Applegate-Lassen Emigrant Trail (Fandango Pass)

Emigrant journals called this ridge the Sierra Nevada, and a company cresting it could believe the worst was behind them. It was not. The name Fandango is told two ways. The version most historians trust has a party of 1849 camped in the valley below on a night so cold the men danced to keep warm. The other has emigrants massacred at a dance, and little supports it. The pass went quiet after 1869, when John Bonner's road over Cedar Pass opened to the south. A Clampers plate below records the bronze put back in 1992.

What the plaque says

The Applegate-Lassen Trail This spot marks the convergence of two pioneer trails widely used by emigrants during the years 1846-1850. The Applegate Trail, established in 1846, led from the Humboldt River in Nevada to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The Lassen cut-off, established by Peter Lassen in 1848, turned south at Goose Lake to the northern mines and settlements of California. Registered Historical Landmark No. 546 Plaque placed by California State Park Commission in cooperation with Modoc County Board of Supervisors and Alturas Parlor No. 159, Native Daughters of the Golden West, July 15, 1956. Plaque Reinstalled May 9 1992 Neversweats 1863 E Clampus Vitus Credo quia absurdum

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Fort Bidwell — 4.7 mi
• Bonner Grade — 17 mi
• Cressler and Bonner Trading Post, 1865 — 19 mi
• Chimney Rock — 20 mi