Plumas County Adventures
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State Highway Powder Magazine
If you have ever driven State Highway 70 through the Feather River Canyon,
you can appreciate what a chore it was to build the road. In many places
the highway is located where part of a granite mountain was located. In
three places the mass of the granite was sufficient that the only recourse
was to tunnel through. This was all done in the 30's with men, minimal equipment
and dynamite.
How do you store enough dynamite to build a road? I never gave it much thought
until I looked at a 1947 USFS map and noticed a short side road off Highway
70 and the caption "St Hwy Powder Mag." I used GPS navigation
to get to the site. As you wind around a corner, here is what you see.
At first I thought this was a pillbox from WWII and I had somehow entered
the Twilight Zone. No, not really, this was the storage facility for the
explosives used in the highway construction. It is nestled right into the
base of a hill. I took a couple pictures from the front and then decided
to get a shot from above. I noted a large, flat rock and hiked to it for
the perfect photo.
I'm so glad I angled for the perfect photo because here is what I discovered
about that rock:
Yes! It was a beautiful example of an Indian grinding rock. There are 50+
mortar holes in this rock. Some are so large that they merge with adjacent
holes. What a day!!
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