Donner Summit Canyon History

Donner Summit Canyon lies at the gateway to what is called the most important square mile in California history, with Donner Pass above it serving as the route of the first transcontinental telephone line, railroad, and highway and carrying many of the people who shaped California. Native Americans seasonally crossed the Sierra here, and petroglyphs from the Martis people, estimated to be up to 2,500 years old, can be seen just west of the Donner Summit (Rainbow) Bridge on Old U.S. 40. The Northern Paiute, Western Shoshoni, Washoe, and Maidu are believed to have used the pass as a trade route. In 1844, the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party became the first group of Euro-American emigrants to successfully cross the summit into California, leaving their wagons near Truckee Lake because of early snowfall while Moses Schallenberger wintered there in a hastily built cabin, giving his name to Schallenberger Ridge. In October 1846, the Donner Party entered the Sierra too late, became trapped by heavy early snows near Truckee Lake and in Alder Creek Valley, exhausted their food, struggled to hunt, lost their oxen in snowdrifts, and saw a small group cross the summit to bring back supplies and help rescue survivors the following spring. During the Civil War, the federal government supported the transcontinental railroad through U.S. government bonds and land grants to the Central Pacific Railroad, and the route above the property includes the China Wall, hand-cut tunnels, and snowsheds built by Chinese laborers to carry the railroad across the Sierra. To move materials and workers to the summit, the Central Pacific built the Dutch Flat-Donner Lake Wagon Road, which operated as a toll road from 1864 to 1867. After the railroad was completed, that wagon road declined, was later adapted for automobiles, served first as the Lincoln Highway and then the Victory Highway until Highway 40 was built in the 1920s, and helped make Truckee and Lake Tahoe important resort and recreation destinations. The lands around Donner Lake, including Donner Summit Canyon, Schallenberger Ridge, and Lakeview, Cold Stream, and Emigrant Canyons, are now permanently protected and open to the public as additions to Donner Memorial State Park.

Truckee, California · United States