Woodfords Station

Woodfords Station was the Eastern Sierra gateway to California’s goldfields, a way station of the Pony Express, and the entrance to Carson Pass on the Emigrant Trail to the Sacramento Valley. Beginning in 1849 with Daniel Woodfords’s building of the “Sign of the Elephant” hotel, it became the first settlement in what is today Alpine County. In 1854 Willis P. Merrill opened a trading post in the area and later a hotel and store.

California · United States