Truckee on the Lincoln Highway

Map of Truckee showing the route of the Lincoln Highway. Click map for larger view.

The early eastbound Lincoln Highway traveler would have entered Truckee via the present-day Prosser Dam Road, which today crosses Highway 89, which has obliterated any old road traces. You can pick up the road by heading down E. Jibboom Street, which runs into Bridge Street. E. Jibboom Street was before the Lincoln Highway, a county road, and before that, the Dutch Flat Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR), built by the Central Pacific Railroad.

In the photo below, taken around the 1920s, we are looking north at Truckee and the Lincoln Highway, which is quite visible heading up the mountains. The early Lincoln Highway in this area followed the DFDLWR.

1920s view of Truckee and the Lincoln Highway.

Heading down The Lincoln Highway on East Jibboom, we come to Bridge Street and the Stone Garage, a landmark today. There is a plaque outside installed by the California Lincoln Highway Association and E Clampus Vitus, which describes this place's history.

Truckee Stone Garage on Bridge and E Jibboom Streets.

Once past the Truckee Stone Garage we turn right on Donner Pass Road and head down one block to Spring Street and the site of the Sierra Tavern, a popular stopping place along the old road. The first photo at the top of the blog shows the magnificent structure, which burned down in 1927, the year the Lincoln Highway became Highway 40.

Plaque on the wall of the Stone Garage.

Sierra Tavern in 1908 with Charles Fayette McGlashan’s home at the top left. Mc Glasahan was a prominent citizen of Truckee.

In the photo above, we can see the Sierra Tavern in 1908, five years before the Lincoln Highway. A lone automobile sits on Spring Street. The building at the top left was the home of CF McGlashan, a prominent Truckee Citizen. That building is long gone and was replaced by a Quonset hut shaped building for Truckee Veterans. To the Sierra Tavern's right, across Spring Street, we can see the Chance Saloon and OK Bar where the photo below was taken.

Rare photo of a Lincoln Highway “L” sign on Donner Pass Road, Truckee, sometime in the late 1910s, early 1920s.

In our next installment of the Lincoln Highway’s northern route, we will continue our trip towards the summit but will first stop to check out the Donner Party’s encampment site, now known as Donner Memorial State Park.

Photographs from Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection, and Adventures in California History.

The Summit Station and Hotel, Donner Summit

Looking at the photo above you would be forgiven for not knowing that this is likely one of the most historic spots in California railroad history. I’m standing at the site of the Central Pacific Railroad “roundhouse” at Summit Station, Donner Summit. It’s the only evidence of what was a beehive of activity along the transcontinental railroad. In the background, we can see the entrance for tunnel 6, the longest of the tunnels the railroad built. The concrete I’m looking at makes a large circle. This was the foundation for the roundhouse.

Photo: Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection

With this 1870 photo, we can see the 67’ turntable roundhouse in the photo center. The Summit Hotel is the large white building on the left. The wooden snow tunnel coming towards us it the west portal to Tunnel Six.

Photo: Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection

The above 1884 diagram is quite helpful in identifying the objects in the photo.

Photo: Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection.

The above 1920s photo and the one following were taken from the same spot. The first photo shows the Summit Hotel at left, with a ramp to the railroad snow sheds at right. Travelers would wait at the hotel until the train arrived and then proceeded across the ramp to the snow shed and the waiting train. It looks like some folks are digging in the street, maybe looking for gold? Some more people wait at the hotel and behind the truck.

Photo: Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection

The fantastic photo above shows why people were waiting for the train outside. Notice the snow shed at right, which appears to be on fire with a great amount of smoke billowing out of the vents near the roof. The shed is not on fire; the train has arrived! Everyone would wait until the last minute to work their way through the smoke to the waiting train.

Photo: Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection.

Here we see the other side of the loading ramp at the Summit Hotel. This photo was taken around 1900, so we are still in the horse and buggy era with a couple of riders with their horses on the road. With a covered area leading to it, at right, is what appears to be a three-story “outhouse.”

Photo: Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection

This 1927 photo shows the transition from “horse and buggy” days to the automobile era. We are looking the same direction as the photo with the horse riders, but now we see a car driving on the Lincoln Highway, with Lincoln Highway sign visible just to the car's right. The road turned right, just before the building as the ramp to the trains is still standing.

According to the Donner Summit Museum, this is likely one of the last photos of the Summit Hotel as it burned down in 1925. Why is this photo dated 1927? I’ll let you know when I find out.

Map showing key features.

Sierra Summit-Truckee Highway

I am trying to place the location of this photograph. While I assume it’s near Donner Summit on the Lincoln Highway, the exact location baffles me. You can see part of the road below right, snaking it’s way up. Are we headed up to the auto subway under the tracks? Below is a closer view of the auto.

A close-up view of the photo above.

Lincoln Highway map of possible location.

Photo’s from: “McCarthy Album 04, Photograph 010,” California State Archives Exhibits, accessed September 30, 2019, http://exhibits.sos.ca.gov/items/show/4075.

Truck entering new snowshed subway at Donner Summit

Pictured is the famous auto subway under the Central Pacific Railroad tracks at Donner Summit. The actual summit is another couple hundred yards past the tunnel. The truck is headed north and then west. The photo is likely taken around 1914, as as the snowshed has been removed directly above the 1913 built subway. The snow shed was soon re-built after construction.

Close up of the photo.

Here we see a close up of the photo showing the supporting timbers holding back the dirt as construction commenced on the subway. Notice the two Lincoln Highway logos on the back of the truck. A lantern partially obscures the logo at left. Notice how clean the walls of the subway are. Looking at photos of the underpass after 1914 shows graffiti started showing up very soon after construction.

Donner Lake Camp

We are looking east from the west side of Donner Lake, approx 1920’s. The building seen is the office for the Donner Lake Camp, an early “autoist” campground. In the close up below we can see a “Red Crown” gasoline sign, as well as a car headed down the road. The road curves around the lower part of the photo and ends up at the right side where it would soon start the climb up towards the summit.

Dedication of corner stone for Donner Memorial

On June 10th, 1910, a dedication ceremony was held at the Breen cabin's site, including members of the Donner Party in attendance! This dedication was to formally mark the spot that would, in about 8 years, hold the massive statue and support for the Donner Party Memorial. An immense granite cornerstone was inscribed and placed at the corner of the Breen cabin's site.

The inscription on the stone read, "This cornerstone marks the site of the Donner Party cabins where a monument will be erected under the auspices of The Native Sons of the Golden West to the pioneers that crossed the plains."

This evocative photograph shows CF Mc Glashan, Truckee attorney, who spearheaded the monument construction, speaking to the assembled audience. Sitting on the stand listening are three of the Donner Party survivors, Virginia Reed Murphy, Patty Reed Lewis, and dressed in white, Francis Donner Wilder. All three women would show up 8 years later for the monument dedication.

Donner Monument, unfinished

I am working on a video concerning the construction of The Donner Pioneer Monument and came upon this intriguing photo. It shows the Donner Memorial without the statue of the family on top. The base was hand built and the sculpture installed piece by piece.

What captured my attention was the immense cornerstone sitting next to the base. The stone was dedicated a few years before as the start of the year's long effort to get the statue up. It marked the corner of the Breen cabin, who were members of the Donner Party. We see the cornerstone in pictures taken before, during, and just after the monument was dedicated. However, sometime after that, it went missing, and no one knows what happened to it.

Where was this highway photo taken?

These two photos from Jack Duncan seem to show Highway 40 "near Donner Summit," according to the caption. I'm having a hard time locating this particular spot. It looks much like the area between Cisco Grove and Big Bend, but the old road on the right rises much more rapidly at that location. The second photo below seems to show the same area, but check out all the traffic. If you know where this photo location is, please let us know.

The Lincoln Highway at Donner Summit

The following photographs go with our YouTube video, where Norm Sayler of the Donner Summit Historical Society describes to Trey what we are seeing. You can watch the video at the bottom of this post.

The above photograph shows the first snow removal equipment on Donner Pass. These vehicles didn’t work The Lincoln, but the early Highway 40, which followed the second-generation Lincoln Highway.

Another great photograph is showing the first snow removal equipment on Donner Summit.

The above photo shows an automobile headed down the grade at Donner Summit. This photograph is before the snow removal equipment. The snow was hand dug by eager merchants and others who were looking for the first customer to come over the summit.

A fantastic shot of a couple of automobiles headed down into the auto subway under the Southern Pacific tracks next to the China Wall. The snow looks dirty as the very same people who hand-dug the snow would bring ash and coal dust to sprinkle on the snow in an attempt to help it melt faster.

This view is of the very beginning of the construction of The Rainbow Bridge. We are looking at the right abutment or approach to the bridge. You can see the railroad snow tunnels on the mountain behind. Notice the automobile on the road just before the abutment.

What looks like the Rainbow Bridge is the scaffolding for the new bridge. The actual height of the bridge will reach those two abutments we see towards the top of the photo.

Here is a cool photograph of the construction of the Rainbow Bridge. We can see the new bridge, the roads approaching, and if you look very closely at the very bottom right, you can see an automobile headed up by the small pond and using the original alignment of The Lincoln Highway since the bridge is not yet complete. Then small pond the car is passing was formed by the construction of the second-generation Lincoln, which blocked its outflow.

A beautiful postcard photograph is showing the newly completed second-generation Lincoln Highway bridge, complete with dirt approaches, which changed to asphalt when the road became Highway 40. The plaque pictured used to be at the lookout point near the bridge. It now rests at the Donner Summit Historical Society.

The vanishing Lake Van Norden and the Lincoln Highway

The photo shows an automobile traveling on the Lincoln Highway sometime after 1916 since it shows a large reservoir that almost touches the road. The original alignment of the Lincoln followed Lake Van Norden's northern side from Soda Springs at Highway 80, north of Lake Van Norden, to the now long gone Summit Hotel.

Traveling up the old Highway 40, today's Donner Summit Road, towards Soda Springs one passes Summit Valley off to the right. During the winter it's a snow-covered valley, but in spring with the snowmelt, it turns into Lake Van Norden. It was 1872 when a dam was built across the south fork Yuba River creating the lake. We are not sure why the dam was built, but for awhile the water stored was sent downstream to operate hydraulic mines. In 1886 hydraulic mining was outlawed, so the water was used to irrigate the rapidly growing Central Valley and foothill orchard industry.

In 1916 the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) became the owner of the lake and enlarged it to a total of 5600-acre-feet. Every spring the lake would fill with snowmelt, and the slowly lowered during the summer to supply downstream uses. The lowering lake supported a large sheep industry that would use the grass that grew as food.

In 1976 the dam was found to be unsafe, so it was notched to allow less water to be stored. The new lake was only 150-acre-feet in size but still provided recreation and water for wildlife. In 2012 the lake was bought by the Truckee Donner Land Trust from failed developers. According to the Donner Summit Historical Society newsletter, "they inherited a problem because the developers had been told by the State to drain the lake to below fifty acre feet. The Land Trust wanted to sell the valley to the Forest Service which would not take the valley with any lake. The Land Trust did not entertain any other solutions and so opened the drain and completely drained the lake in 2015. If the Forest Service consummates the purchase their plan is to restore the dry meadow to what it was before there was any dam and no summer river." The Truckee Donner Land Trust sees the removal of the dam and lake as a win for the environment, which they detail here.

Lake Van Norden

George Lamson [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]

Be sure to check out the lake within the next couple of weeks, because 2019 is the last year that Lake Van Norden will exist. Destroying Lake Van Norden seems an odd move for a state that seems to always be on the verge of a drought, and is unwilling to build new water storage facilities.