Year: 1859

Notwithstanding all the efforts OF parties
interested in the Sacramento and Placervilie
Route, emigration will continue to pour IN
by the Honey Lake and Yuba Gap roads
from the HUMBOLDT River. Large amounts
of money have been spent upon the Placer
vile road, and it is now pronounced almost
impossible. John Kirk the Government Su
perintendent Of the western end Of the No
used without authority, las has been charged
10y Strickland and others) Government la
borers. wagons and instruments, upon the
Carson Valley Road instead of attending to
the legitimate business before him. Of putting
into proper order the road between Salt
Lake and Honey Lake Valley lie had
nothing whatever to do with Carson Valley
or Plaeeryille, and deserved the severe re
probation Of the Government for his conduct
in the matter. Because he had house and
ranch on the Paeeryille and Carson Route,
he had no scruples, it would seem, about en-
ploying Government stock, time and labor in
trying to put it into such condition as to
induce the emigrants TO travel over it. The
Government had already pronunced the road
10y Honey Lake the best, and appointed Kirk
to supelintend its construction. 1t still re-
mains the best, and spite of all the labor and
money expended upon the Carson Valley
road by Sacramento and El Dorado counties,
and spite of all the fuss in favor of it by the
Sacramento Union, the route remains So pal
pably inferior in every respect, to the route
via Honey Lake or via the Yuba Gap, that
the latter are travelled by all those emigrants
who have taken the pains to acquire any
georaphical knowledge of the country. what
ever. A large emigration has come that
way this year. and the emigrants speak of it
in glowing terms. 1t was as easy as any
mountain road they had Travelled since leav-
ing the Atlantic States.


The public have not been fully aware of
the tremendous exertions which have been
made by the efriends-peeuHiariiy such-of the
Placersille Route, to depreciate the charac.
ter of the better route via Honey Lake or
the Yuba Gap. While the friends of the
latter were doing nothing but resting upon
the plain merits Of their route, the friends o.
the Placerville Route were stationed on the
Humboldt river busily engaged in turning
the emigration into the Carson Valley Road,
and making all sorts of misrepresentation.
They told huge falseho IDS about great
ninety miles desert which had TO be crossed.
impossible mountain roads, poison grass, and
the Lord only knows what else Of monstrous
! difficulties and obstacles to be encountered
on the track through Honey Lake and vicn-
! ity. On the other hand, they represented
that the Carson road had been worked upon
until it was like an old road in the States,
that this ninety mile desert was only thirty
miles across, via that route, and that there
was vast abundance of good water and
| rich grass (not poisoned as on the other route)
all the way to the Sacramento Valley. They
might have added, by way of capping the
climax. that when Sacramento City should
be reached it would be found perfect Para
disc upon earth!


Such were the disadvantages under which
our road has had to labor Such were the
impressions industriously made or sought to
be made upon the minds of in com rs, when
the true state of the case, as those very ira
ducers well knew, was that by the Carson
Valley Road desert of deep sand and hard
pulling had to he crossed of 40 miles in
width, while on the Honey Lake or Yuba
Gap Road the de ert is only tweny eight
miles and for the most part as smooth and
as hard as a floor Furthermore. in the mi
! die of it is water, which is warm but quite
fit for cattle to drink, and considerable grass
in lis vicinity.


But the period when detraction and mis-
representation can iniure this great natural
highway through the Sierra Nevada i:
passed. Its merits are now well known. Our
own citizens, too are aroused upon the sub
juct, and seem resolved to expend due por-
iion of their capital in improving the great
natural advantages which this highway
gives them in point of trade and commerce
aud all the essentials of a city's welfare and
prosperity.


Certain of our best and most enterprisinG
business men. familiar with such work, hav


gone with the view of ascertaining py occula
demonstration the best means Of completin
artiicially what nature may have left undon
. iu respect to that portion of the route whc
+ leads through the Yuba Gap.