Protection and preservation of the heritage resources requires that we know where these resources are located, and understand how they contribute to California’s expansive history. To date a combined total of over 13,400 cultural resources have been recorded on State Park lands, and many more remain to be documented. These precious archeological sites, buildings and structures, historic landscapes and cultural preserves represent a broad spectrum of California’s richly diverse past. They include, but are not limited to: Native American sites that span 10,000 years and reflect the variety of distinct cultural adaptations of prehistoric Californians; Mission Era sites and structures; Chinese, Russian, African American and other ethnic properties; early Californio and American Era resources; mining, ranching and agricultural landscapes; and underwater shipwrecks. All contribute to our understanding of the development of California as we know it today, and all provide us with physical connections to our past.
The histories written of western migration in the United States have sufficiently told the story of the ill-fated Donner Party. Most students of history are well acquainted with their entrapment by the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains during the Read More …
The Southern Emigrant Trail has a long and interesting history. In its heyday, it was the major overland route in and out of Southern California. It played a part in every era of our history for more than a century. Read More …
The sites of the cabins where the Donner Party wintered are in three locations. Included within the Donner Memorial State Park are the sites of the Murphy Cabin and the Breen-Keseberg Cabin. Across U.S. Route 40 and about a half Read More …
Thousands of bone fragments were recovered during excavation of the Donner family camp site at Alder Creek. Determining what animals were present in the assemblage was a priority, but it was not an easy task. Simply distinguishing human from nonhuman Read More …
The Old Stone Hotel in Daggett, a State of California Point of Historical Interest, is the focus of this study. The original date of construction and owners is unknown. Old photographs, newspapers accounts, diaries, archaeological information, oral interviews and historical Read More …
This historic context study and evaluation methodology examines trails, roads, and highways in California that evolved from prehistoric times through the early 1970s. The 1970s generally marked the end of modern highway development in California and the beginning of a Read More …
The Redding Field Office – BLM hosted a great PIT project, the Lost Emigrant Trail.
It would be the Carrizo Corridor and “Warner’s Pass” that, beginning in 1848, thousands of gold seekers would travel in route to the placer mines of the Sierra foothills. The travails of this flood tide eventually led in 1855 to Read More …
Two letters were received from archaeologists following the publication of the article by Jack and Richard Steed. They were essentially the same, so we are reprinting only the first one, from Jonathon C. Horn of Montrose, Colorado.
“The Rediscovery of Johnson’s Ranch,” written by the father and son team of Jack and Richard Steed, respectively, appeared in the Winter 1986 (Vol. 4, no. 1) issue of Overland Journal. It is now the final article in our series Read More …