1870s Logging Camp Discovered

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence in the Sierra Nevada of what´s thought to be a Chinese logging camp that dates back to the 1870s.

Artifacts found at the Tahoe National Forest site near Truckee include an ax head, opium can fragments, a Chinese medicine bottle and remnants of a two-person “misery whipsaw´” used by loggers in the 1870s.

The excavations will determine the historical significance of the site and whether it might qualify for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Evidence of Chinese camps has been found in many areas around Truckee, but this was the first such site found on public land. Extensive logging took place in the 1860s and 1870s in the Lake Tahoe area to supply timber during a mining boom in Virginia City, Nevada, 20 miles southeast of Reno.