Beckwourth Pass

In the foreground, and above the Highway CA -70, including the Union Pacific Railroad line on the Feather River

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The Beckwourth Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada in California. It is at an altitude of 1591 m, the lowest pass through the mountains and therefore has a meaning as a transport route across the northern Sierra. About the pass today lead the State Highway CA -70 and a railway line of the Union Pacific Railroad, but the crosses under the actual passport in a short tunnel. The nearest settlement is the census -designated place Chilcoot - Vinton immediately west of the pass, the closest independent site is Portola, California, about 30 km to the west.

The pass was discovered in 1850 by former slaves, then trappers, traders and soldiers temporarily James P. Beckwourth, after which it is named. Beckwourth built 1850/51 the Beckwourth Trail, a passable for wagon road over the mountains to the in the footsteps of the California gold rush flowing to California settlers trains an abbreviation of around 240 km ( 150 miles ) from the hitherto usual routes of the California Trail to allow. The route led from east of the Truckee Meadows, the region around the about 40 km to the east of Reno, Nevada, in the mountains in California, over the Beckwourth Pass and west along multiple arms of the Feather River down to Marysville to the gold fields of Northern California. The first settlers moved in August 1851, the new road and the pass, out of Beckwourth personally.

1852 was Beckwourth in the valley west of the pass down and built a hotel with trading post from which the current CDP Beckwourth developed. He remained until winter 1858.

The first railway line was a narrow-gauge line of the Sierra Valley and Mohawk Valley Railroad in the 1880s, from 1905 built the Western Pacific Railroad, a route that ran largely parallel to the Sierra Valley. The Western Pacific in 1917 bought the competitors and put the narrow gauge connection still. The then built and multiple -developed railway line is known for its elaborate bridges in the steep valleys under the name Feather River Route. Between 1949 and 1970, it is frequented by luxury train California Zephyr. Today it serves only to freight.

1939, the pass was registered as a historic landmark in the conservation register of the State of California.