Donner Memorial State Park

California

The pedestal under the pioneer statue at Donner is twenty-two feet tall because that was the depth of the snow.

historicalroadsidedisaster

The stone pedestal holding up the pioneer statue here rises twenty-two feet. That number was not chosen for looks. It is the height of the snow during the winter of eighteen forty-six and forty-seven, the winter the Donner Party spent trapped just short of the pass. Caught without shelter or adequate supplies, members of the group resorted to cannibalism to survive. Two camps formed. A smaller group including the Donner families settled into tents at Alder Creek. The larger group pushed about six miles further up the trail and built cabins near what was then Truckee Lake. The park holds the sites of two of those three cabins. On top of the pedestal stands a bronze family, another seventeen and a half feet up, made by an artist named John McQuarrie. At the time it was said to be the largest bronze statue in the country west of the Mississippi.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
a pedestal that rises 22 feet (6.7 m) high (the height of the snow during the winter of 1846–1847)

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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