First Transcontinental Railroad - Cape Horn Promontory

The society's first plate here, in 1999, said the Chinese workers were lowered over the face of the promontory in wicker bosun's chairs. No record from the construction says so. The railroad historian Edson Strobridge traced the chairs to a Southern Pacific publicity writer, and the swaying baskets to retellings some eighty-five years after the work. In 2019 the Colfax society fixed a corrected plate over the old one, keeping its dedication date: the workers hand-cut the ledge from September 1865 to May 1866. Passenger trains used to stop on the curve for the view down.

What the plaque says

View of Cape Horn Promontory North Fork American River Canyon Dedicated to the memory of thousands of Chinese who worked for Charles Crocker on the Central Pacific Railroad. From September 1865 to May 1866 they hand-cut a ledge for railroad tracks across the face of Cape Horn Promontory over 1300 feet above the canyon floor. They are honored for their work ethic and timely completion of the transcontinental rails ending in Promontory, Utah, May 1869. Dedicated May 8, 1999 Colfax Area Historical Society, Inc.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Empire Mine State Historic Park — 8.4 mi
  The oldest, deepest, richest hard-rock gold mine in California, with 367 miles of flooded tunnels underneath.
• Nevada City — 11 mi
  Gaslamps, brick storefronts, and the Nisenan who are still fighting to be recognized on their own ground.
• Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park — 17 mi
  A canyon washed out of a mountain by water cannon, and the lawsuit that ended hydraulic mining.
• Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park — 22 mi
  The tailrace at Coloma where a carpenter found gold in January 1848 and the world came running.

More markers nearby

• First Transcontinental Railroad - Colfax — 2.5 mi
• Iowa Hill — 3.7 mi
• Gold Run — 4.7 mi
• Dutch Flat — 7.1 mi