Please help us. We can only save as much Donner Summit history as we can gather. If you have stories, artifacts, documents, pictures, or other materials, let us know and we'll be happy to make copies, take what you've written, sit down with you and record memories, or do whatever it takes to save our history. People have been passing on history to us in the form of artifacts, memories, photographs, albums, books and other writings, etc.  Many of the stories in the Heirloom or in our exhibits would have been possible without donations.

A good example of that is Chuck Oldenburg's (Serene Lakes) suggestion that we investigate Summit Camp, the longest lasting and maybe larges of the Chinese railroad workers' camps. That led to archeological sleuthing, research, multiple field trips to multiple locations, photography and writing.  As of this writing  a series of articles will appear in the Heirloom in the June-September, '16 issues.  That then turned our attention to a broken 150 year old wok Sue Ellen Benson (Rainbow) found above Big Bend.  That story too will apear in the Heirloom.   None of those stories would have been possible or will be possible without the donations of materials from the public.

Working together we can tell some really good stories.

If you'd like to volunteer send us an email.



Below: Rainbow or Donner Summit Bridge completed in 1926. It was the first bridge with a rising compound curve. See our December, '08 Heirloom for more.