Portola, California

Plumas County

06-58352

Portola is a city in Plumas County in the U.S. state of California. It is the only incorporated city of the county, although the county seat is decorated in Quincy about 50 km away. The city is named after Gaspar de Portolà, a governor of California in the Spanish colonial period.

Location

Portola is located in the Sierra Valley, the largest alpine valley in the Sierra Nevada, on the middle branch of the Feather River and has, according to the census from the year 2000 2.227 inhabitants. The city covers an area of ​​5.8 km ². The area is accessed by the California State Highway 70, the Feather River Route of the Union Pacific Railroad runs through the valley and the village.

History

The region was originally sparsely inhabited by Indians of the Maidu and Wahoe. 1850 explored James P. Beckwourth, a trapper and fur trader, a later Beckwourth Trail -called road for prospectors and pioneers by the Sierra Valley and built around ten kilometers east of the modern village a trading post with a small ranch and hotel from which the present settlement Beckwourth emerged. In the following years the use of the forest resources of the region by loggers began.

To improve the removal of the precipitated around the wood began in 1885, the Sierra Valley and Mohawk Valley Railroad, the first work on a narrow-gauge railway line through the Sierra Valley to connect the east of the mountains located in Reno, Nevada with the Sierra. 1894 and 1903, the line was extended to the west and created a small depot in the area of ​​present-day village. Was constructed in 1910 Western Pacific Railroad, a standard gauge railway line from Sacramento through the Sierra along the Feather River through Portola, the narrow gauge line was abandoned shortly thereafter. Western Pacific also put on an operating facility in Portola.

1905 built lumberjack from Nevada who worked in the region to the depot their central camp and named it Headquarters. Shortly thereafter came another lumberjack from Utah and named the settlement, now with more than 100 inhabitants to in Mormon Junction. 1908, the increasing degree of settlement was renamed again in Imola. It resulted in several sawmills in the area of the city, in 1910 was named the Portola.

With the loggers and the train came more residents who took advantage of the fertile mountain valley for agriculture. A hotel, shops, saloons and a first school followed. The water supply was constructed in 1910, electricity in 1915, a high school in 1921. Between 1910 and 1912, the first newspaper, the Portola Gazette, 1916, the Portola Sentinel was founded, who passed over in 1917 in the Portola Reporter, which is still published today appeared.

Tourism

The city is home to the Western Pacific Railroad Museum. It preserves the depot in the state in the 1950s and 60s when it was a typical small BW for diesel locomotives. The museum is parked at around 15 ha over 30 tracks and shunting locomotives and more than 80 passenger and freight cars. Almost all vehicles can be climbed and explored by visitors.

Sons and daughters

• Richard Poe, film actor