A busy day at Baxter along old Highway 40

For many years, the mountain town of Baxter sat on the main transcontinental highway from Donner Summit to Auburn. Before the present Interstate 80 was built about 200 yards from this spot, everyone crossing the Sierra on Highway 40, the Lincoln Highway, stopped here to re-fuel and re-fresh. It's hard to imagine just how much traffic passed this way. These two photos help us to see the amount of traffic this small stop catered.

The above photo showed Baxter in 1936 when this was Highway 40. If you look closely down the road, there are at least 6+ buses parked in front of the Baxter's Hotel Lunch Counter. Figuring the buses were loaded with about 50 passengers, that means about 300 people are eating inside the building!

1926 photo showing trucks parked at Baxter, Placer County. Photo:Placer County Museums

Now let’s go back ten years to 1926 when this road was the Lincoln Highway. It appears that two big rigs have decided to stop for supplies after having crossed the summit and made it down the grade. There are plenty of automobiles parked around the front of the buildings, all visiting the Lunch Counter at the hotel or buying supplies at the “Old Forty-Nine Trading Post.”

The photo below shows Baxter today, looking east instead of west, like the older photos. The concrete foundation for the gas pumps can still be seen down the road by that building. Everything else has disappeared. The building standing in the photo seems to be a supply point for trucks harvesting water from Crystal Springs, nearby.

Baxter, looking east. Not much left of the old town.

A summertime day in Auburn, 1916.

We were looking down Railroad Street from the Freeman Hotel, Auburn. To the left, we see a Livery, Feed, and Auto Service, which was a logical choice for the livery as the new automobile made its appearance. The horse and buggy were doomed and best to transition while the transcontinental highway passed in front. Railroad Street in 1916 was the Lincoln Highway, bringing people and autos from the rest of the country as far as New York.

There is a bar just further down, which, according to the sign out front, sold beer for 5 cents, and beyond the bar is the Peerless Cleaners and Dyers. Better enjoy that beer, as prohibition will begin in just a couple of years, 1919. Not a lot of traffic on what appears to be a summer day, as the trees a fully leafed out. It looks like the water wagon may have passed by recently, keeping that nicely graded roadbed from becoming dust.

Interesting to note that people still used horses and wagons in 1916, as the first three vehicles we see are buggies. I do think we can see a couple of auto’s further down the road.

World War I is raging in Europe, and many of the hometown boys are off fighting. When the soldiers that survived return, everything will change as we transition from one era to another, the roaring 20’s!

Looking north on Lincoln Way

The above photo shows Lincoln Way in Auburn, looking north towards High Street. I guessing the date to be the early 1930s. There is a Lincoln Highway “L” on the telephone at left.

Here we see the same scene as the photo above, but a decade or so later. There is more traffic, and there is now a crosswalk with a “Stop for Pedestrians” sign. We can see some of the older cars that might have been in the first photo still tooling around.

Placer Garage, Lincoln Highway, Auburn

Beautiful photograph looking west on High Street and Lincoln Way. We are close to the turn of the century here, as we see hoses and wagons still in use, along with an automobile and motorcycle. Like many of these older photos, the fun is in the details.

At the far left, upper part of the photo, we can see the High School, with a dome, in the background. Built-in 1906, the dome was made of tin and leaked so severely the school removed it 1916. The high school dome is a great way to help date these photos. The Congregational Church is the lower left, end of the street.

Moving to the foreground, we see the ever-present advertisement for Wrigley’s Chewing Gum. This advertisement shows up in other photos of Auburn. I’m interested to know what the connection is between Auburn and Wrigley’s. Three men sit in an automobile in front of the Placer Garage. Their motto? “The shop that merits your trade.” A man holds an “Indian” motorcycle, I assume, as the garage advertises Indian Motorcycles in their window. The carriages further down sit in front of the “Telephone Office.”

Photos from: Placer County Museums.