Just over Diamond Mountain from the Richmond/Susanville area, is Indian Valley in neighboring Plumas County. Those residents of that valley played an important part in the early history on this side of the mountain.

After all, one of Indian Valley’s earliest resident was Peter Lassen. In 1855, Lassen and his companions found gold on this side of the mountain. The next spring when news leaked out, many a miner traveled up Lights Creek and then down Diamond Mountain on what became known as Gold Run. A number of Indian Valley residents migrated over the mountain and became permanent residents.

The traffic on the road via Gold Run to Indian Valley, did not diminish after the minor gold rush peaked. In the 1880s, Susanville’s first telephone line paralleled that route. By 1920, with the development of Engel Mine, near Taylorsville the road witnessed a lot of usage, many of the miners were from the Susanville region and would return on weekends.  By the late 1920s, the mine was past its glory days, and the subsequent development of Westwood and Highway 36, travel diminished  over the route.

Tim