Placer County Emigrant Road -1852
Emigrant diaries, circa 1852, show that the Placer County Emigrant Road, or the Scott Route, departed from the Carson Route on the Carson River near empire, Nevada. Some emigrants went directly, while others passed by way of Eagle Station, to the Ophir Creek vicinity in Washoe Valley.
The route climbed the Ophir drainage to Tahoe Meadows then down to Lake Tahoe, then due west over Stateline Point, then south along the west side of Lake Tahoe to the Truckee River outlet. From that point the route followed downstream to a crossing opposite Squaw Valley. It then climbed out of the valley on the west side to the Sierra summit.
The route then basically followed the ridge-line down the Foresthill Divide to the Forks House location. Some emigrant accounts suggest the route was difficult and unfinished. There were discussions in 1857 of tying the route to the new National road at Honey Lake. The Placer County Emigrant Road was used during the rush to Washoe and through the 1860s. However, it never achieved the success of the competing Johnson Cutoff or the Henness Pass routes.