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HISTORY
El
Dorado County, California.
CHAPTER
XXV.
Internal Improvements, Bridges, Etc.
The many streams of perennial running water, having
their sources high up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, as we have seen
before, for a few months in the year only enable a fording at one or
another spot, while for the greater part of the year the high stand and
the rapid flow of their waters necessitate some other means to carry the
travel across. The pioneer emigrant road of El Dorado county winding
itself down from the mountains, following the divide between the Middle
Fork of the American river and the headwaters of the North Fork of the
Cosumnes, piloted through by the Mormon Hunt, is the only road that avoids
all the larger streams and enables a trip from Silver Lake down to
Sacramento without crossing one stream of water that amounts to anything.
Traveling on all the branch and cross-roads, leading off the former on
both sides, however, causes traversing one or another of the larger or
smaller rivers that roll their waves down through this county finally to
empty into the Sacramento river. As the first
device, to assist the traveling people on said roads across the natural
waterways, ferries of the most primitive make up and clumsiest
construction and shape were in use; old ship's boats of all sizes had been
pressed into the service or an ingenious fellow had accomplished the same
purpose by transforming some old emigrant wagon-beds that had come all the
way across the continent, while the first were brought up the Sacramento
river. Even the simple form of a raft not seldom had to fulfill the
programme; until the owners of the place could afford to build a scow of
sufficient capacity, to replace the former. Thus continuously laboring
against perfecting the system not only as far as the ferryboat itself was
concerned, but the better facilities in its motion and the arrangement of
the cross-cable also. Such ferries existed from the earliest time at
Coloma, at Uniontown, at Chili Bar on the South Fork of the American
river, and at Condemned Bar, at Beal's Bar, at Rattlesnake Bar, at Oregon
Bar and Murderer's Bar on the American river and the Middle Fork of the
same stream. All these ferries had been built in private enterprise with
considerable expense, on account that the ferry owner had to build in
connection with his ferry the graded road upon both river-banks, until it
would join other roads, as an invitation to make the travel go that way,
and subsequently to the owner of the ferry was granted the undisputed
right to levy a considerable toll on all who took the change of his
privilege. By that means some of the most traveled crossings became quite
profitable business places and the sources of riches of their owners ; to
this class belonged the ferries at Coloma and Uniontown, both connecting
the smaller Northern part of the county with the county seat, and that one
at Murderer's Bar, which from the earliest times carried the travel from
Sacramento across here to all the bars on the north bank of the Middle
fork and further on to Yankee Jim's, Michigan Bluff's, Iowa Hill, etc.
............MORE TO COME
Stage Lines.
The discovery of gold at Coloma and the rush of the
gold-hunters of early days, who all had the idea that this new El Dorado
was concentrated to the very spot of Coloma, turned the entire travel of
1848 and '49 from Sacramento up over the road that Capt. Sutter piloted
through the woods of the foot-hills, for the communication between the
fort of New Helvetia and his sawmill ; and periodically this road was
perhaps the most traveled road in the United States, being crowded day and
night in the periods that followed the arrival of each steamer or larger
vessels in the harbor of San Francisco. But conveyances were scarce in
California at that time, all traveling being made on horseback. The
Oregonians were the first to bring their big wagons into California and El
Dorado, and these became the first means and the material with which to
undertake the first change in the transportation of passengers and freight
from horseback to a wagon seat, a kind of fast-freight. The first regular
stage line was established between Sacramento and Coloma, and about the
same time Graham of Georgetown, run a stage from Coloma to Georgetown,
which was united, however, with the former line soon after. Another line
of stages owned and managed by Dr. Thomas and James Burch, established as
the "California Stage Company" in 1851, running from Georgetown by the way
of Pilot Hill and Salmon Falls to Sacramento, with a branch line from
Salmon Falls to Auburn. When the Sacramento Valley Railroad was finished
to Folsom this stage line run to connect with the railroad at Folsom, and
was sold to Wellington ; he sold to Thos. Orr. The United States Mail
contract was then awarded to H. F. Page, now United States Senator, and
Bart. Morgan, who sold to Lewis & Houchin, the latter selling out his half
interest to Lovejoy, leaving the property in the possession of Lovejoy and
J. L. Lewis, who run two lines of daily stages now from Auburn to
Georgetown and Placerville both ways. A stage line
was established also in early days between Sacramento and Placerville via
Diamond Springs, and soon after, in 1851, Stevens & Co. commenced to run
an opposition line, the older line, however, sold out and the latter had
its own way, running two cars daily in each direction, until another
opposition turned up on December 19th, 1854. Bill Williams set the fare
down to $5.00; and kept up with the opposition for several years, but
finally succumbed. Stevens' line, called the "pioneer Stage Line," with
Alex. Hunter as agent, on July 3d, 1854, added a line of stages to run
between Placerville and Georgetown, by the way of Kelsey and Spanish Flat
to connect at Placerville with their main line from Sacramento, and
continued from Georgetown by way of Spanish Bar across the Middle fork of
the American river. In April, 1855, another branch line commenced running
between Fiddletown and Mud Springs, connecting with the Sacramento stage
at the latter place. With the activity of the railroad, this stage line
had to accommodate itself to the terminus of the railroad, thus changing
its course from Sacramento to Folsom, to Latrobe, to Shingle Springs. The
coaches of this line are still running between Shingle Springs and
Placerville, and Placerville and Georgetown.
Messrs. Condee & Co., the owners of a stage running
between Placerville and Coloma since 1851 or '52, on August 1st, 1854,
inaugurated a new tri-weekly stage from Placerville to Drytown, Amador
county, by the way of Diamond Springs, Mud Springs, Logtown and the Forks
of the Cosumnes, (Yoemet) connecting the stage lines running to the
Southern mines, and changed on April 1st, 1855, into a daily stage with
very good result. The consequence of this result was that a party of
Drytown denizens started an opposition stage line on the same route, which
commenced running in the middle of March, 1856, tri-weekly, with Mr. Asa
D. Waugaman of the Orleans Hotel, as resident agent at Placerville. The
same gentleman was agent for a stage line established about the same time,
the Sprint of 1856, running tri-weekly between Placerville and Indian
Diggings, owned by Messrs. Geo. C. Hanclin & Co., which line also had for
some time an opposition running against it. Of other minor stage routes we
shall only mention Mr. Henry Larkin's Omnibus stage line, established
March 24, 1857, making two daily trips between Placerville and El Dorado.
In June, 1857, when the first work for improving the
Johnson's Cut-off road, across the Sierra Nevada from Placerville to
Carson valley, was just commencing, the Board of wagon road directors made
an inspecting trip over the said road, on which occasion the pioneer
stage-man of the Pacific slope, Col. J. B. Crandall, took one of his
six-horse Concord stages over the mountains, with the intention to start a
weekly stage between Placerville and Genoa, which was altered to a
semi-weekly stage line on May 18, 1858, running as an overland mail line
from Placerville to Genoa, Carson valley, Sink of the Humboldt and Salt
Lake City. The passenger fare from Placerville to Salt Lake City amounted
to $125.00. This, however, was only the embryo of the great
Overland Mail Line,
Which was established from the Atlantic to the Pacific
States soon after. The first overland through mail coach from the East
successfully arrived at Placerville on July 19, 1858, over this first
continental mail route, and was continued regularly for nearly ten years,
up to the time when the Central Pacific Railroad commenced to run regular
trains to Cisco, when the stages were taken over there.
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