When westbound visitors cross the California border on Interstate 80, Donner Lake Memorial State Park is the first historic site they encounter.
“It is one of the primary entry points to the state,” said Michael Myers, executive director at the Sierra State Parks Foundation. About 250,000 people per year visit the park, including busloads of students from California and Nevada.
The star-crossed Donner Party gets the main billing, but Donner Lake has been a crossroads of history since the time of the mammoth hunters—and on up through the Gold Rush, the coming of the railroads and the dawn of interstate highways. That diverse legacy is documented in the park’s museum and visitor center.
“(The park) has a lot of natural resources and cultural resources, from the Indigenous people—the Washoe Tribe, who were the original caretakers of the area, and continue to be—to the Chinese workers who helped build the railroads, the Donner Party and all the European immigrants who came across the pass,” Myers said. “It has a rich history and significance to many different people.”
A $600,000 upgrade of the more-than-century-old Donner Party monument at the park was completed in 2022. That work stabilized the 22-foot-high rock base of the heroic bronze statue of a pioneer family. It’s at the site where 81 members of the Donner wagon train were trapped for months by early snow storms in the fall of 1846, and about half of them died.
The Native Sons of the Golden West, which built and donated the monument to the state in 1918, and the Sierra State Parks Foundation are splitting the costs for phase two of the Donner Project. That phase includes native landscaping, accessibility improvements, a protective barrier for the monument (to discourage climbers), a surrounding trail with seating areas and other improvements. An amphitheater/educational pavilion behind the museum also is being built.
The goal is to create a space for contemplation, reflection and respect for the layers of history represented at the site.
Myers said about $135,000 has been raised, but the project is about $50,000 short of what’s needed. The foundation is asking the public for donations to complete the work. Donations more than $1,000 will be recognized on a donor wall in the visitor-center foyer.
The project should be completed by the spring of 2026, he said.
After weathering more than 100 Sierra winters, Myers said, the monument and its environs will soon be ready to spend another century deepening public understanding of the Donner Party’s story and the significance of Donner Pass in American history—while ensuring the site remains a place of remembrance and learning for generations to come.
For more details, contact the Sierra State Parks Foundation at 530-583-9911, info@sierrastateparks.org or www.sierrastateparks.org.