The First Drink of Cold Water

The First Drink of Cold Water. . , The Truckee River you can see on the other side of the Interstate highway provided the first drink of life-saving water California-bound emigrants had after crossing the Forty-Mile Desert. Emigrants and animals staggered to the Truckee, half dead and crazed with thirst, about three miles east of here near the point where I-80 crosses the river. The clear, cold water, flowing from the Sierra Nevada to the east, was a welcome change from the alkali-tainted water the travelers had been forced to drink for several hundred miles.

This portion of the California Trail along the Truckee River represents a transitional area for the emigrants - the end of relentless dust and heat, but the beginning of the last great challenge - crossing the Sierra Nevada. Going up the Truckee River canyon was not an easy task. The wagons would have to cross the river more than 30 times along a rough route with steep banks and fast water before the travelers reached the meadows near present-day Reno. Those who had opted for the Carson River route at beginning of the Forty-Mile Desert had an easier time for wagons, with only a few crossings of the Carson River and gentler terrain. As years went by, the Carson River route became the favored route for an emigrant's final push to California.

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"I was over come and tired out, I would travel a little and I would lay down on the sand and rest and the sun shining on me, There is no timber thare I though I would never get through and I laide down to kick the bucket; but I thought of home and it give me a little more grit and I would get up, and stager along. I was so thirsty my tonge and lips cracked and bled but I was able to get to the water and after drinking a little - I dare not drink much - I felt better." - Andrew Orvis, 1849