1922 Moreland Truck at Johnson's Pass

Recently I was contacted by Greg Hull, who had worked for Cal Trans for thirty-three years as a construction engineer. His Father-in-Law was Darel Kehlet, whose family bought 640 acres on the west shore of Lake Tahoe and built Meeks Bay Resort from 1915-1969. Greg had inherited many family photos showing the resort's early development and surrounding highways and by-ways. He has kindly permitted these photos to be shared.

We see the Meek's Bay Resort Truck at the top of Johnson’s Pass at Echo Summit, looking east towards Lake Tahoe. The photo dates from 1922 or shortly after. It shows a man, woman, and dog, outside the truck, which has stopped at the pass. Johnson’s Pass was always a popular spot for travelers to snap photos. Just outside the frame, to the right, would be the Echo Summit Canteen Service Station owned by TC Wholbruck, whom we discussed.

In the early days of automotive travel, trucks and cars would have to back up steep hills as these vehicles had not yet been equipped with fuel pumps. On its journey "down the hill" towards Placerville, this truck would include a drive backing up the nearby Slippery-Ford Grade on the Lincoln Highway. What an experience that must have been.

The same spot today!

Thanks to Greg Hull for sharing this and some other photos I hope to post here shortly. I have placed a comparison photo showing what the location looks like today

Location on map.

Following the Lincoln Highway at Zephyr Cove, Nevada

Monica is standing on the Lincoln Highway at the Zephyr Cove Lodge, Nevada. We had ventured over the state line following the Lincoln Highway up and over to Carson City. On the way, we stopped in Zephyr Cove to follow the highway's original course, which is behind the lodge on the current Highway 50. We are looking north in this photo.

Looking down the Lincoln Highway towards a fence that stops cars from entering the lodge area where Monica stood in the first photos. However, you can walk around the fence to access the lodge portion of the highway—some vintage cabins along the old road here.

The Old Lincoln Highway at Zephyr Cove is right along the water. It's just a hundred yards to the lake's edge. This strip of road has some great vintage cabins that once watched the transcontinental motorists pass by.

Turning around to face south, the old Lincoln Highway heads up the hill for about another 200 yards and eventually melds into the current Highway 50. Unfortunately, it’s a dead-end, and you’ll have to turn around and head back down the way you came.

On the northern side of the Zephyr Cove Lodge parking lot is a dirt section of the old road. The Forest Service had placed a sign mentioning the importance of the old road. This section is some of the last original Lincoln Highway roadbeds around Lake Tahoe.

The Forest Service sign describing the Lincoln Highway around Lake Tahoe. Most of the road around Lake Tahoe was dirt back then. Imagine what an adventure it was for early motorists to travel around the lake on dirt wagon roads.

Map showing the general area around Zephyr Cove and the Lodge location.

Bowman crossing and a newly found alignment of the Lincoln Highway.

The photo above, taken in the 1900s, shows the Bowman Crossing of the Southern Pacific Railroad. If you look closely, there is a person on a horse and another standing nearby. What caught my attention was the way the road makes a bend towards the photographer. If we head the other way, we will pass Machado’s Orchard on our way to Auburn once we cross the tracks. It was this photo that caused us to stop and check out this famous crossing again. We wanted to make sure our official Lincoln Highway map had the routes across the tracks marked correctly. We’ve checked out this area before but were unable to spot the old road. Recently someone has cleared out the area making it more open and visible.

The map at right will show the general area and some of the features discussed. We can see the two rail lines, the Lincoln Highway's blue line, and the crossing pictured in the historic photograph. East is to the right, west to the left. Notice how the crossing in the historic photo is actually west of our Lincoln Highway map shows the crossing. Click map for a larger view.

The same spot as the historic photo, but today. You can see our truck at the left.

In the photo below, we have moved east and can now see the road's impression at right. It appears that once you crossed the first rail line, you would take a hard right and head east. You can see Monica in the background on the road. Our truck is on the other side of the tracks at the crossing.

While the impression we were following could be the road, it would be nice to find some more evidence that this was indeed the transcontinental highway's route. We found the evidence because of the recent clearing of trees and shrubs in this area. We found a state “C” monument facing east and another just a few yards away. These markers were placed along state routes from 1914 to the 1930s. Finding these markers is a great affirmation you are on the right track.

Here we see Monica by the “C” monument. The taller metal sign has the letters R/W on it, which means “right of way.” Placer County has put these metal markers at the site of these older stone monuments. This makes finding the old monuments much easier in this county than others who don’t mark these. We found another marker just a few yards from this one, giving us the road's general route. See the map below for more detail.

Covey Rd., which we originally had our route marked on, is actually a road that crosses over Highway 80. We do not believe the Lincoln Highway route crossed where we had originally marked it. Below we have marked where we believe the route actually crossed the first tracks and then made its way towards crossing the second set of tracks. There a long-gone bridge crossed the second set of rail tracks.

Click map for a larger view.

To summarize, the Lincoln Highway crossed the first set of tracks at a different place than we had earlier thought. After crossing the first set of tracks, the road makes an immediate right, following alongside the rail line, just before where the present Bowman Road is, a sharp left, then another left to head towards crossing the long-gone bridge over the second set of tracks.

These changes to the route are sent to the Lincoln Highway Associations’ cartographer. If they agree with our findings, we will change the official map to show the newly found route.

Iowa Hills William "Seattle Bill" James, baseball legend

We have discussed the above photo in a post that can be found here. It shows the Iowa Hill baseball team posing with a couple of children sitting by a tree. All the small mining towns in the foothills fielded baseball teams, and Iowa Hill produced a player that would eventually pitch in the 1914 World Series. William "Seattle Bill" James was the waterboy for the Iowa Hill team and can be seen sitting by the tree holding a watering can! Bill was born in 1892 and looked to be about five or six in the photo, which would make the date of the photo around 1897 or 98.

William “Seattle Bill” James pitching for the Boston Braves.

William Lawrence James was the third of four children of William and Emma James. Bill's father was a gold miner in Iowa Hill, and when Bill was 11, the family moved to Oroville, where his father took a job on a mining dredge. While his parents wanted a mining degree for their son, Bill had other plans. In the three years that Bill attended Oroville high, he matured into a 6'3", 195-pound pitching phenom. When Seattle of the Northwestern League offered him a contract before the 1912 season, he left school for good. More about Bill here at the Society for American Baseball Research.

William James baseball card from 1916.

The above photo shows a baseball card with William pitching for the Boston Braves. Bill moved to the braves after playing for Seattle in 1912, where he was renowned for his fastball and spitball. William led the Seattle team to a pennant and helped guide the Braves to the championship. He was an early baseball superstar.

The photo below features James on a “cigar blanket”. I assume, because of the size of the “blanket”, that this actually sat inside a cigar box.

A “Cigar Blanket” featuring William James.

He attempted a comeback in 1918, but WWI called, so he served in the 63rd Infantry. There, his baseball arm came into use as he taught soldiers how to throw bombs. After the war, Bill played one major league game in 1919. From 1919 to 1925, he was a coach and player in the Pacific Coast League, from which he retired.

During retirement, Bill lived with his wife Harriet in Oroville. There he drove trucks and became an assessor for Butte County. He died on March 10, 1971, just shy of his 79th birthday., He is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Oroville.

Williams's story is fascinating as we can watch his development from a young waterboy in an isolated mountain town, Iowa Hill, to his fame as an early baseball player in the major league.

Alta and the Lincoln Highway

This photograph was taken in 1916 and showed the K.V.A. Ball Team in Alta, California. While we are not sure what the initials stand for, we are confident of the location. In the background, you can see a railroad crossing, which at this date would be the Southern Pacific Railroad. The building at right is the Alta Store, which still operates to this day.

Today’s Alta Bonny Nook Road was in 1916 the Lincoln Highway, which would have brought most transcontinental drivers right through the town. What’s fun about the above photo is a Lincoln Highway logo painted on a gas pump of some type. The Lincoln Highway Logo painted on telephone poles, bridges, and any other prominent spot was to help drivers navigate the country, and it would have been a central location in town. It was interesting to note no autos in the photo, but horses and buggies were still popular in the early 20th Century.

Map of location. Click photo for larger view.

A busy day at Baxter along old Highway 40

For many years, the mountain town of Baxter sat on the main transcontinental highway from Donner Summit to Auburn. Before the present Interstate 80 was built about 200 yards from this spot, everyone crossing the Sierra on Highway 40, the Lincoln Highway, stopped here to re-fuel and re-fresh. It's hard to imagine just how much traffic passed this way. These two photos help us to see the amount of traffic this small stop catered.

The above photo showed Baxter in 1936 when this was Highway 40. If you look closely down the road, there are at least 6+ buses parked in front of the Baxter's Hotel Lunch Counter. Figuring the buses were loaded with about 50 passengers, that means about 300 people are eating inside the building!

1926 photo showing trucks parked at Baxter, Placer County. Photo:Placer County Museums

Now let’s go back ten years to 1926 when this road was the Lincoln Highway. It appears that two big rigs have decided to stop for supplies after having crossed the summit and made it down the grade. There are plenty of automobiles parked around the front of the buildings, all visiting the Lunch Counter at the hotel or buying supplies at the “Old Forty-Nine Trading Post.”

The photo below shows Baxter today, looking east instead of west, like the older photos. The concrete foundation for the gas pumps can still be seen down the road by that building. Everything else has disappeared. The building standing in the photo seems to be a supply point for trucks harvesting water from Crystal Springs, nearby.

Baxter, looking east. Not much left of the old town.

A summertime day in Auburn, 1916.

We were looking down Railroad Street from the Freeman Hotel, Auburn. To the left, we see a Livery, Feed, and Auto Service, which was a logical choice for the livery as the new automobile made its appearance. The horse and buggy were doomed and best to transition while the transcontinental highway passed in front. Railroad Street in 1916 was the Lincoln Highway, bringing people and autos from the rest of the country as far as New York.

There is a bar just further down, which, according to the sign out front, sold beer for 5 cents, and beyond the bar is the Peerless Cleaners and Dyers. Better enjoy that beer, as prohibition will begin in just a couple of years, 1919. Not a lot of traffic on what appears to be a summer day, as the trees a fully leafed out. It looks like the water wagon may have passed by recently, keeping that nicely graded roadbed from becoming dust.

Interesting to note that people still used horses and wagons in 1916, as the first three vehicles we see are buggies. I do think we can see a couple of auto’s further down the road.

World War I is raging in Europe, and many of the hometown boys are off fighting. When the soldiers that survived return, everything will change as we transition from one era to another, the roaring 20’s!

Georgetown Junction, historic crossroads along the Lincoln Highway

Map of the area between Kyburz and Strawberry, and The Georgetown Junction. Click map for larger view.

Leaving Strawberry, we head down the old Lincoln Highway, which Highway 50 closely follows today. However, there are many places along the freeway where the Lincoln Highway followed a more casual route. Milestone 41 is one such road, which today acts as an entrance to summer cabins. A number of these milestone roads were the Lincoln Highway, including Milestones 34 and 35. Another place the old road veers from today’s path is Wright’s Lake Road and the Georgetown Junction.

The Georgetown Junction once had a toll house, where a stone chimney left from those days stood well into the 20th Century. It seemed to be a popular place to take a photograph for Lincoln Highway and early Highway 50 for travelers. At its earliest, Georgetown Junction was where Johnson’s Trail left the river and climbed high up to Peavine Ridge, and eventually down to the river and a crossing at Bartlett’s Bridge. Later, after 1858 the state took over control of the road and built a new trail leaving the river further west at Silver Fork and the Sugar Loaf House site. Georgetown Junction then became a cut-off road for travelers headed to Georgetown rather than Placerville.

Monica on a found segment of the highway, off Wright’s Lake Road. Highway 50 is below, and to the right.

Map showing new segment in red. Wrights Lake Road is The Lincoln Highway. Click map for larger view.

While we were exploring the area around Wright’s Lake Road, we discovered a small stretch of the old Lincoln Highway at the Wright’s Lake Road turnoff. On the map at left, you can see a red line indicating the section of the found road. You can see Monica standing on that portion of the road in the above photo, with Highway 50 down below and Wright’s Lake Road to the left.

Continuing downhill from Wright’s Lake Road, we come to a wide spot on the right that is the site of Fred’s Place, a top-rated stop for food and lodging from the Lincoln HIghway days well into the Highway 50 era. We have written about Fred’s Place before. You can read more about it here.

During the Highway 50 era, Fred's Place placed the fake, wooden CHP car to get people to slow down as the grade here was quite steep, and people tended to pick up speed.

A bit further downhill from Fred's Place's site is Milestone Tract 34, which enters and exits on your left side. Drive this section of forest road to experience the Lincoln Highway in its original form. Half-way down Milestone 34, we come to the site of the "Register Rock,” or “Split Rock," which acted as a billboard back in the day. Some of the writing is still visible, such as an ad for pianos in Oakland.

Below is a short 2-minute video Monica and I made a few years back on Milestone 34.

Truckee on the Lincoln Highway

Map of Truckee showing the route of the Lincoln Highway. Click map for larger view.

The early eastbound Lincoln Highway traveler would have entered Truckee via the present-day Prosser Dam Road, which today crosses Highway 89, which has obliterated any old road traces. You can pick up the road by heading down E. Jibboom Street, which runs into Bridge Street. E. Jibboom Street was before the Lincoln Highway, a county road, and before that, the Dutch Flat Donner Lake Wagon Road (DFDLWR), built by the Central Pacific Railroad.

In the photo below, taken around the 1920s, we are looking north at Truckee and the Lincoln Highway, which is quite visible heading up the mountains. The early Lincoln Highway in this area followed the DFDLWR.

1920s view of Truckee and the Lincoln Highway.

Heading down The Lincoln Highway on East Jibboom, we come to Bridge Street and the Stone Garage, a landmark today. There is a plaque outside installed by the California Lincoln Highway Association and E Clampus Vitus, which describes this place's history.

Truckee Stone Garage on Bridge and E Jibboom Streets.

Once past the Truckee Stone Garage we turn right on Donner Pass Road and head down one block to Spring Street and the site of the Sierra Tavern, a popular stopping place along the old road. The first photo at the top of the blog shows the magnificent structure, which burned down in 1927, the year the Lincoln Highway became Highway 40.

Plaque on the wall of the Stone Garage.

Sierra Tavern in 1908 with Charles Fayette McGlashan’s home at the top left. Mc Glasahan was a prominent citizen of Truckee.

In the photo above, we can see the Sierra Tavern in 1908, five years before the Lincoln Highway. A lone automobile sits on Spring Street. The building at the top left was the home of CF McGlashan, a prominent Truckee Citizen. That building is long gone and was replaced by a Quonset hut shaped building for Truckee Veterans. To the Sierra Tavern's right, across Spring Street, we can see the Chance Saloon and OK Bar where the photo below was taken.

Rare photo of a Lincoln Highway “L” sign on Donner Pass Road, Truckee, sometime in the late 1910s, early 1920s.

In our next installment of the Lincoln Highway’s northern route, we will continue our trip towards the summit but will first stop to check out the Donner Party’s encampment site, now known as Donner Memorial State Park.

Photographs from Donner Summit Historical Society, Norm Sayler Collection, and Adventures in California History.

A crossroads on the northern route of the Lincoln Highway, Part 5

The 1913 route of Lincoln Highway from the Second Summit outside Verdi to Truckee is likely some of the least visited sections of the old road. This route was active with transcontinental drivers until 1926 when the Truckee River's new route was completed. That Truckee River route is the path that Highway 40 took, and Interstate 80 follows today. The Dog Valley route soon lost most of it’s its traffic and became what it is today, a back road, little traveled, filled with history.

Map of entire area discussed. Click map for a closer view.

The above map shows the general location, from Verdi, NV., to Truckee. The yellow symbols are Trails West “T” markers placed on the old emigrant route. The markers are placed on or directly next to the original trail. In between the signs, the route is often undetectable, and that is why my lines from one marker to the next are often straight. We don’t know the actual route, yet.

Before reaching the Stampede Reservoir, we come to a famous crossroads mentioned by the emigrants and still existing today. Henness Pass Road, which we had been traveling on, continues west towards Camptonvile. Our road, the Lincoln Highway and DFDLWR, will become Dog Valley Road. We will use Stampede Reservoir Road to get over the dam and around the lake.

Map showing crossroads and Stampeded Reservoir. Click map for larger view.

In the lake, we can see the line representing the road going around two small islands that are visible when the lake level drops. The small iron bridge that used to cross the now flooded Little Truckee Rive may still be located under the water. The road then rises out of the reservoir and passes by a parking lot that was, unfortunately, built right over the road. The sign below explains what was lost.

Descriptive sign at Stampeded Reservoir. Click the sign for a larger view.

Once we pass Stampede Reservoir, we will have the opportunity to see five different Trails West “T” Markers showing the Emigrant Trail route. Rarely will we miss the opportunity to veer off course to take in the history of these markers. Some of California’s most interesting history is located along this stretch of road. Sometimes we can see the emigrant trail's actual route, and in those cases, we have detailed the route on our map. Wagon ruts and rust stains on rocks are often the best indicators that you're on the trail.

The photo shows Trails West “T” Marker, T-33, “To Prosser Creek”. You can vaguely see the wagon wheel ruts moving off into the distance.

Sign between Stampeded and Prosser Reservoirs. Notice the emigrant trail sign at lower left, pointing the way.

We now arrive at Prosser reservoir where once again we find the old road has been flooded by a reservoir, in this case, built-in 1963. You pass over the dam to get around the lake, and once past the reservoir, our next stop will be Truckee.

There is a great side trip to the Donner Party Campsite, where that family and others overwintered while the rest of the wagon train was caught at Donner Lake, then known as Truckee Lake. Monica and I visited that a year or so ago and put together this short video.

The area from Summit One on Henness Pass Road to Prosser Reservoir is one that we will visit again. We would love to make the drive on Henness Pass Road from the crossroads we described to Comptonville, which is quite a distance filled with all sorts of history. There are also a couple of T Markers and old building sites we need to explore. It’s beautiful out there, and with the added history, it is an area that could fill a lifetime of exploration.

Our next adventure, Part 5 on the Lincoln Highway’s northern route, will be in Truckee, a very historic town.