Talk:Plumas County, California

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Realignments and Revisions

MSG FOR JREFEREE - Thanks again for the input, I'm always open to others' ideas, even if they differ from my own, I try to keep an open mind. To that same end, before I began this massive project of mine (realignment of geographical and transportation data and adding info boxes), I consulted the page on WikiProjects for U.S. Counties, which makes the following statement regarding article structure; ..."These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them." Along with that, Vegaswikian made the suggestion that Major highways might not be applicable under Geography, but under an altogether separate Transpo category. So, grasping ahold of these concepts, along with a thermos full of Folger's and a full playlist in Winamp, I began my foray into the world of California counties.

Plumas is just one stop along the way in what started as an attempt to add the full gammut of highways to each county, with Google Earth as a reference (and the fact that, loving to drive, I've been on almost every major highway in this great state of ours!). During this effort, I came to the realisation that cities and towns are indeed part of a county's geography, as they define specific places and are definite features of the county's overall geo structure. With that in mind, the realignments seemed appropriate.

If a consensus is reached that cities and towns should be separated, I'll go along with that (albeit begrudgingly, this has been quite a task! :-) Edit Centric 03:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Transcontinental Railroad was not the cause of a reduced use of the Beckwourth Trail

The following statement is questionable:

The Beckwourth Trail had heavy use until about 1865, after construction of the transcontinental railroad, when railroads became the favored transportation method for westward-bound travelers.

This claim concerning the transcontinental railroad impacting emigrant Use of the Beckwourth Trail requires improved scholarship as it lacks creditable support. This sentence was taken from the website Beckwourth Trail, A Route to the Gold Country, but support for it can not be found. Of most obvious concern about this claim is that that the transcontinental railroad was not completed until 1869.

There were some other more direct reasons why the trail was not heavily traveled from Nevada to Marysville post-1854.

There is a paper written by Dr Clarence McIntosh, Professor History at California State University Chico, entitled "Transportation in Plumas County Before the Railroads". The paper was included in "Plumas Memories, Plumas Historical Society, Publication #51, June 1986".

In this paper, Dr McIntosh discussed how traffic shifted from the Beckwourth Trail to other competing trails such as the Humbug Road and Nobles Road. The "Beckwourth Road" became a toll road in the areas west of Quincy in 1854. He indicates, "the toll cost to move a ton of freight from Bidwell Bar to Quincy in the 1850s was about $18. This made using the Beckwourth Road an expensive enterprise". Thus the use of the Beckwourth Trail declined.

Referencing to Dr McIntosh's paper, I will change this disputed sentence to the following:

Between 1851 and 1854, the Beckwourth trail was frequently traveled; however, in 1854, use dropped sharply when the Beckwourth Trail became a toll road. The toll cost to move a ton of freight from Bidwell Bar to Quincy was about $18. This made using the Beckwourth Road an expensive enterprise and use of the Beckwourth Trail declined.