Pino Grande (
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
for "Large Pine") is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in
El Dorado County
El Dorado County (; ''El Dorado'', Spanish language, Spanish for "The Golden ne), officially the County of El Dorado, is a List of counties in California, county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
.
It is located north-northwest of
Pollock Pines,
at an elevation of 4022 feet (1226 m).
History
A post office operated at Pino Grande from 1892 to 1899, with a move in 1893, and from 1902 to 1909.
The community's name was also formerly spelt as "Pinogrande".
Pino Grande was the lumber milling area for the
Michigan-California Lumber Company. Besides the mill, there were dozens of workers cabins, a hospital, a school, cooks building, machine shops and sheds. The camp was, in itself, a small
company town
A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...
. The
narrow-gauge railway
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter cur ...
the lumber company built served the area for decades. The mill, camp, railroad, tracks, trestles, engines, rolling stock, etc., are now long gone. The area where Pino Grande once stood is within the Eldorado National Forest.
The Pino Grande Railroad traveled along a narrow-gauge track through the Georgetown Divide area. This narrow-gauge railroad hauled vast amounts of Ponderosa and Sugar Pine timber through the rugged terrain of the Divide as well as other parts of El Dorado County.
References
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in California
Unincorporated communities in El Dorado County, California