Talk:Beckwourth Pass

Railroad Date Doesn't Make Sense
The article currently says "The Beckwourth Trail was used during the California Gold Rush until about 1855, when the railroad supplanted the wagon train as the preferred method of travelling to California." This sentence is lifted verbatim from the referenced source, but it is anachronistic.

Construction on the transcontinental railroad did not begin until 1863 and the Central Pacific line with its terminus in Sacramento did not even reach Reno until 1868. What the 1855 date does correspond with is the generally accepted end year of the Gold Rush itself and I suspect the source conflated two different pieces of information, perhaps through an editing error. I'm going to change the sentence to read "The Beckwourth Trail was used during the California Gold Rush of 1948 - 1855 and continued to be used until the transcontinental railroad supplanted the wagon train as the preferred method of traveling to California" and just remove the ref. It would be nice if someone came up with a better source for this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:9A00:1D4B:C5D:D71E:9FF3:347 (talk) 14:17, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh dear, I see that I neglected to sign this way back then. Sorry. Osomite (talk) 01:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Claims About the Continental Railroad Impacting Emigrant Use of the Beckwourth Pass Requires Improved Scholarship
I have been this way before disputing how the Transcontinental Road allegedly led to the demise in use of the Beckwourth Trail.

The following sentence, "The Beckwourth Trail was used during the California Gold Rush of 1848 - 1855 and continued to be used until the first transcontinental railroad supplanted the wagon train as the preferred method of traveling to California." is pretty much a product of casual editing is has no basis in fact.

Clearly the Trail's use during the gold rush seems likely; however, the discussion claiming it was supplanted by the first transcontinental railroad apparently in 1855 lacks support. It begs the fact 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.

Sometime ago, I came across 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.

I only have some partial notes from the paper but feel they are adequate to use in modifying the Beckwourth Pass article.

I will delete the nonsense written about how the Transcontinental Railroad impacted the Beckwourth Trail.

About the sentence, "Between 1851 and 1854, 1,200 emigrants used the trail." Clearly the trail was used to some extent. Jim only led a single wagon train in 1851. The number of emigrants needs a better reference.

The current reference for the 1,200 emigrants is from a webpage about Jim Beckwourth. I have tried to communicate with the webpage editor asking what his reference is. Unfortunately, I have received no reply. Without a reference, the 1,200 is just a number which is an issue that can be disputed.

Referencing to Dr McIntosh's paper, I will modify the statement to indicate "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."

Osomite (talk) 01:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

About Removing the "Stub-Class" Statement From This Article
At the top of this article's page, there is the following statement:

"A stub-class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

I have worked on this page off and on over the years and I have pretty much exhausted the subject. There isn't much more than can be added. The quality of the article is no longer "stub-class".

The instructions on the Help:Maintenance template removal page indicate

"The mechanics of removal are usually as simple as clicking 'Edit' at the top of the page or in the section involved (if you're not already in edit mode), removing the code that produces the display of the template, leaving an edit summary and saving the page."

This instruction, on the face of it, is pretty straight forward.

However, there's a rub. I can not find the code that produces the display at the top of the page. You would think it would be a the top of the WikiText code, but it isn't.

So what is secret here? Can someone help remove the "stub-class" statement? I think that this article has reached at least a "B" class level as defined by the Content assessment page.

Osomite hablemos  00:12, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say it's "B" class, but it's getting better (thank you) and it's certainly no longer a stub. For B class, I would expect at least two sections in the article, currently it only has one, history. Maybe a description section about the grades, usage, location, average number of days the pass is closed in the winter, weather, etc? FYI, the guideline is at Content assessment. I would say it's better than a start, so I'll go with C. Dave (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2020 (UTC)