Boca means “mouth” in Spanish, and in English, the word can refer to a river mouth. Here, it refers to the confluence of the Little Truckee River with the main Truckee. Boca lies about 15 miles east of Donner Summit and got its start as a source of timber for the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the late 1860s. Logs were floated down the Little Truckee to a sawmill at the confluence with the Truckee. Boca’s big claim to fame, however, was in a forgotten 19th-century industry: ice harvesting….
