Summit City, Amador County Ghost Town

What we have here in terms of geography and mineralogy fits more into the ~frame or context of Nevada than that of California. What happened at Summit City, or whatever forces brought it into being, appears to be the result or an end product of the exploration for silver, undertaken first at Silver City in Alpine County and extended southeast to the Amador line. This community, of which, be it said, that it is almost impossible to locate any actual history, was probably the far end of a wave at its extremity, a mere ripple of the exploratory forces, tidal in their intensity, that were generated by the discovery of the literal silver mountain of the Comstock.

The various tunnels and inclines do not yield any clue to the writer as to how well they had done in their prospect, for the reason that, unfortunately, he is not at all versed in the mineralogy of silver. The conditions under which mining was accomplished were so difficult as to be beyond belief. From early November or sometimes into July, the High Sierra is in the grip of King Winter. Snow in depths of 8 to 35 feet seals all roads and trails. Skis and snowshoes are useless against cliffs, crevasses, and slot gorges.

With all of the resources of science and engineering at the disposal of the road maintenance crews, the transcontinental highways and railways are sometimes closed for days and even weeks. In the 1950S two hundred passengers were spared their lives by a tiny margin when the California­bound train stalled at the face of a 40-foot snow drift at Norden. Weeks of concentrated effort by all of the resources of a great state finally achieved succor. Relief came in on the backs of expert ski men, trained and hardened in the techniques of arctic exploration and survival. Snow plows and helicopters were utterly useless in the face of the roar of the blizzard. It is by no means impossible that at some future date a reenactment of the tragedy at Donner Lake may take place. Not a season passes by that lives are lost when someone leaves the main highway and is caught by a storm down in a side canyon. In below-zero cold, with no reserves of food or clothing, death comes quickly. In winter do not dare the storm gods of the Sierra unless you feel that you must.

This high country, when midsummer rolls back the snow in the passes, is as barren as the craters of the moon. Far below, in sheltered niches and folds in the rock, twisted tamarack and stunted silvery quakenash fight for life and a tiny bit of growth in the short ninety days granted to them. Melting snow banks generate pools of water that nourish skunk cabbage into thickets that spring up at mush­room speed. The wax-red snow flowers renew their endless cycle as the snow retreats and they follow.

In one of these small lakes, there stood for many decades at its upper end three old prairie schooners partially submerged, decaying down to their skeletons of ironwork. Stories that can hardly be firmed up enough to be called legend tell that they were abandoned during an Indian attack. If so, this would appear to have been a repeat of the affair at Tragedy Springs.

Mile on mile the tracks may be traced, worn inches deep in the granite of snow­polished domes and ridges by the narrow tires of black Norway iron of the 7-foot wheels of the old conestogas. How many passed this way, say you, to have carved a record so deep?

In exploration of this upper world on the old immigrant road, the number of graves encountered impresses one. Graves are scattered everywhere that a scanty bit of soil might be excavated in a rock crevice and a cairn of stone built from the talus mass at the base of the granite peaks. Here is evidence that, after 2,000 miles of hardship and suffering, at the last barricade before the promised land in all too many cases, tired spirits and bodies were broken in the scaling of the might rampart of the Sierra Nevada.

Into Summit City a pack train could penetrate in July, August, and September. A thousand feet above the town a branch of the old road ends just like that. Heavier freight was lowered into one of the greatest canyons on earth by means of blocks and tackles belayed to iron axles driven into holes single-jacked into the living rock by daring young men on flying bosun's chairs.

This was a repeat of the method used at the Carson S pur, where some of the old iron bars are still in view, to which the falls were attached to haul up the wagons that were disassembled to make this possible. The oxen were taken up in belly bands and all reassembled at the summit.

The builders of Summit City were of the breed of Paul Bunyan. In the ruins of the town, a few stone walls and house foundations may have lasted to this day. An artifact of more than passing interest was the remnant of a pool table. The mechanics oflowering such an object over a sheer precipice of that height are, of course, impossible. But it was done because there it is.

For a moment let us consider the motivation behind this. Eight months of total confinement and complete isolation in that white hell is more than the spirit of man may endure, more especially when it is inflicted upon a small group. Under such conditions cabin fever is a more deadly menace than a bullet. For this poison, the pool table was at least a partial antidote. May we express our unbounded admiration for the townsmen of Summit City, of all of the rugged and durable, the most rugged and durable.

Information, photographs courtesy of the Amador County Archives, The Historical Marker Database, The Chronicling America Database, and Larry Cenotto, Amador County's Historian