McCarthy Album 11, Photograph 304

Item

Title: McCarthy Album 11, Photograph 304
Description: Caption: "California Here We Come. Donner Monument. In Our Home State Again After Five Months Tour. October 7, 1934." William and Grace McCarthy took this photograph of the Pioneer Monument when they arrived back in California after a five month road trip to the East Coast. The Pioneer Monument, featuring a pair of pioneers with their two children looking west, was first dedicated on June 6, 1918 to commemorate those who emigrated to California in the mid 1800s. Today, the monument and surrounding area is known as Donner Memorial State Park. The park was established in memory of the ill-fated Donner Party, a group of emigrants whose wagon train was caught in the Sierra Nevada Mountains during the winter of 1846-47. The Pioneer Monument's stone pedestal stands twenty-two feet high, the height of the snow that the party had to contend with. Of the eighty-seven people in the wagon train, only forty-eight survived to be rescued the following spring. Some of the survivors are said to have resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
Contributor: Audrey Fullerton-Samora of Sacramento, great niece of William and Grace McCarthy, donated the William M. McCarthy Photograph Collection to the California State Archives in 1996.
Coverage: Truckee, California
Date: 10/7/1934
Format: JPEG, scanned at 400 DPI, 24-bit color
Identifier: 96-07-08-alb11-304
Language: English
Publisher: California State Archives, a division of the California Secretary of State's Office
Source: Image of an item within the William M. McCarthy Photograph Collection (96-07-08)
Subject: Pioneer Monument
Type: Still Image

Item sets: William M. McCarthy Photograph Collection

Media: 96-07-08-alb11-304.jpg