Auburn Ski Club at Cisco Grove.

This photo shows the Auburn Ski Club building in Cisco Grove, approximately the 1930s. There is a toboggan last in line, waiting for its owner to return. Another group is milling around the front, and the ubiquitous Coca-Cola sign hangs in the doorway. I cannot see the snow shed over the railroad tracks on the mountainside, so I was wondering if this is facing north? Most photos are from the 1930s.

Now that the formalities have been taken care of, it’s time to ski! We see people skiing “this way and that” in the above photo. I’m not sure if the rope tows or jig-back are available yet, so many of these folks may be “cross-country skiing.”

In the above photo we see the unusual and likely first “ski lift” in California, The “Jig-Back”. It’s all metal and you rode backwards to you wouldn’t be thrown out when it started! It still sits, rusted, near the railroad tracks on the side of the mountain.

This is what amounted to skiing before the “Jig-Back” and tow ropes were installed. You ski jumped from here. Don’t be afraid, it looks farther than it really is.

Here we see a man taking flight from the ski jump at Cisco Grove. It doesn’t look so far from this angle.

The jump from a different angle. This gentleman has figured out how to do it with excellent form.

There were competitions. Here we see a lady receiving a trophy for some event. Everyone seems pleased with the result! Can someone identify the people or events in this photograph?

Photographs from: Placer County Museums and Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler collection.

Summit of the Sierra

A great 1915 photo from the William M McCarthy collection at the California State Archives. Titled, “Summit of the Sierras," it shows two sets of railroad tracks, which indicates this is not Donner Summit, as all the tracks there were covered. Is this the Yuba Pass area?

The fun in these old photographs is often in zooming in to see the detail. They are hard to see otherwise, but once we look more closely we can see a couple of buildings set up against the snow sheds. Must have been for workers on the railroad to enter and leave without actually going outside into the snow. Just to the left of the buildings, I have marked what appears to be an automobile subway under the tracks and snow sheds. This subway is just like the one at Donner Summit, so perhaps this will help us to identify this location. Zoomable photo here.

“McCarthy Album 07, Photograph 266,” California State Archives Exhibits, accessed September 29, 2019, http://exhibits.sos.ca.gov/items/show/9290.

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.