Then and now: Meyers Grade — dirt to asphalt
Old Meyers Grade in the early 1900s. Photo/Lake Tahoe Historical Society
Even in the early 1900s old and new intersected. The above photo shows a horse-drawn carriage and a horseless carriage meeting on the Old Meyers Grade while crossing Echo Summit. This was years before the current Highway 50 Echo Summit route was built in the 1930s.
Meyers Grade as it looks today. Photo/Bill Kingman
Now paved, the Old Meyers Grade still exists. It is mapped as Johnson Pass Road just uphill behind the camera where it traverses the summit.
— Bill Kingman
Housewife hill.
Now you need to talk about Hawley Grade. I think it was the one before Meyers grade. And wasn’t there another grade before Hawley Grade??
Yes, that grade went from what is now So. Upper Truckee (there is a railroad type Trails West sign in the vicinity describing it) straight up the very steep incline to the present Hwy 50 and to Echo Summit. It can be hiked even today but don’t expect to take a vehicle of any kind up….or down.
Well, it’s not exactly straight up but winds vertically, not at all like Hawley Grade, at an angle, or the old Meyers Grade, gentle curves.
Thank you Joan. P.S. We miss you and Dick.
Johnson’s Cutoff preceded Hawley Grade by nine years. Johnson’s Cutoff was so steep on the eastern slope ascending the summit from Upper Lake Valley that it took block and tackle to get the wagons uphill, sometimes taking two days. Hawley’s Grade solved that problem, with a smooth 5% graded wagon road, the first of its kind in the Central Sierra. Not to be outdone, Johnson reconfigured his Cutoff to solve the slope problem in 1860, causing Hawley Grade to eventually be abandoned in the ensuing years.
BTW, Hawley was the first white settler in Upper Lake Valley, arriving in 1854.
Bill, I’ve tried writng to you about Echo Summit and Harvey Gross and about his clearing the hwy by hand but I keep getting a notice titled 404 and my letter is gone. Keep up the good work, OLS