Images of America: Donner Summit history cruising to Galena Falls

cruising to Galena Falls

Forget freeze-dried astronaut meals and bags of stale

and no genetic tinkering involved

But while the Transcontinental has often been celebrated in national memory

and families homesteaded on the Great Plains

Images of America: Donner Summit history cruising to Galena FallsThe pass over Donner Peak in Northern California is known as Donner Summit and has been a critical route across the Sierra Nevada Mountains for centuries. First it was used by Native Americans, then early settlers, and then emigrant wagon trains such as those used by the ill fated Donner Party, in whose honor the region is named. The first transcontinental railroad in the United States and the first transcontinental highway in America both made use of