Humboldt Wagon Road

[1] The road was surveyed and financed by prominent settler John Bidwell and carried passengers, mail, and freight between logging and ranching communities of northeastern California.

It ascended the mountains, passing through the communities of Forest Ranch, Lomo, Butte Meadows, and Jonesville, then crested the "Big Summit” at 6,600 feet (2,012 m) elevation near the Butte-Plumas County line.

The transit of workers and supplies between these mining districts and California was difficult, due to isolation and the lack of wagon roads and railroads: To reach California, freight either had to be hauled over the dangerous and often snowed-in passes of the high Sierra Nevada, or shipped northward by a circuitous route down the Snake and Columbia Rivers, to the Pacific Ocean and down the coast to San Francisco.

[7][8] Almost due west of the Humboldt Mines lay the city of Chico, California, which had easy access to steamboat shipping on the Sacramento River.

Chico's founder, California Representative John Bidwell, recognized that his city could function as a hub for freight traffic to and from the mines, if a road could be built directly eastward to Nevada.

[12][13] The first tollbooth was about 14 miles (23 km) east of Chico, near modern Forest Ranch,[14] and charged $1 for a single horseman, $2 for a one-horse buggy, and $1 for each additional horse;[15] the toll was later decreased to $0.75 for a two-horse wagon.

This increased settlement put growing pressure on the native Maidu and Yana, whose numbers were plummeting due to disease and direct persecution by white settlers.

[21] Although the Humboldt Road avoided the highest elevations of the Sierra Nevada, it was still subject to heavy winter snowfalls that could block traffic for weeks at a time.

[36] Stone retaining walls dating to the 1800s and even wagon wheel ruts can still be found in the hills east of Chico,[37][38] but are threatened by vandalism and growing residential development in the area.