Donner Memorial State Park, created in 1928, commemorates California's Native People, Pioneers, the tragedy of the Donner Party, and the Lincoln Highway.
Emigration and travel have changed the lives of countless ordinary people.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains form a natural barrier between California and the rest of the United States. Majestic and imposing, these mountains have always tested anyone crossing from one side to the other.
Washoe used well-worn game trails to travel through their homeland. Hopeful emigrants followed, struggling toward an uncertain future.
Thousands of Chinese workers arrived to drill and blast tunnels through the mountains and lay track for the railroad.
Twentieth-century travelers took to new highways, motoring toward new adventures in travel.
Explore the many ways that the journeys across this mountain changed the lives of these people and altered the course of U.S. history.
To provide programmatically accessible, lifelong, family learning to our extended community through collections, scholarly exhibitions, and programs about the cultural, recreational, and natural history of the Donner Lake region as it relates to Donner Memorial State Park.
State of California, Department of Parks and Recreation, Sierra District, Sierra Gold Sector, Donner Memorial State Park
Sierra State Parks Foundation Museum Store
