry in Truckee over the past century. In 1866, Joseph Gray and George Schaffer built and operated the first lumber mill, which was located on the opposite side of the river from town. Schaffer later purchased Gray’s interest and in 1871, built a larger mill in Martis Valley, three miles south of Truckee. Schaffer’s mill supplied lumber to the mines of Virginia City as well as to the growing cities of Sacramento and San Francisco. The first California ski club was organized here in 1913. (Guy H. Coates)

      Side Trip to Tahoe City (California Highway 89 South)

      Tahoe City (14 miles south on CA 89)

      Point of Interest:

      Lake Tahoe Outlet Gates (73 N. Lake Boulevard)

      Conflicting control of these gates, first built in 1870, resulted in the two-decade 'Tahoe Water War' between lakeshore owners and downstream Truckee River water users. The dispute was settled in 1910 and 1911 when techniques for determining water content in snow, developed by Dr. James E. Church, Jr., made possible the accurate prediction and control of the seasonal rise in lake and river levels.

      From Truckee, this travel route departs from Interstate 80, following Donner Pass Road and the original U.S. Highway 40 through Donner Pass.

      Site of Graves Cabin (2 miles west of Truckee on Donner Pass Road)

      This structure was erected by part of the Donner party in 1846.

      Donner State Monument (3 miles west of Truckee on Donner Pass Road)

      This 11-acre tract has been set aside as a memorial to the Donner Party. Led by well-to-do George and Jacob Donner, as well as James F. Reed, the party set out from Illinois in April. At Fort Bridger, Wyoming, on the strength of an open letter sent to travelers by the dare-devil mountaineer, Lansford W. Hastings, they had taken the fatal step of breaking off from their companions on the trail to follow the unknown route later called the Hastings Cut-Off. As a measure of foreboding, Mr. Hastings failed to meet the party as he had promised in the letter. Even when they were compelled to break their way a few feet at time through the thicket-choked canyons of the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, they had stubbornly refused to admit their mistake and turn back. By the time they had struggled days and nights without water across the deserts beyond the Great Salt Lake, it was too late to correct the error. Utterly exhausted, their animals dying, they had rested for several days in the green meadows along the Truckee River on the site of present-day Reno. This final delay would lead to their undoing.

      At the end of October, 1846, the vanguard of the train arrived at this point. Storm clouds were already gathering as they struggled up the rocky canyon of the Truckee River. They made haste, and men and animals were footsore and exhausted. George Donner, the leader, had injured a leg. On October 28th, a month earlier than usual, snow began to fall, burying the faint trail. They tried to go on, but could not. They turned back and pitched camp. Winter broke and November ended in four days and nights of continuous snow. December followed with furious wind, sleet, and rain.

      In the camps at Alder Creek and Donner Lake, the snow became twenty feet deep. Starvation faced them, for their cattle had wandered off, and were buried in the drifts. By December 10th, Jacob Donner and three others in the Donner huts on Alder Creek were dead. Soon, the emigrants were living on the few mice they could catch, and on bark and twigs.

      In a desperate effort to escape, ten men and five women, known as the Forlorn Hope, started west on foot with provisions enough for six days. They scaled the summit and followed the ridge north of the North Fork of the Yuba River. Within a week, one man had died. By Christmas Day, after four days without food, they could go no farther. A terrific storm had burst upon them, and for a whole week they were snowbound, huddling in terrible misery about their campfire. When the storm lifted, four more men had died. The starving survivors devoured their bodies. Another man died, and he too was eaten, along with two Indian guides who were killed when they began to falter. Struggling on, the survivors ate their moccasins, the strings of their snowshoes, and a pair of old boots. Thirty-two days after they had set out, the five women and two remaining men reached an Indian village. They were dragged from there to the Johnson Ranch at Wheatland, leaving a trail of bloody footprints.

      Relief parties set out from Sacramento Valley. The first seven men on foot reached the camp at Donner Lake on February 19th, only to find it buried under snowdrifts. The survivors, with nothing left to eat but hides, were in a torpor. With twenty-one of the party, mostly children, the rescuers started back. Three of the children would die on the way out. The first expedition met the second, with the second reaching the Donner Lake camp on March 1st. Seventeen more survivors started out, only to be trapped by another blizzard, which held them in the snow for a week. Their feet and hand frozen, three more died, and their bodies were eaten by who remained. The third relief party found nine still alive at the camp, three of them too near death to travel. They too were driven to eat the bodies of the dead. With five of these survivors, the third relief party started back. Tamsen Donner, renouncing her last chance to escape, said goodbye to her two little daughters and struggled back over the five miles of drifts to the camp at Alder Creek to nurse her dying husband. She had died, and her body had vanished, when the fourth relief party, seeking whatever of value remained at the camp to plunder, arrived to find one man still living in hideous squalor among the bones of his fellow travelers. Of the 81 who had pitched camp here in November of 1846, only 45 lived to cross the mountains.

      Points of Interest:

      Site of the Shallenberger Cabin

      This cabin was built by members of the Stevens-Murphy Party in November of 1844. Young Moses Shallenberger, ill and unable to scale the pass, spent the winter alone here, guarding the goods until he was rescued in March of the next year. When the vanguard of the Donner Party camped here on November 1st, 1846, the Breen family—the only family to escape without losing at least one member—moved in.

      Site of the Murphy Cabin

      Grandmother Murphy, her family, and others lived here. The crude lean-to was built against a great smooth-faced rock, which served as the fireplace wall. Under the Murphy cabin, in June of 1847, General Stephen W. Kearny’s band buried the bones found in the vicinity.

      From the Donner Monument, Donner Pass Road curves around the edge of gleaming blue Donner Lake. Blasted through solid rock, the road twists in and out between overhanging ledges up to the Donner Summit. Up the sheer precipice wriggles the long black caterpillar of the railroad snow sheds to the south, worming at intervals through granite tunnels. On August 25th, 1846, Edwin Bryant, with eight companions, found the going so boggy along the lake here that the mules sank to their bellies in the mire. To young adventurers like Edwin Bryant and his companions, these heights offered a challenge. However, they dismayed those who faced the passage with cumbersome, ox-drawn wagons loaded with belongings and women and children. Nonetheless, Old Caleb Greenwood, guiding the Stevens-Murphy Party over the mountains in November of 1844, exercised rare judgment and skill. They struggled upward until a rise of 10 or 12 feet blocked their way. Greenwood discovered a narrow crevice, and through it the oxen were half pushed, half dragged, with men below and ropes above. The household goods were carried up piece by piece. Then, with the use of levers, log chains, and six or eight ox teams, the wagons were lifted over the face of the cliff. With inconceivable labor, several other barriers scarcely less difficult were conquered in the same way.

      Donner Summit (7 miles west of Donner Monument on Donner Pass Road)

      Soda Springs (4 miles west of Donner Summit on Donner Pass Road)

      Side Trip to Last Chance (Soda Springs Road South, Foresthill Road South, Robinson Flat Road South, Last Chance Road West)

      Soda Springs (8.8 miles south on Soda Springs Road, left 1 mile on road also known as Soda Springs Road)

      This was long known as Hopkins’s Springs, the resort that Mark Hopkins and Leland Stanford opened in the 1870’s.

      Last Chance (18 miles south on Soda Springs Road, 6 miles southwest on Foresthill Road, 5 miles south on Robinson Flat Road, 6 miles west on Last Chance Road)

      A group of prospectors pushed their way to this place in 1850 and lingered on, greedy for the rich gold deposits, until their provisions were exhausted. Staking all on a last chance, one of the men went into the forest and, as luck would have it, shot a large buck. The camp survived. By 1852, it had grown into a real town, and by 1859 it had three lodge halls. Remnants of its short-lived glory appear in the old hotel and the scattered cabins.

      Junction with Interstate 80 (Exit 183) (1 mile west of Soda Springs on Donner Pass Road)

      The trail route reunites with Interstate 80 here.

      Junction with California Highway 20 (Exit 166B) (13 miles west of Donner Pass Road on Interstate 80)

      Point of Interest:

      Lake Spaulding (2 miles west on CA 20, 1 mile north on Lake Spaulding Road)

      This man-made lake was created by a stone and concrete dam built in 1912. In a huge cave blasted from the canyon wall stands the Rim Power House (western shore). A tunnel bored through rock carries the lake water to the electric turbine and back to Drum Canal, where it flows down Bear Canyon to the foothill orchards around Auburn. North of Lake Spaulding is a string of man-made lakes that drain into Lake Spaulding. Since the gold days, these reservoirs have been used many ways: sluice mining in the 1850’s, large-scale hydraulic mining in the 1860’s and 1870’s, irrigation of farms and orchards from the 1850’s on, and generation of electric power since the turn of the century.

      Passing through Yuba Pass, the highway coasts down the crest of the ridge into the meadows of Wilson Valley. On both sides, the slopes fall away, right into the Bear River Valley and left into the wooded canyon of the North Fork of the American River.

      Emigrant Gap (Exit 162) (4 miles west of CA 20 on Interstate 80)

      Through this notch in the ridge, the North Fork of the American River once spilled into the Yuba River. The upheaval of the Sierra Nevada Range lifted up the giant causeway between them, over which the highway now runs. Emigrant Gap marks the boundary between the High Sierra and the gold-veined foothills.

      Alta (Exit 152) (11 miles west of Emigrant Gap on Interstate 80)

      Alta is a station on the railroad. Many of the houses on the heights above the town were built by summer visitors.

      Point of Interest:

      Dutch Flat (Right 1 mile on Alta Bonnynook Road, Left 1 mile on Main Street)

      Dutch Flat played a vivid part in the history of the northern mines. Settled in 1851 by German miners, Joseph Doranbach and his companions—Dutchmen in miners’ parlance—it soon crowded with thousands who flocked in to the placer deposits. It was a Dutch Flat man, Daniel W. Strong, who pointed out Donner Pass to Theodore Dehone Judah, the young Central Pacific engineer, and Dutch Flat subscribed money generously to the railroad. After 1863, when the railroad Big Four opened their Dutch Flat and Donner Lake Wagon Road, Concord coaches and teamsters stopped at hostelries here. The town had lost its importance as a stage center by the fall of the next year, when the railroad stretched twenty miles beyond to Cisco. However, the spectacular hydraulic operations of the next decade, when one company worked as many as 32 claims at once on a gigantic scale, kept millions of dollars in gold passing over its counters.

      China Store (Dutch Flat)

      This massive, fortress like structure with tiny porthole windows is all that remains of a Chinatown that housed 1,000 workers of the railroad construction days.

      Gold Run (Exit 143) (9 miles west of Alta on Interstate 80)

      Originally called Mountain Springs, Gold Run was founded in 1854 by O. W. Hollenbeck. It was famed for its hydraulic mines, which from 1865 to 1878 shipped $6,125,000 in gold. Five water ditches passed through the town to serve the mining companies, but they had to cease operations in 1882 when a court decision made hydraulic mining unprofitable.

      Colfax (Exit 135) (8 miles west of Gold Run on Interstate 80)

      Called Alden Grove by its settlers in 1849, this place was renamed Illinoistown in the early 1850’s. About 1869, the name changed to Colfax. During those turbulent years, it was a head of wagon navigation to the gold mines. Goods were transferred to muleback here for the journey to remote camps.

      Central Pacific rails reached Illinois-town on September 1st, 1865, and train service began four days later. Renamed by Governor Stanford in honor of Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives and later Ulysses S. Grant's Vice President, the town was for ten months a vital construction supply depot and junction point for stage lines. The real assault on the Sierra began here.

      Side Trip to Iowa Hill (Iowa Hill Road East)

      Iowa Hill (9 miles east on Iowa Hill Road)

      Traveling through the rather ominously named Slaughter Ravine, Iowa Hill Road leads to the town of Iowa Hill. All about are the signs of the treasure trove which, first discovered in 1853, had yielded an estimated $20,000,000 by 1880. Long ago, the rich conglomerate of the Blue Lead Channel, which ran under the town, was drifted out. Tremendous hydraulic onslaughts all but washed the town site away.

      Junction with Illinoistown Road (Exit 138) (2 miles west of Colfax on Interstate 80)

      Side Trip to Forest Hill (Canyon Way South, Yankee Jim’s Road East)

      Shirttail Canyon (0.5 mile south on Canyon Way, 5 miles east on Yankee Jim’s Road)

      This canyon acquired its name when, in the summer of 1849, a miner was discovered busily panning the stream clad in nothing but his shirt. This rough, highland country might have become Donner County, if a movement of 1869 had succeeded. The proposed new county would have included such settlements as Ground Hog’s Glory, Hell’s Delight, Miller’s Defeat, Ladies’ Canyon, Devil’s Basin, Hell’s Half-Acre, and Bogus Thunder.

      Yankee Jim’s (0.5 mile south on Canyon Way, 10 miles east on Yankee Jim’s Road)

      Only a cluster of cottages and the acres laid waste by hydraulic mining remain as evidence of the days when this was the trading center for camps in the neighboring canyons.

      Forest Hill (0.5 mile south on Canyon Way, 13 miles east on Yankee Jim’s Road)

      This town is in one of California’s most productive cement tunnel-mining districts. The Forest House, which replaced the first store built in 1850, and two brick stores with iron doors and shutters of the gold-rush period, served men from the mines. The shafts of big mines penetrate into the mountain to depths of from 200 to 5,000 feet, among them the Dardenelles, the Rough and Ready, and the Jenny Lind.

      Junction with Forest Hill Road (Exit 121) (17 miles west of Illinoistown Road on Interstate 80)

      Side Trip to Forest Hill and Michigan Bluff (Forest Hill Road East, Michigan Bluff Road South)

      Forest Hill Road is the route of the old turnpike up Forest Hill Divide. A constant stream of traffic poured over this route in the 1850’s. After 3.5 miles, an arrow on a marker points to Lime Rock, where a woman used to signal to highwaymen lying in wait for approaching stages.

      Forest Hill (3 miles south on CA 49, 17 miles east on Forest Hill Road)

      This town is in one of California’s most productive cement tunnel-mining districts. The Forest House, which replaced the first store built in 1850, and two brick stores with iron doors and shutters of the gold-rush period, served men from the mines. The shafts of big mines penetrate into the mountain to depths of from 200 to 5,000 feet, among them the Dardenelles, the Rough and Ready, and the Jenny Lind.

      Michigan Bluff (21 miles east on Forest Hill Road, 3 miles south on Michigan Bluff Road)

      Founded in 1850 and first known as Michigan City, the town was located on the slope one-half mile from here. Leland Stanford, who gained wealth and fame in California, operated a store in Michigan City from 1853 to 1855. In 1858, the town became undermined and unsafe so it was moved to this location and renamed Michigan Bluff.

      Auburn (Exit 119A) (2 miles west of Forest Hill Road on Interstate 80)

      Long before the surrounding orchards were planted, this was a mining camp. Claude Chana and his Indians mined gold here in May of 1848. First called Wood’s Dry Diggings, the camp was renamed a year later by miners who had come from Auburn, New York, with Stevenson’s Volunteer Regiment. Prospectors poured in during 1849, until a network of trails radiated to camps in the hills and ravines. These trails became turnpikes choked with stagecoaches, mule teams, and freight wagons. Highwaymen often lay in wait for hold-ups along these routes. The gold gave out, but Auburn’s decline was circumvented by the advent of the railroad in 1865, and by the planting, in the 1880’s and 1890’s, of the foothill orchards.

      After an 11-month delay due to political opposition and lack of money, Central Pacific tracks reached Auburn on May 13th, 1865, and regular service began. Government loans became available when the railroad completed its first 40 miles, four miles east of here. With the new funds, Central Pacific augmented its forces with the first Chinese laborers, and work began again in earnest.

      Side Trip to Wolf Creek (California Highway 49 North)

      Wolf Creek (12 miles north on CA 49)

      Over a hundred years ago, this trail resounded to creaking wheels of pioneer wagons and the cries of hardy travelers on their way to the gold fields. It is estimated that over thirty thousand people used this trail in 1849. Here the old trail approaches the present highway.

      Ophir (3 miles south of Auburn on Interstate 80)

      Located at the junction with California Highway 193, Ophir began life as Spanish Corral. The name was later changed in reference to King Solomon’s treasure trove. In 1852, it was the most populous town in Placer County. Among the nearby orchards and vineyards are the scars of old diggings, abandoned mining pits, dumps, and stamp mill foundations.

      From Ophir, the travel route follows Taylor Road west, retracing the old route of U.S. Highway 40.

      Newcastle (1 mile west of Ophir on Taylor Road)

      Newcastle was the only one of the many camps at the head of Secret Ravine to survive. As orchards replaced the spent placer mines in the 1870’s and 1880’s, it became a fruit-packing and shipping center. Regular freight and passenger trains began operating over the first 31 miles of Central Pacific's line to Newcastle on June 10th, 1864, when political opposition and lack of money stopped further construction during that mild winter. Construction was resumed in April of 1865. At this point, stagecoaches transferred passengers from the Dutch Flat Wagon Road.

      Penryn (2 miles west of Newcastle on Taylor Road)

      This community was named for the Welsh town, Penrhyn, from which came Griffith Griffith, who opened a granite quarry here in 1864. The quarry located near Griffith Quarry Park supplied high-quality granite for a number of the important buildings in San Francisco and Sacramento, including portions of the state capitol. This was also the site of the state's first successful commercial granite polishing mill, erected in 1874.

      Loomis (3 miles west of Penryn on Taylor Road)

      Loomis is the successor of the town of Pine, which took its name from Pine Grove in nearby Secret Ravine. Mining began in the ravine in 1850.

      From Loomis, the old highway strikes over a level straightaway across the edges of the Sacramento Valley. Taylor Road becomes Pacific Street as it enters Rocklin.

      Rocklin (3 miles west of Loomis on Taylor Road/Pacific Street)

      Rocklin was settled predominantly by people of Finnish descent. Central Pacific reached Rocklin, 22 miles from its Sacramento terminus, in May of 1864, when the railroad established a major locomotive terminal here. Trains moving over the Sierra were generally cut in two sections at this point in order to

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