Boca began as Central Pacific Railroad Construction Camp 17 at the junction of the Little Truckee and Truckee Rivers during 1866-68, when tracks were being laid across the Sierra Nevada for the first transcontinental railroad, and it soon became known as Boca, Spanish for "mouth." A lumber mill was established there in 1868 to supply wood for the railroad, and a dam across the Little Truckee created a log pond that froze in winter, leading the company to begin harvesting ice in 1869. As the Boca Mill and Ice Company expanded, the town grew quickly to about 200 people, mostly men under 40 from places including Maine, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Nevada, Ireland, Germany, China, and Italy, and it developed a reputation for violence. Although few men brought their families, by 1873 there were enough children for a school, and by 1876 the town had a post office, telegraph office, train depot, hotel, sawmill, shingle mill, Chinese laundry, general store, dairy, butcher shop, brothel, blacksmith shop, homes, saloons, ice houses, and a brewery. Boca's lumber and ice industries employed most residents and transients, with as many as 150 men working in lumber in summer and up to 50 in ice in winter, while other businesses depended on the Boca Mill and Ice Company. Operations at Boca helped meet immense regional demand for wood from the railroad, which needed ties, telegraph poles, snow sheds, and fuel, and from the Comstock mines, which required timber for buildings and mine shafts. Boca also shipped ice throughout the West, aided by California's growing produce industry and insulated railroad cars, and in the 1870's Sierra ice found its greatest market in the Comstock mines of Nevada, where miners working deep underground needed large quantities of ice in temperatures that could exceed 140°F. Boca became especially famous for Boca Beer: the Boca Brewery, established in 1876, covered an acre, employed up to 35 men, mostly German, produced 20,000 to 30,000 barrels annually for shipment throughout the West, and won awards at the 1883 Paris World Fair before fire destroyed it in 1893. The local cemetery reflects the harshness of life in the Sierra frontier town, as nearly all the remaining headstones mark children who died from illnesses such as bronchial pneumonia, intestinal problems, typhoid, and other childhood diseases, including children of railroad and ice company families such as the Margarolis, the O'Sheas, and the Weeks family. Boca declined after extreme overharvesting ended the era of abundant timber, causing the sawmill to close in 1908; ice then became the main industry, but the Sierra ice trade lost its biggest market when the Comstock mining era ended in the 1880's, and modern refrigeration and artificial ice production in the 1900's made natural ice harvesting uncompetitive, leading the Union Ice Company to cease operations and dismantle the town in 1927.