Snow Tent was a historic settlement in

Nevada County, California Nevada County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California, in the Sierra Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 102,241. The county seat is Nevada City. Nevada County comprises the Truckee- Grass Valley, CA Micropolit ...

. The name derives from a tent set up by the first resident in 1850.Thompson, Thomas H. and West, Albert A. (1970 ed.) History of Nevada County -1880, p. 230 (Singleton); Federal Writers’ Project (1939) California : a guide to the Golden state, p. 480. Snow Tent grew into a gold

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

and

lumbering Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

center, then vanished sometime after 1880. Located in what is today the

Tahoe National Forest Tahoe National Forest is a United States National Forest located in California, northwest of Lake Tahoe. It includes the peak of Sierra Buttes, near Sierra City, which has views of Mount Lassen and Mount Shasta. It is located in parts of six co ...

, the Snow Tent site is on the San Juan Ridge roughly midway between North Bloomfield and Graniteville, about 16 miles northeast of Nevada City. Snow Tent was situated near the intersection of what are Snow Tent Road and the N. Bloomfield-Graniteville Road. It was an important stop on one of the routes through Henness Pass. It still appeared on maps as of 1902.

Mining

Snow Tent lies on a rich bed of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

bearing gravel which runs from the San Juan Ridge in a southwesterly direction towards Hunt's Hill, You Bet, Dutch Flat and into

Placer County Placer County ( ; Spanish for "sand deposit"), officially the County of Placer, is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 404,739. The county seat is Auburn. Placer County is included in the G ...

. Snow Tent was the site of both hydraulic and

hard rock mining Underground hard-rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate "hard" minerals, usually those containing metals, such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin, and lead. It also involves the ...

. It is not clear how extensive hydraulic mining was since it does not appear from Hartwell's 1880 map that any ditch brought water to Snow Tent. Hydraulic mining on the Ridge received a major blow from the 1884 Sawyer decision, which prohibited the discharge of

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overli ...

into the

Yuba River The Yuba River is a tributary of the Feather River in the Sierra Nevada and eastern Sacramento Valley, in the U.S. state of California. The main stem of the river is about long, and its headwaters are split into three major forks. The Yuba Rive ...

. Hard rock or

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

mining in the area began in the 1850s and continued for some time, with occasional reports of new strikes.

Lumbering

Mining required a lot of wood and Snow Tent lay amid rich pine forests. Snow Tent's principal

saw mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ( dimens ...

was owned by James Churchill. Constructed in the early 1850s, it burned down in 1857, reportedly of arson, with a loss of $8000 (~$ in ). Mr. Churchill rebuilt the mill, and it burned again with a loss estimated at $40,000. He rebuilt it again and it finally burned down for good in 1875, again reportedly of arson with a loss of $4000 (~$ in ). In the early 20th century, the Landsburgh brothers operated a sawmill in the area.

Stage Stop

Snow Tent was an important stop on the route between Marysville, Nevada City and the territory that would become the

state of Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, t ...

. As early as 1851, stagecoaches and freight wagons regularly operated on this route. Snow Tent's best known institution was its hotel, sometimes known as Snow Tent House, and operated for some years by Mr. L. A. Sackett. It was put up for sale in 1864 with this advertisement. File:Snow_Tent_Ad.jpg, Snow Tent Ad The hotel burned down in 1866, from an accidental

chimney fire A chimney fire is the combustion (burning) of residue deposits referred to as soot or creosote, on the inner surfaces of chimney tiles, flue liners, stove pipes, etc. Causes The process begins with the incomplete combustion of fuel in the atta ...

.Nevada Gazette, February 26, 1866.

Life in Snow Tent

Snow Tent dates from the spring of 1850, when Michael Angelo Singleton, a native of

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

, erected a canvas tent from which he sold goods and mined, and which was snowbound during winter. Beginning in 1851, Snow Tent had a general store operated by Furman, McIntyre & Co. It also had a livery stable attached to the hotel. It does not appear to have had a school, church or post office, commonly found in mining camps in that region. By 1880, its population was reduced to 25. It does appear to have had more than its expected share of mining camp violence. In addition to the acts of arson noted above, there are a number of reports of thefts and killings. North of Snow Tent is a stream still called Bloody Run, after the number of corpses found there.Nevada Journal, July 1, 1853; Nevada Democrat, Oct. 1, 1856.

References

{{authority control Former settlements in Nevada County, California Former populated places in California