California Trail Days - Wagons Ho!

Learn about the trials and tribulations westbound pioneer emigrants endured during California Trail Days at the California Trail Interpretive Center. The event celebrates the migration of over 200,000 people (estimates vary and nobody knows for sure) to California between 1841 and 1869. They passed today's California Trail Interpretive Center location on their trek, with the lucky ones making it across Nevada and over the Sierra to California. The less fortunate are buried along the route. There will be a wide variety of activities and presentations suitable for the family - an 1850s trail camp, children's games, gold panning, dutch oven cooking, blacksmithing, Native American crafts and lifeways, music, live oxen, and much more.

California Trail Days will be at the new California Trail Interpretive Center on Friday, May 29 and Saturday, May 30. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. The Center isn't exactly a one day jaunt from the Truckee Meadows - it's almost 300 miles east of Reno on I80 and eight miles west of Elko. Take Hunter Exit 292. For more information, contact Trail Center Manager David Jamiel at (775) 753-0213, or Supervisory Park Ranger Gary Koy at (775) 753-0281.

To learn more about westward migration on the California Trail, refer to the National Park Service website on the California National Historic Trail.

Sign up to receive the Reno / Tahoe Newsletter and stay on top of what's happening.

Follow me on Twitter.