| For years Squaw Valley was known for the fleet footed Washoe
Indians before the white settlers migrated and established their homes and
way of life in the valley. During late summer and early autumn, prior to the
migration of the abundant deer herds and before the winter snows, it was the
ancient custom of the Washoe men, the hunters of their tribe, to harvest winter
food with an annual hunt in the high ridges radiating from the Squaw Pass area.
While the men were thus engaged, the Squaw camp remained in the valley. The
first white men to visit Squaw Valley found it occupied by a camp of squaws and
children, engaged in food gathering. From the first observation of these
occupants of the valley, it acquired and retained this first name, despite
later efforts to change it. |
| Squaw Valley is one of several narrow notched mountain valleys
found in the eastern mountain portion of Placer County that was best known in
1862 for summer pasturage for horned cattle, and for dairying purposes. The
herbage here was sweet and did not cause distasteful flavor to dairy products,
while the cold, pure water insured cleanliness and solidity to the article.
Nearly all of these mountain valleys were occupied for this business, and a
great deal of butter was made, which, as a rule, had a ready market without
leaving the mountains at tourist resorts and the logging and wood-chopping
camps and mills. |
| Two prospectors in June 1863 made their way from Yankee Jim's,
near Foresthill, over the Squaw Valley summit pass into this beautiful mountain
meadow. John Keiser and Shannon Knox were vaguely headed in the direction
of Carson City when, near the Truckee River just northwest of the mouth of
Squaw Creek, they located outcroppings of rich-looking reddish ore. It was rock
similar to that in which the Comstock silver lode had been found. A mile up
river additional findings were discovered. |
| The news spread as tales of wealth touched off a rush from the
mother lode to the newly discovered area over the short-cut route from the
western slopes of the Sierras. Men came scrambling from the Northern California
mining towns of Placerville, Georgetown, Last Chance, Kentucky Flat, Michigan
Bluff, Hayden Hill, Dutch Flat, Baker Divide, Yankee Jim's, Mayflower,
Paradise, Yuba, Deadwood, Jackass Gulch and all the other camps whose locators
and residents had not been as fortunate financially as they were
linguistically. These wilderness areas had been transformed into bustling,
thriving settlements of miners, merchants, mechanics, gamblers, saloon keepers
and bummers, otherwise known as "gentlemen at large." Nearly six hundred
frenzied miners searching for fortune traveled the short cut to arrive at their
new destination of hope . |
| At the site of the first "strike," the settlement of Knoxville,
named for Shannon Knox, boomed. Then Claraville rose up overnight upriver,
near the location of the second discovery site. Both locations were pieced
together with rough shacks, dirt floor hotels, unorganized main streets, and
few having the common necessities. Town lots that had sold a few weeks before
for $10 all of sudden were selling for up to $200. |
| With all of this haste came some bad news. The ore samples
had failed to prove out. Some had claimed that the samples were "salted" with
ore brought from Virginia City. Yet some of the old timers assert that Knox was
"square" and that he firmly believed he had paying ore. So, like an explosion
in reverse, a rush in the other direction began. The excitement was gone nearly
as fast as it came. In almost six months, the settlements of Knoxville and
Claraville which numbered several thousand went from boom to bust as the
streets, shacks and mines were deserted. By the beginning of 1864 the camps
were all but dead. |
| Meanwhile, the Prescott brothers had improved the trail from
Squaw Valley to Foresthill over the western summit. By April 1864, it was
considered "a usable thoroughfare." Lots in Knoxville and Claraville were
purchased at bargain prices by the Prescotts, who hoped to build a permanent
settlement with farming and lumbering. And so, for the half century that
followed, Squaw Valley settled in as a quiet, high Sierra farming district, a
secluded summer range for running cattle. |
| Today, riders of the Western States 100 Miles One Day Trail Ride
retrace much of the early short-cut route from Squaw Valley to Foresthill,
doing so with a sense of urgency that the riders of a hundred thirty years
before could well appreciate. |
| Hal Hall's Western States Trail
Guide is being updated and reprinted and finished, will available from the Tevis Store. |
