SIERRAN ROADS OF TODAY AND YESTERDAY 



Rv DOROTHY G. JKXKIXS 



Highway 49, popularly known as the Mother Lode Highway, begins 

 at the eastern edge of the town of Mariposa, taking off from the point 

 where the much-traveled road from Merced to Yosemite Valley leaves 

 that southernmost of the old mining towns. Tt winds northward across 

 rolling uplands deeply intersected by the canyons of swift rivers, through 

 dozens of busy small cities and villages of today and ghost towns and 

 camps of yesterday, following a fairly direct route through the region 

 where the Golden Age of California unfolded its remarkable history. 

 A few miles before reaching the northern terminus junction with High- 

 way 80 on its way from Mount Shasta to Lake Tahoe it climbs over 

 Yuba Pass (elevation 6700 feet) and drops down into Sierra Valley on 

 the eastern side of the Sierra crest. Tt is the artery of the foothill gold 

 belt. Traversing it from end to end the traveler passes through nine 

 counties Mariposa, Tnolumne, Calaveras. Amador. El Dorado, Placer, 

 Yuba, Nevada and Sierra all dotted with historical landmarks and made 

 memorable by the violent impact of the gold rush, its decade of mushroom 

 growth, its brief florescence and rapid decline. 



Many lateral roads from the coast and valley cities of California as 

 well as from the Nevada side give convenient access to the Mother Lode 

 Highway. Farthest south, the All Year Highway (140) from Merced to 

 Yosemite Valley, which marks the beginning of Highway 49 at Mariposa. 

 is the easiest means of reaching the world famous wonderland of granite 

 domes, towering cliffs, waterfalls and soaring peaks, hence it is one of 

 the best known of the mountain roads. It enters Yosemite National Park 

 at El Portal and continues its spectacular route through the length of 

 the valley. 



Some fifty miles farther north the Mother Lode Highway crosses 

 Highway 120 which comes from Oakdale by way of Knights Perry and 

 Chinese Camp. It may be seen winding up Priests Grade above Moccasin 

 Creek Power Station. At the top of the grade it proceeds through Big 

 Oak Flat and Groveland and continues through some of the most rugged 

 and magnificent scenery in the whole Sierra, one branch of it dropping 

 rapidly into Yosemite Valley near the granite wall. El Capitan, the other 

 following the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, crossing Tnolumne 

 Meadows lying green and lovely at the base of snowy peaks of the High 

 Sierra, and over the crest at Tioga Pass (elevation 9947 feet), the highest 

 of the mountain passes. From the summit it makes a breathtaking drop 

 down Leevining Creek to Mono Lake 3175 feet below. 



Ten miles after crossing Highway 120 our Highway 49 reaches 

 Sonora where it meets Highway 108, a popular route into ski country in 

 winter and at all times a much-frequented recreational area. Winding 

 up through magnificant forests and around enormous domes and knobs 

 of granite, it reaches Sonora Summit (elevation 9624 feet) and proceeds 

 down the eastern face of the mountains, meeting I T . S. Highway 395 some 

 seventeen miles north of Bridgeport. This road is a convenient approach 

 to the gold belt from the east. 



Highway 4, a rather direct road from the San Francisco Bay region, 

 passes through Angels Camp, seventeen miles beyond Sonora, and con- 

 tinues on through Murphys, past the entrance to the Calaveras Big Trees 

 State Park, through Big Meadows and on over the crest at Ebbetts Pass 

 (elevation 8800 feet) down to Markleeville and on to Lake Tahoe. 



Highway 8 from Stockton connects with roads leading into our 

 Highway 49 at San Andreas, Mokelumne Hill and Jackson, and at 

 Jackson, too, another main road (88) from Stockton comes in by way 

 of lone and continues over the mountains at Kit Carson Pass, where 

 Fremont entered California in 1844. 



The next lateral giving access to the Mother Lode Highway is 

 Highway 16 from Sacramento, which comes in between Drytown and 

 Plymouth and goes on to Fiddletown, a short and interesting excursion 

 into the past. 



Somewhat farther north, Highway 49 crosses U. S. Highway 50 

 which carries an enormous volume of traffic from San Francisco, through 

 Oakland, Stockton, Sacramento and Placerville. over Echo Pass (eleva- 

 tion 7394 feet), around the south end of Lake Tahoe, and on through 

 Carson City, Nevada, to the east. 



A second great United States Highway (40) which crosses the 

 Sacramento Valley by way of Vacaville and Davis goes through Sacra- 

 mento and crosses our highway at Auburn. Perhaps the chief artery 

 across the Sierra Nevada, it goes over the Donner Summit (elevation 

 7113 feet) to Truckee and Reno on its way across Nevada and on to 

 the eastern coast. 



At Grass Valley the last of the important laterals crosses the Mother 

 Lode Highway. This is Highway 20 which begins at Ukiah on the Red- 

 wood Highway, skirts Clear Lake and traverses the Sacramento Valley 

 by way of the Sutter Buttes and Marysville, goes on to Grass Valley 

 and Nevada City whence it proceeds east and joins U. S. 40 somewhat 

 west of the Donner Summit. 



Scores of lesser roads branch from these well traveled highways 

 inviting the traveler to explore one canyon after another of the net- 

 work of rivers, the gently inclined slopes that remain as watersheds 

 between the canyons, the lakes and forests, and the hundreds of hamlets 

 and almost deserted sites where once flourished the feverish activity 

 of the quest for gold. 



No region in the L'nited States has accumulated a richer or more 

 extensive tradition than the western slope of the Sierra from Yosemite 

 to the Yuba River. It was inevitable that a mass migration of adven- 

 turous men, young for the most part, and willing to undergo any hard- 

 ships that might lead to sudden wealth, should create a romantic tradi- 

 tion. Most of them were Americans, but by no means all, for the news 

 of the discovers traveled fast and from all over the world men con- 



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