Soda Springs (formerly, Summit Valley, Soda Springs Station, Hopkins, Hopkins Springs, and Tinkers Station) 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 ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in Nevada County,

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 ...

, United States. Soda Springs is located west of Donner Pass. The population was 81 at the 2010 census. The Soda Springs Mountain Resort is located just off Highway 80 near the

Donner Summit Donner Pass is a mountain pass in the northern Sierra Nevada, above Donner Lake and Donner Memorial State Park about west of Truckee, California. Like the Sierra Nevada themselves, the pass has a steep approach from the east and a gradual a ...

History

Mark Hopkins and

Leland Stanford Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824June 21, 1893) was an American attorney, industrialist, philanthropist, and Republican Party (United States), Republican Party politician from Watervliet, New York. He served as the eighth governor of Calif ...

established a resort at the location in the 1880s. The Summit Valley post office opened in 1870, changed its name to Soda Springs in 1875, and closed in 1881. It was reopened in 1929. The Hopkins post office operated from 1885 to 1886. Alternately it was reportedly known as Hopkins Springs until the Soda Springs post office was established on March 8, 1875. The Central Pacific Railroad station was named Tinkers Station from 1867 to 1873, commemorating J.A. Tinker. Tinker was a "rough, hard-driving, hard-drinking teamster" who hauled freight between the mines on Forest Hill Divide and Soda Springs.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the CDP covers an area of 0.3 square miles (0.9 km), all of it land

Climate

Soda Springs has a dry-summer continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dsb) that is characterized by warm, dry summers, and cold, extremely snowy winters. Snow depth peaks at 93 inches (236.2 cm) during March. Soda Springs is listed as the snowiest place in the state of

and one of the snowiest census-designated places in the world.

Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that Soda Springs had a population of 94. The population density was . The racial makeup of Soda Springs was 73 (78%)

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 1 (1%) Native American, 2 (2%) Asian, and 18 (19%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 12 persons (13%). There were 43 households, and the average household size was 2.19. There were 23

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

(53% of all households). The median age was 43.0years. There were 131 housing units at an average density of , of which 43 (33%) were occupied and 84 (64%) were used seasonally. Of the occupied units, 37 (86%) were owner-occupied, and 6 (14%) were occupied by renters.

Politics

In the

state legislature A state legislature is a Legislature, legislative branch or body of a State (country subdivision), political subdivision in a Federalism, federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of ...

, Soda Springs is in , and . Federally, Soda Springs is in .

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in California Census-designated places in Nevada County, California Lake Tahoe Census-designated places in California