Polaris | |
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  Polaris Location in California  Polaris Polaris (the United States) | |
| Coordinates: 39°20′21″N120°08′09″W / 39.33917°N 120.13583°W | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  California |
| County | Nevada County |
| Elevation | 5,695 ft (1,736 m) |
Polaris was a historic ice farming community located nearly 3 miles east of Truckee, approximately at the intersection of modern day Glenshire Drive and Quail Lane.
The community was named after Polaris, the north star, either by the Central Pacific Railroad in 1867, or by the National Ice Company in 1901 in anticipation of the establishment of a post office. [2]
Its 5,695 feet elevation meant that there was plenty of ice around during the winter. After the Transcontinental Railroad came through, entrepreneurs built a number of ice ponds, usually by damming or diverting the Truckee River, around railroad stops such as Winsted [3] (later Polaris) and Boca. Ice harvesting began at Boca in 1868. [4]
In 1886, a group of business people formed the Tahoe Ice Company at Winsted. They built a 75-foot dam which created an 80 acre pond used to make ice. They added infrastructure such as roads, stables and a large warehouse, 290' by 130', for the harvested ice. [5] It was reported to be the most efficient ice harvesting operation on the Truckee River. In 1901, the much larger National Ice Company took over the Tahoe Ice Company and installed D. M. Dysart as manager. [6] Dysart was considered to be the “Ice King of the Sierras," having been in the ice business over 20 years. [7] He expanded National's operation at Polaris, and built a house there, affectionately known as the Pink Palace because of its pink asphalt shingles. [8] When he died in 1905, he was capably replaced by Robert Koepke, who ran the operation into the 1920s.
Winter ice at Polaris regularly exceeded 12 inches of thickness and the harvest often ran 13–16,000 tons of ice. [9] The ice, insulated with sawdust, was shipped by rail around the country for use in iceboxes and was used to pack around fruit being shipped to eastern markets. Several hundred men and many horses were employed for the ice harvest. The work was largely seasonal, lasting from around mid-November, when preparations for harvesting the ice began, to early February, when the harvest was largely complete. For a while, Polaris also served as a packing station in the summer, where ice was packed around fruit before being shipped east, but packing was soon consolidated at Truckee and later moved to Sparks, Nevada. [10] Apart from homes and lodging for the seasonal workers, little has been reported about the town itself. It did have a blacksmith shop. There is no record of a store, saloon or hotel. It did not have a school; children went to school in Truckee. [11] On November 1, 1901, Dysart applied to establish a post office to be located 250 feet from the south side of the railroad station. His application listed the population as 35 during the summer and 150 during the winter. [12] Dysart was the first postmaster and Koepke became postmaster in 1913. [13] Polaris was connected to Truckee by a telephone line operated by the Sunset Telephone Company. [14]
By 1923, with the advent of ice making machines and refrigerated rail cars, the ice industry came to a sudden end. The post office closed that year. The area around Polaris became a center for recreation, including fishing, camping and ice skating. [15] Little of the ice harvesting industry remains visible, except for the old ice pond.[ citation needed ]
Carson City is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the 6th most populous city in the state. The majority of the city's population lives in Eagle Valley, on the eastern edge of the Carson Range, a branch of the Sierra Nevada, about 30 miles (50 km) south of Reno. The city is named after the mountain man Kit Carson. The town began as a stopover for California-bound immigrants, but developed into a city with the Comstock Lode, a silver strike in the mountains to the northeast. The city has served as Nevada's capital since statehood in 1864; for much of its history it was a hub for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, although the tracks were removed in 1950.
Reno is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border, about 22 miles (35 km) north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, in the Truckee River valley, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. The Reno metro area occupies a valley colloquially known as the Truckee Meadows, it is the 81st most populous city in the United States, the 3rd most populous city in Nevada, and the most populous in Nevada outside the Las Vegas Valley.
Placer County, officially the County of Placer, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 404,739. The county seat is Auburn.
Truckee is an incorporated town in Nevada County, California, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 16,180, reflecting an increase of 2,316 from the 13,864 counted in the 2000 Census and having the 316th highest population in California and 2114th in the United States.
Lake Tahoe is a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the Western United States, straddling the border between California and Nevada. Lying at 6,225 ft (1,897 m) above sea level, Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America, and at 122,160,280 acre⋅ft (150.7 km3) it trails only the five Great Lakes as the largest by volume in the United States. Its depth is 1,645 ft (501 m), making it the second deepest in the United States after Crater Lake in Oregon.
The Truckee River is a river in the U.S. states of California and Nevada. The river flows northeasterly and is 121 miles (195 km) long. The Truckee is the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe and drains part of the high Sierra Nevada, emptying into Pyramid Lake in the Great Basin. Its waters are an important source of irrigation along its valley and adjacent valleys.
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 1,600 mi (2,600 km) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming. The trail has several splits and cutoffs for alternative routes around major landforms and to different destinations, with a combined length of over 5,000 mi (8,000 km).
Donner Lake, formerly known as Truckee Lake, is a freshwater lake in Northeast California on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the much larger Lake Tahoe. A moraine serves as a natural dam for the lake. The lake is located in the town of Truckee, between Interstate 80 to the north and Schallenberger Ridge to the south. The tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad run along Schallenberger Ridge and closely follow the route of the original transcontinental railroad. The historic route of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across America and US 40 follows the northern shoreline, then climbs to Donner Pass from where the entire lake may be viewed.
The Lake Tahoe Railway and Transportation Company was a 16-mile (26 km), 3 ft narrow gauge railroad that ran from the Central Pacific Railway at Truckee, California to the waterfront at Lake Tahoe. The railroad's width was converted to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge in 1926. The railroad operated its own property from 1899 until October 16, 1925, at which time it was leased to the Southern Pacific Company, which bought the property outright in May, 1933. SP abandoned the line in 1943.
U.S. Route 50 (US 50) is a transcontinental United States Numbered Highway, stretching from West Sacramento, California, in the west to Ocean City, Maryland, in the east. The California portion of US 50 runs east from Interstate 80 (I-80) in West Sacramento to the Nevada state line in South Lake Tahoe. A portion in Sacramento also has the unsigned designation of Interstate 305. The western half of the highway in California is a four-or-more-lane divided highway, mostly built to freeway standards, and known as the El Dorado Freeway outside of downtown Sacramento. US 50 continues as an undivided highway with one eastbound lane and two westbound lanes until the route reaches the canyon of the South Fork American River at Riverton. The remainder of the highway, which climbs along and out of the canyon, then over the Sierra Nevada at Echo Summit and into the Lake Tahoe Basin, is primarily a two-lane road.
The Overland Route was a train route operated jointly by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad/Southern Pacific Railroad, between the eastern termini of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, and the San Francisco Bay Area, over the grade of the first transcontinental railroad which opened on May 10, 1869. Passenger trains that operated over the line included the Overland Flyer, later renamed the Overland Limited, which also included a connection to Chicago.
Boca is a former settlement in Nevada County, California. Situated at an elevation of 5,528 ft (1,685 m) above sea level, Boca is located on the Southern Pacific Railroad, 6.5 miles (10.5 km) northeast of Truckee.
Floriston is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Nevada County, California. It is situated at an elevation of 5,400 ft (1,600 m) above sea level. Floriston is located on the Truckee River, 10 miles (16.1 km) east-northeast of Truckee. Formerly an important railroad stop and mill town, Floriston survives to this day as a small residential community. The population was 73 at the 2010 census.
Blue Tent is a historic 19th century gold mining community located about six miles northeast of Nevada City, California.
Iceland, once known as Cuba, was an ice farming and lumbering community in eastern Nevada County, California. It was located between Boca, California and the Nevada state line, about 1 1/2 miles south of Floriston, California and 9 miles east of Truckee, California. It lay near where Gray Creek flows into the Truckee River.
Brockway is an unincorporated community in Placer County, California. Brockway is located on the north shore of Lake Tahoe on State Line Point, adjacent to the Nevada state border. It lies at an elevation of 6266 feet.
Trout Creek is a small tributary of the Truckee River draining about 5.1 square miles (13 km2) along the eastern crest of the Sierra Nevada. It originates east of Donner Ridge and north of Donner Lake in the Tahoe–Donner Golf Course and flows through the town of Truckee, California, to its confluence with the Truckee River in Nevada County, California, just west of Highway 267.
Hirschdale is an unincorporated community in Nevada County, California. It lies at an elevation of 5446 feet. Hirschdale is located 6.25 miles (10.1 km) east-northeast of Truckee. Hirschdale began in 1926 as a stop on US 40, built by Jonas Hirsch; it was originally a recreational community with a tavern and several rental vacation cabins along the Truckee River.
The Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company (C&TL&F) was formed to move lumber from trees growing along the shore of Lake Tahoe to the silver mines of the Comstock Lode. Between 1872 and 1898 C&TL&F transferred 750 million board foot of lumber logged from 80,000 acres (32,000 ha) of virgin timberland.
Independence Lake is a natural glacial lake in the Sierra Nevada of California. At an elevation of 6,949 feet (2,118 m) in the upper reaches of the Truckee River basin, it has been less affected by development than most lakes in the area. The Nature Conservancy owns a 2,325 acres (9.41 km2) parcel of land around it, which it manages privately as the Independence Lake Preserve for the purposes of conservation and low-impact recreation.
Municipalities and communities of Nevada County, California, United States | ||
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| Cities and towns |  | |
| CDPs | ||
| Unincorporated communities | ||
| Ghost towns |
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| Footnotes | ‡This CDP also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |