Folsom, a Lincoln Highway Community

Earlier this year, I was contacted by the Historic District of the City of Folsom. They were interested in how to promote the Lincoln Highway through their area. After meeting with the Public Works Department, Folsom History Museum, and the Historic Folsom District, we agreed that the City would make and sign their section of the highway with our historic Lincoln Highway signs.

Historic Lincoln Highway sign being installed in the City of Tracy.

The Lincoln Highway was America’s first transcontinental highway for automobiles, conceived in 1913. Cities that found themselves on the new highway would reap the benefits of the increased traffic. To be a “Lincoln Highway community’ meant endless possibilities for commerce as the turn of the century “autoists” took to the freedom of the open road.

The photo above shows the Folsom Sacramento stage in front of the Folsom Stage Company. It looks like a John Wayne look-alike is the driver.

Folsom, having been on the old emigrant and wagon roads, found itself hosting this new concept, a transcontinental highway that went from Times Square in New York all the way to the Place of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Folsom soon built a new bridge, the Rainbow Bridge, across the American River. This bridge was to help with the transport of agricultural goods to the Transcontinental Railroad in neighboring Placer County.

Inmates from Folsom Prison helped in the construction of the highway in the Folsom area. Above is a “chain-gang” under supervision building the road.

The Folsom Museum holds a rare 1928 Lincoln Highway concrete post donated to the City by the California Chapter of the Lincoln Highway Association. Working with the museum, the historic post would hopefully be included in a permanent display inside the museum.

Rare original 1928 Lincoln Highway concrete marker at the Folsom Bridges event.

Along the original 1913 Lincoln Highway route through Folsom, our historic metal signs will guide the motorist along the old highway. Every day when people travel along these roads, they will be reminded of the historic nature of the route they are traveling on. The signs will pass through Folsom's historic district, attracting highway enthusiasts into that section of the community. It’s a great way to help boost historic district merchants who can celebrate the city's designation as a “Lincoln Highway Community.”

The Falls of Salmon Falls.

There were once falls at Salmon Falls, now inundated by Folsom Reservoir. The rocks were blasted away in the 1920s, helping with logging operations, which floated timber down the river. Below is a screengrab of our 1873 map of the Georgetown Divide showing the old townsite.

Salmon Falls got its start in 1849 with miners working the creeks, including Sweetwater Creek, which the town grew up next to. Once Folsom Dam was constructed, this entire area flooded. The town’s cemetery was exhumed and the bodies re-buried at the “Re-location Cemetary” at El Dorado Hills.

In low rainfall years, the town re-emerges from its watery fate, and you can visit some of the old town sites. Here is a link to more info on this area.

1873 map showing Salmon Falls. See the entire map here.

The old swimming hole at Rattlesnake Bar

The Rattlesnake Bar area between El Dorado and Placer Counties was once a famous crossing utilizing the old Rattlesnake Bar Bridge, seen towards the top of the photograph. That bridge was doomed, as Folsom Dam would be constructed downstream starting in 1952, with the reservoir beginning to fill in February 1955. Before that, a truck carrying fertilizer exceeding the 8-ton limit collapsed the bridge, and with the dam in the works, the bridge was never repaired.

The photograph above shows some kids playing in the tranquil waters of the north fork of the American River at a well-known swimming hole below the bridge. We are looking from the Placer County side to the El Dorado County side in the historic photograph. Before the upstream dams, the river waters would drop quite low, and become quite warm during the summertime, making for some sweet swimming holes.

This location is now under the waters of Folsom Lake most of the year. During the late summer or droughts, the water drops low enough that the old concrete supports for the bridge reappear.

Kentucky House, on the old Coloma-Folsom Road

The Austin T. Leachman "Kentucky House," located on the old Coloma-Folsom Road, was one of the first roadhouses one would encounter when traveling east from Sacramento County into El Dorado County. The Coloma-Folsom road is now known as Green Valley Road, and this roadhouse stood on the south side of the road at the junction with a path that led south to Clarksville in the present-day El Dorado Hills.

Leachman came to California by wagon train from Quincy, Illinois, in 1850 and 1859 married an Irish lady named Mary Sullivan, purchased the hotel and roadhouse then known as the "Red House," as well as 220 surrounding acres near present day's "Browns Ravine."

The Leachman House or "Kentucky House" called that as it was Leachman's birthplace, operated successfully as long as traffic in the form of stages and freighters came along the old Coloma-Folsom Road. The Kentuck House continued until 1869 when traffic started to slow along the old road.