Nyack, also known as Emigrant Gap, was a long-used stop on a major Sierra route where wagon trains descended from the eastern rise into the valley and followed the Bear River. The Dutch Flat Donner Lake Wagon Road carried travelers and freight over the Sierra, supplying the Comstock mines in Nevada and the building of the transcontinental railroad. The route later became part of the Lincoln Highway in 1913, then the Victory Highway, and then State Highway 40. P.G. and E. built a lookout point at the site of the current scenic overlook so people could watch Spaulding Dam being built. T.C. Wohlbruck built a rest stop with guest rooms and refreshments for Lincoln Highway travelers, and later Herstel Jones built Nyack Lodge to serve Highway 40 travelers. The lodge stood where the scenic turnout on I-80 now is; when the freeway arrived, part of the building had to be dynamited because it was too massive, and the rest was cut into three parts and moved up Old Highway 40 to present Nyack, where it was reassembled. During the winter of 1951-52, after the Streamliner City of San Francisco was stranded for six days in 12 feet of snow a few miles east, with food and water exhausted and no heat, snow plows cleared Highway 40 to below the train, snowcats evacuated the passengers to the highway, and Stewart Wells organized a 40-car rescue convoy to bring them to Nyack Lodge, where they were warmed before boarding a new train.