What became the Henness Pass route over the Sierra Nevada followed ancient Native American trails. About halfway between Donner Pass (on the south) and Yuba Pass (on the north), it had become a popular route into California by the 1850s. Although a bit longer to the goldfields, it was lower, and it avoided Donner Pass, which had acquired a sinister reputation due to the fate of the Donner party in the 1840s. By the 1860s, with the discovery of silver in the Comstock Lode, much traffic was now traveling back…
