Stories from the Slope

From time to time, we are lucky to have someone with a history at Emigrant Gap or on the Slope share stories with us.  I have added these stories with the permission of their authors to our blog to share with others who are interested in the history of Donner Summit area.

The first story I received was from Jim White.  He was kind enough to grant me permission to publish the story here on our blog.  

FONG THE FAMOUS SNOW SHED COOK

By Jim L White

Late at night, deep in the dark and cold snow sheds of the Southern Pacific Railroad near Donner Pass, Fong, the Chinese cook sat alone smoking cigarettes and reading his Chinese newspaper. The snow was deep on the sheds and as usual, Fong was waiting for the next train to stop on the nearby tracks, and the crew that would come in for dinner and the hot coffee perking in the pot nearby. Fong was the full time cook for the A.V. Moan Co. of San Francisco who operated the 24 hour commissary near Norden, California from at least the late 1940’s to the late 1960’s.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fong saw the light go out in the hall way outside of the door leading into this restaurant deep in the Norden snow sheds. He got up, went into the back room to get a new bulb and then walked thru the kitchen to the door going out to the long tunnel-ramp that led down from the tracks above. He reached up to un-screw the bulb and the light came on. The bulb was only loose. That was funny, Fong would say later,” how come bulb loose by self”. He screwed the bulb in firmly and returned to his seat behind the stainless steel counter, his cigarette and newspaper.  He turned the page and noticed the light in the outside hall went out again. It could not be vibration from a passing train that loosened the bulb since no train had passed by in some time. He got up, went out the door and found the bulb loose again.” How come, how come “ Fong would shout in his sing-song English and then suddenly, Fong was seeing stars in the light bulb with severe pain in his head and neck as the butt of a rifle crashed into his skull and caused him to fall to the floor. All Fong could think of to do was to scream in Chinese at the top of his lungs. In fact his screaming was so loud that it frightened his attackers who ran out a back door that opened out to the deep snow on the hillside below.

Leaving a trail of blood, Fong made his was back into the kitchen and in broken English on the railroad phone got the dispatcher in Roseville to call the sheriff’s office to report the robbery. The next morning the sheriff’s officers found and followed deep foot tracks in the snow, heading toward Sugar Bowl. There were two of them, Mexican track hands that were caught hiding in the trees nearby.

I first met Fong Quong back in the late 1940’s when I was working as a weekend ski patroller at the Soda Springs Ski Area. This was back when “Mad Dog Dick Buek” was the hottest skier on the summit and his father Carl, checked tickets and loaded skiers on the pomo lift and rope tow at Soda Springs Ski Area. I remember well since my girlfriend charmed Carl into letting her ride the lift without buying a ticket. I guess we were a rag tag group of college kids with our war surplus clothing and ski-trooper white skis. A chance to eat at a very low cost was too good to pass up. The word was out. All you had to do was enter the huge dark wooden snow sheds just east of Soda Springs and walk in the dark for about one quarter of a mile to where a lone light bulb above a door marked the entrance to the long covered ramp that led down to the S.P. Commissary. The trick was to not get hit by a train that could come around a bend in the sheds with a terrible roar and noise while we clung to the walls of the shed, inches from the huge steel monster. One had to believe that there was enough space between the train and the walls of the snow shed for us to cling to life and survive this monster of a train. The noise was terrifying.

I always thought Fong must have known how poor we college kids were because a complete steak dinner, fried potatoes, canned green peas, all the coffee you could drink, and a slab of pie always cost one dollar. That was one dollar for all of us. It did not seem to matter how many of us there were, since later, when my girlfriend and I went alone, it was still “ won dallar”.  The pie was always a deep-dish fruit pie; each pie cut in four pieces and a piece a whole meal by itself.

Years later after college and two careers later, my job led me to wander over old Donner Pass on highway 40 from to time and I would stop on the edge of the highway just up the hill from the Sierra Club lodge, walk down the steep rough hillside to the small opening in the huge wooden snow sheds and brave the dark, to walk towards Soda Springs and the single light bulb above the door leading down to the Commissary and my friend Fong.

After I read in the paper about the robbery and injury of Fong, I hurried up to Norden to hear the story from Fong himself. I of course had the wonderful steak dinner, fried potatoes, and this time canned corn, with one quarter of a cherry pie. Twenty years later it was still only “won dallar”. I felt like I was home again! I asked Fong to tell me his frightening story himself and asked if he had recovered? I also wondered how he had been doing at the gambling tables in Reno. Fong’s working hours were twenty-four hours each day, seven days a week. He was given ( or took on his own) an afternoon each month when he would take the Greyhound bus to Reno to gamble. Sometimes he won which he talked about, but he never mentioned it when his “luck run out”. This time he said his “luck veery bad” and “he go home China”. I was not sure I heard him right so I asked again and he said, “ Fong luck veery bad, he go home China to die”. I heard him right this time a sat there in shock! I could not imagine Donner Summit with out my friend Fong. I tried to talk him out of it, but then he explained, he “ not want to die far from home”. He had been loosing at his gambling, and almost getting killed by the robbers was just too much. Time to go home to die.

Fong was always very polite to us, hustled around the kitchen to fix our meals when we were kids in college and years latter when we stopped by as working adults, was still very polite to everyone. The train crews that came in while we were there spoke to Fong as if he was dumb, and berated him for almost everything. A number of steaks were returned by the train crews and some nights the  racial insults were embarrassing to hear. It seems that the abuse of the Chinese who worked on the railroad was not limited to the building of the railroad in the 1870’s but continued a hundred years later.

Somehow I think Fong must have been received in China as someone special, and found his peace at last. He was a good human being and I still miss him and the old wooden snow sheds which are now gone. They have been replaced by concrete snow sheds and the train crews are on their own when in comes to eating at Norden. I can’t even find a steak dinner for $10.00 on Donner Summit now days.

The snow sheds on Donner Pass are still visible from old highway 40 near Norden. The sheds are now made of concrete; the old wooden ones were torn down years ago.   The Southern Pacific kitchen used by Fong caught fire and burned soon after Fong left.  I went into the snow sheds recently to photograph the railroad tracks for this article and to see if the old spooky feeling I felt during the Fong days was still there. It was. In the quiet darkness the rails popped from time to time because of tempeture changes .The fear of a possible approaching train was real. . I wondered if the ghost of Fong was not still there too.

To see the present day snow sheds over Donner Pass a visitor should travel up I 80 east of Auburn and just east of Kingvale take the off ramp to Soda Springs and the ski areas. Just east of Soda Springs and the cabins along the road, look down the hill to the south and at Norden you will see the present day snow sheds and the area of Fong’s old kitchen.  A drive to the east from there and you can view the old concrete snow sheds along the sheer wall of Donner Peak, they too are abandoned and not used. Present day trains now use a tunnel thru the mountain have no need for Fong, his kitchen, or to stop and eat at Norden.

 

Fong

Fong's Counter

Copyright 2008 by Jim L White

                                Auburn, California



The next story is about Ranger Richard L.P. Bigelow, Royal Gorge and the crossing 
on the American River from Emigrant Gap to Westville. Ranger Bigelow served with the
Tahoe National Forest from 1908 to 1936.  Per Jim, who has read the rangers diary, 
he sometimes stayed at the Emigrant Gap Hotel.   I will try to obtain a copy of the diary 
for the lodge - but for now here is a great story from Jim.  

ROYAL GORGE OF THE AMERICAN RIVER

By Jim and Shirley White

Tahoe National Forest Supervisor Richard Bigelow saddled up his horse at Emigrant Gap, 
mounted, and headed south for Westville on the Foresthill divide to investigate a 
report of a large forest fire burning near Michigan Bluff. It was 5 A.M. on August 1, 1909. 
Ranger Bigelow had given orders to the trail crew at Mumford’s Bar on May 18^th, 
to build a trail from Mumford’s Bar on the North Fork of the American River to 
Emigrant Gap for just this kind of emergency. He had a report that the trail was completed 
and now was the time not only to inspect the trail job, but to use this new trail to lend a 
hand in fighting this important fire. 

Ranger Bigelow rode his horse across the North Fork of the North Fork, the East Fork of 
the North Fork and then climbed almost one thousand feet up Texas Hill where he 
continued south three miles and hit the new Mumford’s bar trailhead at a place 
that was later named Government Springs. Later he would have a water trough installed 
there for travelers to water their horses before the terrible two thousand feet decent to 
the American River and a gold miner’s cabin called Mumford’s Bar Cabin. Upstream 
from Mumford’s Bar about 7 miles was the jewel of the North Fork called the Royal 
Gorge because of the remarkable beauty of the river running thru the huge soring 
cliffs between Snow Mountain and the Wabena Ridge.  

One hundred and four years later, on November 30, 2013, my wife Shirley and I headed 
south from Emigrant Gap in our jeep, along this same trail to photograph the Royal Gorge 
of the North Fork of the American River. About eight miles of the old trail is now a road and 
paved. At the end of the pavement we turned east off the old trail on forest road 19, a dirt 
road, headed for the abandoned site of the Big Valley Bluff fire lookout. Two thousand feet 
below the old site we could see both downstream to the Mumford’s Bar Cabin and 
upstream to Heath Springs, in the upper part of the canyon. Just below the lookout site 
hidden in the trees was Palmer Camp, a mining camp used during the Great Depression 
by a miner named Palmer who raised his family there. The old Palmer cabin on the north 
side of the river was still standing during my last visit 20 years ago. This year we could see 
at least a mile of the river was dry, with only a hidden flow of water below the river gravel. 
We laughed as we remembered back in 1947 when we had driven my 1946 Pontiac out 
to Government Springs and had hiked down to the river and back in one day. Shirley was 
18 and I was 20 years old and that hike almost killed us.

In late July, 1955 I had visited with Bill Watson, Forest Service lookout at Big Valley Bluff 
lookout, who told me of seeing several Golden Eagles flying below his lookout on some days. The old trail to the lookout was rough back in the 1950’s, and I had to hike a mile from my car to get to this 
outstanding view. Parts of the old trail to the lookout are still visible to this day. The lookout 
of course is long gone.

On this recent trip to the lookout the weather was perfect. Not a breath of air was stirring, 
and a few clouds made the scene special. We photographed the Royal Gorge and the 
river canyon below from a number of promontories to the east of the lookout, always looking 
below, hoping to see an Eagle. After a couple of hours it was time to go and we reluctantly 
headed the jeep up along the sharp ridge out with one glance back down the canyon. 
And there they were, two Golden Eagles, with fixed wings, gliding below us. I let out a yell, 
stopped the jeep, grabbed the camera with the long lens, and drew down on the birds below. The auto focus lens would not focus! The target was too small, the lens was not fast enough to focus, who 
knows what went wrong? We missed the shot. The birds apparently landed below the point 
of the cliff where we could not see them. We were to photograph no eagles today. 

Ranger Bigelow rode his horse down into the American River canyon 2000 feet below 
Government Springs and then back up to the Foresthill road at Westville where he ate 
dinner. After dinner he received a message that the fire had jumped over Deadwood Ridge. 
He saddled back up and was on the fire line by 4 PM.  He supervised the fire fight till 
midnight, slept on the line waiting for daylight. He then worked on the fire line 
the next 3 days and established a camp to feed the fire fighters.  After this fire was out 
Ranger Bigelow rode his horse up Ralston Ridge, to French Meadows and three days 
later arrived back home in Nevada City. 

While sitting on the cliff at Big Valley Bluff and looking down on Mumford’s Bar, we 
talked about Ranger Bigelow and his epic horse trips throughout the Tahoe National Forest. 
I have a copy of his diary, but I really wish he had had a camera. The Royal Gorge must 
have been even more royal those many years ago.

Royal Gorge from Emigrant Gap 

Cabin at Mumford Bar

Jim White

Ranger Bigelow

Copyright 2015 by Jimmy L White, Auburn, Calif.

THE PICNIC TRAIN

 

By Jim L White

 

 

 

“I remember my father telling my brother Henry and me about how excited everyone on the Shebley Ranch got when they heard the train whistle blowing off in the distance, followed by the ringing of the bell, as the Picnic Train arrived at the old Storms Ranch Picnic Grounds, in the now Chicago Park area of Nevada County”.

 

Howard and Henry Shebley were talking to me about the old Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad (NCNG) Sunday “Picnic Train” which each Sunday ran from Nevada City and Grass Valley to the Picnic Grounds on the old Storms Ranch near the present Chicago Park, in Nevada County, California.  In the early days there was a track from the regular picnic grounds up on the hill, down to his grandfather Joseph Shebley’s ranch on Butterfly Creek. For an extra $.15 cents the train would take you down about a mile to the Shebley Ranch and the ranch pond where you could row a boat, swim, and fish or buy homemade beer and other goodies not available up at the community picnic grounds. Most of the crowd would stay up at the regular Storms Ranch picnic grounds, so the Shebley Ranch and pond was something special

 

Picnics at the old Storms Picnic Grounds, later called Chicago Park Picnic Grounds often included a trip down to Shebley’s. In 1908 a cutoff made to the train’s route which eliminated the rails down to the ranch, but people continued to walk down to the Shebley Pond, since it was so beautiful. The history books tell us that an Indian village occupied the area at one time. A later owner of the ranch recalled a rock at the pond that had 26 grinding holes the Indians used to grind acorns.

 

Howard said his grandfather had worked in hydraulic gold mining at the nearby Red Dog and You Bet mines, prior to settling on the ranch where he conducted early experiments in fish culture and built the first trout hatchery in California. Years later, Ed Johnson, a Fish and Game Warden stationed at Placerville, El Dorado Co. told the author that he worked as a fish hatchery assistant for the then Division of Fish and Game in the 1930’s and planted trout fry raised at the Shebley hatchery. Milk cans of trout fry were hauled to the Chicago Park NCNG railroad station by one of the Shebley family where they were put on the train and taken to Colfax. There the milk cans were transferred to a Southern Pacific train and transported up in the mountains to Emigrant Gap. Ed and others in the planting crew would meet the train, unload the milk cans of trout fry and put them on pack horses to plant the nearby backcountry.

 

The Shebley name, known throughout the world at that time for advancement of fish culture is now forgotten locally. Howard’s grandfather, Joe Shebley had 4 sons who all worked for the early Fish Commission and supervised the building of most of the Commission’s hatcheries in the state at that time.

 

Howard and Henry were both proud of their family’s involvement with the first fish hatchery in California, but it was the Picnic Train and all the people who came to the old Shebley Ranch each Sunday that they as small boys enjoyed the most. Howard said that the first picnic of the year was usually planned for May. The Miners’ Union picnic was always held just after the 10th of the month as that was payday. There was always plenty of beer at the Miners’ picnic and a few fist fights, but no one ever fell off the train on the way home. Down at the Shebley’s Ranch the train crew often joined in the merry making. Howard recalled what a big thrill it was when the train crew let him and his brother toot the train whistle and ring the bell.  Howard said the train crew never got drunk; they just got “happy”.

 

Both Howard and Henry Shebley made working for the Department of Fish and Game a lifetime career, and both were promoted to the rank of Fish and Game Patrol Captain where Howard served in Monterey and Henry in the north state.

 

As Howard and Henry told me this story about their grandfather and their family’s life on the old ranch along Butterfly Creek, I saw a sparkle and moisture in Howard’s eyes. He said “ I know you now live in Auburn and your family now picnics along Butterfly Creek, I just thought you ought to know something of our early lives on the ranch and how much fun we as kids had, waiting on Sunday’s for the Picnic Train”.

 

Howard and Henry Shebley and also Ed Johnson, the Fish and Game Warden from Placerville are now gone, but my thoughts often go to picnics with my family on Butterfly Creek, and remember some of the same joys of that land that the Shebley’s had. The old Shebley Ranch and the concrete fish troughs of the first fish hatchery in California are now under the deep, dark waters of Rollins Lake. In the late 1950’s I often parked my car near the south bank of the spectacular NCNG Bear River Bridge just east of Colfax. This bridge was 432 feet long, and 96 feet above the Bear River.  I would climb around the barrier blocking entrance onto the bridge and walk out on the bridge to look up and down the Bear River. I remember the fear I had, wondering if the bridge would hold my weight. I now know why Howard said that “when they were young crossing the Bear River Bridge on the train, was “a thrill of a lifetime”. What a thrill it must have been for the Shebley’s to hear the Picnic Train blow it’s whistle and ring it’s bell as it came down grade into the Shebley’s Ranch. What happiness old men get from remembering their joys of youth?

THE LONG LOST TOWN OF FULDA AND FRIENDS FULDA CREEK

Mary, a neighbor from the Fulda Creek Community recently shared some of her knowledge of the Emigrant Gap area.  She and her husband purchased their lot during the 1970s.  The Fulda Creek Community is an off the grid area just adjacent to the entry to the Tahoe National Forest.  We have been lucky enough to meet just about everyone from the community over the last 13 years that we have owned the Lodge.  In 1980, the neighbors rebuilt the original bridge that crosses Fulda Creek to the community.  The new bridge is concrete topped bridge.  Mary (92) and Phil built their barn style cabin in 1982.  They had an architect draw up plans for the 40 by 40 structure ensuring that it included space for parking a vehicle within the footprint of the building.  The "barn" is built to withstand the sever winters we have in Emigrant Gap area.  Beams in the building are huge and they still have hanging the block and tackle that they used to hoist the beams into place.  Phil milled a lot of the lumber used for steps and other wood surfaces in the building.  When you walk into their huge kitchen/living room area, you can just smell the lovely wood scent from the beams and woodwork.  

Mary used to volunteer as a docent at Big Bend Ranger Station.  When we first bought the lodge, the Big Bend Ranger Station included a lovely museum and offered hiking tours to the Loch Leven Lakes and for Star Gazing just a few exits up from Emigrant Gap.   Unfortunately, budget cuts and maintenance costs closed down the station, which is now a Forest Service Fire Station.  

Mary shared some interesting historical tidbits during our visit to her cabin.  Here is some of that information and what I have discovered thus far about it:

Back in the 1930s there used to be a big sawmill located in Carpenter Meadow area (behind where Sierra Woods is located today).  The mill burnt down and was relocated to highway 20.  The mill may have been Smarts Wood Mill, but more research is required to confirm that. 

The road down to Fulda Creek used to be dirt and gravel and it has a removable narrow gauge track along side it. When Mary and Phil purchased their property, there were still many railroad ties sticking out of the ground along where the tracks were located.  

When they were hiking by Monumental Creek area, they found what they believed as an old steamer train engine.  They notified the National Forest, historical groups and other academic groups about the siting and eventually, the old train part was removed from Monumental Creek and taken to UC Davis.  The part was recovered by the Davis Antique Mechanics Club.   The "engine" was most likely from the town of Fulda, 

Fulda  was a factory town that hosted a sawmill and a fruit crate and lumber company.  Fulda was between Emigrant Gap and Blue Canyon.  It originally had a train stop. a general store, a post office, and other buildings to help support the employees. The economy was dependent on lumber.  They had a narrow gauge railroad that ran back to Monumental Creek and beyond.  They also had some kind of a lift to raise the wood boxes from the factory up to the Southern Pacific railroad for shipping east and west.  I was told that the railroad was a popular tourist destination on weekends, where people from Auburn would ride the SP train to Fulda, jump on the narrow gauge railroad and take their boxed picnic lunched back to the Monumental area, riding a train track that took them up Monumental Ridge to get a view of the gorge behind.  

I recently found names of three companies that were located in Fulda in the early 1900s.  One is the California Pine Box and Lumber Company, Towle Brothers and the Reed Lumber Company.  

In 1910 the California PIne Box Company sued Southern Pacific for  $2100 for excessive shipping rates from Fulda to Truckee.  The pine boxes they made were used for fruit crates at the towns of Colfax, Dutch Flat and Auburn and other surrounding areas.  Up until WW2, there were many orchards in the Auburn, Dutch Flat and Colfax area, growing pears and apples. I suspect that the Pine Box Company was here much later than Towle, and toward the end of the Read era, though I am still looking for information on that company. 

In the 1880s, when Lumber was diminished in the town of Towle, the Towle Brothers Lumber Company purchased the Texas Hill Mill (located 4 miles due south of Emigrant Gap).  The also had a larger mill located at the CPRR tracks.  They enlarged that mill and added narrow gauge railroad lines fromTexas Hill to the CPRR Mill.  Then they opened a second mill in Fulda Flat. When the final Towle Brother, George Towle died in 1901, the Towle family sold the mills to the Read (or Reed) Lumber Company of Canada (1902), The Read Company operated and expanded both the Texas Hill Mill and Fulda Mill.  They built two inclined narrow tracks at Texas Hill.  The Read Company ran the mill at Fulda Flat until 1920 when it sold the company and the big lumber was depleted. They continued to have interests in the area and did have a box making company down toward Sacramento after the 1920s.    In 1913, the Reed Lumber company was robbed by Charles Mays, who was sentenced to two years at San Quentin for his robbery.  

Below is a picture of the Read Lumber Company Locomotive.  And here is a brief history of that Locomotive. It was originally Union Pacific 655, they sold to the Virginia and Truckee Railroad (1901) and supposedly broke over a dozen rails on a test run.   In 1902 it was purchased by the Towle Brothers as number 25.  It was later sold to the Read Lumber Company of Fulda CA when they acquired the mill.  After that, it was sold to the American Fruit Express Company at MacDoel, CA. From here the history gets rather muddy.  It was sold to a railroad in MacDoel, CA, and then scrapped in 1937.   There is a lot of conflicting information on the 25.  The Nevada Railroad museum has information on the #25 and another train called the #25 2.  And MacDoel purchased another train in 1925 named the #25 2-6-2.  It is possible that the 25 2-6-2 is actually the 25, since there is historical documentation that the 25 2-6-2 was supposed to be scrapped in 1937 - but that the owner refused to do so.  The 25 2-6-2 was later used in the Movie "Stand By Me" and sold to the Oregon Coast Railroad where it is still in use today.  I hope it is the same train, that would make this history a lot happier.  

And here are some photos of the narrow gauge railroad incline (straight line) at Texas Hill.  The line was used to pull lumber from Texas Hill to the mill in Fulda.  Supposedly, you can still "see" a portion of the straight line cut near Texas Hill.  Photo 1 shows a cable used to pull the flatbed.  Rollers were in part of the tracks to keep the rails from getting damage. 

 

There is a great resource for information on both the Towle and Read companies.  Images of Rail, Railroads of Placer County by Sommers and Staab.  These photos are from the Colfax Museum collection and the Placer Sierra Railroad Heritage Society. 

  

Gary, another local history buff, contacted the Davis Antique Mechanics Club and found that it disbanded in the 1990s.  Lorry Dunning (84 years old) was the advisor for the club, pullED a steam boiler and frame from an old logging steam tractor.up a steep slope near Texas Hill in Emigrant Gap area. He used a tow truck for this task.   He also stated that there was supposed to be aa steam locomotive lost somewhere by the Texas Hill area, but he had not heard if it was ever found.

Additionally, Mary told me that when Phil or their son were out hiking they found two smoke stacks sticking up out of dirt which may have been from a narrow gauge engine. She remembered that location to be somewhere between "Spring" road and Texas Hill road.  The also said that near the same area, there was a sump in the ground which they believed was the reservoir for drinking water for the town of Fulda.  

When Phil and Mary started digging on their own property, they found an old Chinese fork, Chinese broken dishes and their neighbor found a Chinese slipper indicating that a Chinese camp was there on Fulda Creek during the building of the Transcontinental railroad.  Most Chinese camps were built next to creeks and lakes so that they could fish (which was much healthier to eat than what the Irish Laborers ate).

They also found the foundation of a camp for a women's group - possibly the Elks. The group used to come up the Fulda Creek to rusticate (camp) But the camp was long gone.

The Mormon Camp (across the Fulda Creek bridge at the bottom of Texas Hill Rod stopped running because of theft.  They had platforms and tent cabins and a big area with refrigerators, stoves and generators to run the camp but people kept going in before camp opened and stole just about everything, so they finally closed the camp.  There is currently an LDS camp over on Lake Rucker so they may have moved there and away from the California Mormon Trail location here.

Mary's daughter, Judy told us that there used to be a pipe with a spigot coming down from Putt Lake to Texas Hill road.  It was used to supply drinking water.  The kids at Fulda Creek used to open the spigot in the summer when Fulda creek was dry cause the water would rush down the hill to the creek and give them water to play in. 

The town of Fulda is long gone.  World War 2 and the moving of the labor force to cities probably was the cause of that slow death.  When I hiked the Railroad to Blue Canyon, I believe that there was still a small shack near the tracks with the sign "Fulda" on it.  Whether that sign and the shack are still there will require another hike down the tracks sometime in the future.  

  

THE L