Beckwourth Pass
| Beckwourth Pass | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 In the foreground and above Highway CA-70, |
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| Compass direction | west | east | |
| Pass height | 1591 m | ||
| county | Plumas County , California ( USA ) | ||
| Watershed | Feather River | ||
| Valley locations | Portola | Reno | |
| expansion |
 California State Route 70 , Union Pacific Railroad |
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| Mountains | Sierra Nevada | ||
| map | |||
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| Coordinates | 39 ° 47 '27 " N , 120 ° 6' 30" W | ||
The Beckwourth Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada in the US state of California . With an altitude of 1591 m, it is the lowest pass over the mountains and is therefore important as a traffic route over the northern sierra. Today the state highway CA-70 and a railway line of the Union Pacific Railroad lead over the pass, which, however, passes under the actual pass in a short tunnel . The nearest settlement is the census-designated place Chilcoot-Vinton immediately west of the pass, the nearest independent place is Portola , California, about 30 km west.
The pass was discovered around 1850 by former slave, then trapper, trader and temporary soldier James P. Beckwourth , after whom it is named. Beckwourth built 1850/51 the Beckwourth Trail , one for wagon carriage road over the mountains to the in following the California Gold Rush flowing to California settlers trains an abbreviation of some 240 kilometers (150 miles) from the hitherto usual routes of the California Trail to enable. The route led from the east of Truckee Meadows , the region around 40 km east of Reno , Nevada, into the mountains to California, over the Beckwourth Pass and to the west along several arms of the Feather River down to Marysville to the gold fields of Northern California. The first settlers moved over the new road and pass in August 1851, led by Beckwourth personally.
In 1852 Beckwourth settled in the valley west of the pass and built a hotel with a trading post from which today's CDP Beckwourth developed. He stayed until the winter of 1858.
The first railway line was a narrow-gauge line of the Sierra Valley and Mohawk Valley Railroad in the 1880s, from 1905 the Western Pacific Railroad built a line that ran largely parallel to the Sierra Valley. The Western Pacific bought the competitor in 1917 and closed the narrow-gauge connection. The railway line, which was built and expanded several times at that time, is known under the name Feather River Route for its elaborate bridges in the steep valleys. Between 1949 and 1970 it was used by the luxury California Zephyr train . Today it is only used for freight traffic.
In 1939, the pass was registered as a Historic Landmark on the State of California's Monument Protection Register.
