Page:Tioga Road (HAER No. CA-149) written historical and descriptive data.pdf/5

 none from San Francisco. A branch road was planned to Mount Gibbs and the head of Bloody Canyon. Priest stated that he expected construction to be completed by 1 August. The road would run for 56 miles from Crocker's Station to the Tioga mines.13

The road was built in less than six months. The chainmen were followed closely by the Chinese gangs, working with axes, picks, shovels, and dynamite. The 1st of August date was missed, but two weeks later the Homer Mining Index reported "The Great Sierra Wagon Road is nearing completion. Wagons from the other side [the west] were to have reached Lake Tenaya yesterday. Priest's powder gangs will skip the heavy blasting along the side of the lake for the present, after which 100 blasters will be put on to finish."14

The 'Great Sierra Wagon Road' was finished on 4 September 1883. It was a well-constructed route, built by laborers equipped only with hand tools and blasting powder. It had easy grades ranging from 3-10 percent, substantial timber bridges on stone abutments, and occasional culverts and rock retaining walls. The new route left Crocker's station on the Big Oak Flat Road, crossed the South Fork of the Tuolumne River a little way east, then climbed a divide to reach the high portion of the road at White Wolf. From there, it crossed Yosemite Creek on a bridge sited where the present Yosemite Creek campground is located, then passed through Porcupine Flat and Snow Flat before swinging southeast to pass along the north shore of Tenaya Lake on the blasted causeway and on fill sections. From there, it crossed Tenaya summit to reach Tuolumne Meadows and followed an easy grade along the Tuolumne River and up to Bennettville for the last mile. The cost of the construction was $61,095, or roughly $1,100 a mile.15

Civil engineer John A. Dron, who had passed over the road soon after its construction, expressed his amazement at the early builders' feat:
 * The builders of the road, some twenty-five years before, had built its footing around the toe of a great granite dome shelving into the waters of the lake [Tenaya], by shifting huge slabs of granite into a level causeway along the lakeside, and we marvelled at the effort they had made with primitive equipment in a day when mountain roads were little more than trails.16

The road did not continue from the mine down the east slope of the mountains, and therefore was not a transmontane route; however, several trails continued down the east side of the Sierra from the mines. The company charged tolls for passage over the road; these were collected at Crocker's Station. An old signboard indicated the following tolls for use of the road: Archie M. Leonard began a livery service, using a ten-horse saddle train, over the road from Yosemite to Lundy in 1881. His service attracted attention in Lundy and Bodie newspapers, which suggested that Tenaya Lake would become "a watering place of note." Leonard later became one of the first civilian rangers of Yosemite National Park. Yosemite guide John L. Murphy, who settled