Cromberg California

 

The RV Park, and a few other Resorts and Lodges, pretty much make up the community of Cromberg.

At just over 300 residents there is not much to the community.  There is a Post Office (here at the park), a Fire Station, a restaurant (Martha's Kitchen, mainly Mexican Food but without the Hispanic Decor...got a to-go order last night, and the food was just fine, especially for a small community like this), and one of the big attractions, the Twenty Mile House.

It is hard not to focus on the Twenty Mile House since this is the whole reason for the community to have an existence.  It is conveniently located twenty miles from Beckwourth California to the east, and Quincy from the west.  It was built in 1854 as a trading post for local gold miners and a stopping place for teamsters on the Reno-Quincy stage run.  It was moved closer to the Middle Fork of the Feather River, and was expanded to a two story hotel with ten rooms. 

Twenty Mile House soon went from just a stagecoach stop between settlements, to the center of Cromberg, with a trading post, a hotel and a school house. The stages that traveled this route changed their horses at Twenty Mile House.

In the 1880s, teamsters used eight or ten horses to pull their stagecoaches and needed bells to warn on-coming travelers. The stage drivers were the most popular men of their day, jolly and talkative. Miners lived along the river and would trade gold nuggets for grub or tobacco.

At the time, Reno was the nearest train depot. Stage coaches hauled travelers from Reno to Quincy in three days, and the Twenty Mile House was the first stop headed east, or last stop headed west. 

As I traveled what once was certainly the old stagecoach route

The Feather River Rail Route was built and operated by the Western Pacific Railroad, constructed between 1906 and 1909.  It connected the cities of Oakland and Salt Lake City, built to compete with the Central Pacific Railroad.  This brought the end of the stagecoach era in Cromberg, and the train did not stop in Cromberg from what I could tell.  The town started to decay.  In the picture above you can see the river to the left, and rail line in the upper right corner.

Today the Twenty Mile House is a very nice Wedding Venue.  The place entails 200 Acres, the Main House which includes rooms for wedding party, and a couple of other buildings to house the wedding party.  Some grooms and brides stay at the place for a number days after the wedding...so it is a honeymoon retreat too!

There is a large outdoor 'chapel' for the wedding, or if one prefers, there are other areas to hold the ceremony too.  A picture on their website shows a large lunch or dinner being serviced out on the lawn, with a brick patio for dancing, etc.  It is definitely going to cost a pretty penny to hold a wedding here...but it will be a nice wedding.  And the areas for having pictures taken of the bride and groom is unreal.  Their website, Twenty Mile House, has a wealth of information and pictures.

        

 

Another wedding venu nearby is the Kinship Ranch.  Although nice, it is not as elegant as Twenty Mile House.  

Twenty miles in any direction (Highway 70 goes east to west, west to east ... but other connecting highways can take you north or south) are about a dozen RV Parks, and numerous National Forest Campground.  There are places to hike, river access for Kayaks, etc., and numerous areas where gold was being mined.  

For us...it is the peace a solitude of the place, and the cooler weather. Yes, we run the A/C, but for 4 - 5 hours.  It is cold enough at night that we don't keep the windows open, and we run our oil filled radiator style heater for a couple of hours each morning.  Indy is now up to seeing a dozen or so dogs, some of whom walk by taking their owners for a walk.

Had a brief talk with Cathy, park owner, today and asked about the trees.  Yes, there are Redwoods on the property, more over by the Twenty Mile House.  The trees just outside our motorhome are the California incense cedar trees.  Behind the owners house, which is just across the dirt road from us, there are Redwoods, and the two trees do look a bit alike.  One thing I noticed was the lack of 'redwood smell' that redwoods put out.  The Sequoias don't have the fragrance that the Coastal Redwoods do, but they still put out a distinctive fragrance.