Artifact of the Month, December 2023
Snowshoes
198102.1AB Gift of Bruce Kellow

While curating the exhibition currently in the Mill Building at Paul Bunyan’s Forest Camp called, Recreation: The Great Outdoors and More!, we came across a historic pair of snowshoes with interesting provenance. We decided to highlight them as Artifact of the Month while Snow: Tiny Crystals, Global Impact was on exhibit in the Museum, but we learned more (and less) than we bargained for.

According to our records, these snowshoes were owned by the donor’s cousin, a World War I veteran named Hugh Wallace, who wore them “to carry mail from Sacramento to Reno over Immigrant Pass around the end of WWI.” With such an intriguing story, it’s “snow” wonder we were excited to come across them in our Collection! However, upon further research, we unfortunately discovered that our records might not be completely accurate.

After exploring the donor’s genealogy, we found Hubert “Hugh” Benjamin Wallace (b.1888, d.1972), who fit the time period mentioned in the records. Hugh was the cousin of Bruce’s (the donor) stepmother’s father. He was indeed employed by the US Mail service in 1910, but was listed as a “driver” on the census, along with his brother Oran. Their father George’s occupation is listed as “stage driver”. It is not clear whether Hugh and Oran were driving stages or vehicles as both were used by the postal service in 1910. They lived together in Beaver, Oregon, where it doesn’t snow enough to warrant the use of snowshoes.

Hugh did, in fact, register for the WWI draft in 1917, but his occupation was listed as “farmer” at that time. It’s not clear whether he went to war, as we have not been able to locate any additional military records that we can confidently match to him. There are more than a couple Hugh Wallaces. A couple years after WWI, Hugh’s occupation is listed as “highway construction laborer”. Further research revealed Hugh lived in Oregon his entire life, so delivering mail in California and Nevada seemed unlikely.

This information does not seem to jibe with the accession record. Not only that, where is Immigrant Pass? Could they have mean Emigrant Pass in Nevada, the mountain pass that originally carried the California Trail, now Interstate 80, over the Emigrant Hills of Eureka County, Nevada? Or Emigrant Gap, the gap in a ridge on the California Trail as it crosses the Sierra Nevada? Or maybe Emigrant Gap in Oregon that crosses the Cascade Mountains? 

Could this family history have been conflated with another well-known postman who braved the snowy landscapes of California to deliver mail? John “Snowshoe” Thompson reportedly wore 25 pound skis to weather huge snowdrifts while transporting mail in 1856 on the 90-mile Old Emigrant Road between Placerville, California, and Carson Valley, Nevada. There are several memorials to “Snowshoe” Thompson in California, Nevada, and Norway, where he was born.

We may never know the full story of these historic snow shoes. However, in the process we learned a lot about historic mail delivery, including Rural Free Delivery and the interesting methods used to transport mail in difficult weather conditions and landscapes, the history of snowshoes, the life of Hubert “Hugh” Benjamin Wallace, and the fascinating story of “the Viking of the Sierra”, John “Snowshoe” Thompson. Mostly, we learned that sometimes a story about snowshoes isn’t about snowshoes at all.

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