There is a large mining industry within the Reserve.  Since 1849 the western part of the Forest has been most active, one county, Sierra, having produced since then upwards of $200,000,000.  The present output is much smaller than formerly, still it is large enough to render mining an important factor in the productive wealth of the state.  In 1853 hydraulic mining was inaugurated near Nevada City.  This gave renewed interest to placer-mining.

Four of the old emigrant roads cross the Tahoe and El Dorado Reserves.  The most famous of these is the one across Donner Pass and through Emigrant Gap.  This was the general course taken by the unfortunate Donner Party, as recorded in another chapter.

Another road was the Heuness Pass road, on a branch of which was Nigger Tent, a rendezvous of robbers and cutthroats in the early days.  Prospectors and miners were often robbed and murdered at this place.  The Heuness Pass Road and the Donner Road branch in Sardine Valley, the former going through by Webber Lake, and the latter through the present site of Truckee.  On the latter road, in the vicinity of You Bet, is a large tree which bears the name “Fremont’s Flagpole,” though it is doubtful whether it was ever used by Fremont for this purpose.

The third important road is the present Placerville Road,—­a portion of the State Highway and the great trans-continental Lincoln Highway, elsewhere described.

The fourth is the Amador Grade Road, on which stood the tree whereupon Kit Carson carved his name.

The Georgetown Road is an important and historic feature of the Tahoe Region, for it connects Georgetown with Virginia City, and it was from the former place so many Tahoe pioneers came.  I have already referred to the trail built in the early 60’s.  Then when the Georgetown miners constructed a ditch to convey water for mining purposes from Loon Lake, they soon thereafter, about ’72 or ’73, built a road about forty miles long, to enable them to reach the Lake, which was their main reservoir.  Loon, Pleasant and Bixby’s Lakes were all dammed and located upon for the water company.

When the Hunsakers built the road from McKinney’s to their Springs in 1883 there was a stretch of only about seven miles from Loon Lake to the Springs to complete a road between Lake Tahoe and Georgetown.  The matter was laid before the Supervisors of Placer and El Dorado Counties, and they jointly built the road in 1884, following as nearly as possible the old Georgetown trail, which was practically the boundary between the two counties.

While automobiles have gone over it, it is scarcely good enough for that form of travel, but cattle, sheep and horses are driven over it constantly, campers make good use of it in the summer, and though it has not the activity of the days when it was first built, it has fully justified its existence by the comfort and convenience it gives to the sparsely settled population of the region for which the waters of the Reserve were flumed in every direction.  When legal enactment practically abolished placer mining, owing to its ruining the agricultural lands lower down by the carrying of the mud and silt upon them, the water systems were utilized for domestic and irrigation purposes, thus laying the foundation of the great systems now being used for power purposes.