Snowshoe Thompson: The Legendary Skiing Mailman (part one)

SNOWSHOE THOMPSON:

The Legendary Skiing Mailman (PART ONE)

by Mark McLaughlin

Skiing Long Pole

Courtesy Denver Public Library

Of all the skiers who have carved turns on the snowy slopes of the Tahoe Sierra, the most famous is undoubtedly John “Snowshoe” Thompson, the legendary skiing mailman. When it came to traveling through the wintry mountains, this indomitable Viking was a master — precursor to the pack train, the stagecoach, and the locomotive. Ultimately, Thompson is America’s first pioneer of freestyle skiing, an expert downhiller who exploited terrain jumping cliffs, slipping through trees (on 9-foot-long boards) and popping off the roofs of snowbound houses.

Snowshoe Thompson was born Jon Tostensen in the Telemark district of Norway on April 30, 1827. When he was a little boy, his father made him his first pair of skis (which he called snowshoes) and taught him the means of survival in snow country. Jon was 10 years old when his father died and the family immigrated to the American Midwest in 1837. In 1851, the 24-year-old farm boy was afflicted with gold fever and ran off to California. He worked briefly as a miner in the Mother Lode and then moved to near Placerville, about 30 miles east of Sacramento on the Sierra west slope.

Thompson farmed in the summer and cut firewood during the winter. About this time, he Americanized his name to John Albert Thompson after the family name of his stepfather, Arthur Thompson.

After the Gold Rush, the increasing demand for communication between California and the eastern United States resulted in the establishment of an overland mail route between San Francisco and Salt Lake City. (The nation’s first transcontinental railroad was still 18 years away.) The lucrative but dangerous mail contract was worth $14,000 a year when George Chorpenning and Absolom Woodward accepted the job in 1851. In order to cross the Sierra, large wooden hammers were needed to beat down the crusty snowpack, to create a trail for the heavily laden pack animals. It was risky and exhausting work that became deadly when Indians killed Woodward in November 1851.

During December 1851 and January 1852, Chorpenning tried to maintain mail delivery, but blizzards and deep snow in the Sierra turned him back. By February, the mail was rerouted north up the Feather River Canyon and over Beckwourth Pass into Utah Territory, but the detour increased the harrowing journey to 60 days, which proved too much for men and animals. Chorpenning finally gave up the route, at which point small communities like Mormon Station (later renamed Genoa) in the lower valleys near the Carson Range just east of Lake Tahoe, were cut-off from communication, medicine and supplies during the long winter months.

Historians have credited Thompson with first skiing across the Sierra in 1856, but my research suggests that he probably made the trek earlier than that. In 1852, Thompson took a job in a Placerville store owned by Thomas Knott, and the following year worked with him constructing a sawmill at Genoa (Utah Territory), about 90 miles east of Placerville on the other side of the Sierra. In his memoirs, Knott wrote that during the winters of 1853 and 1854, he paid the Norwegian two dollars a trip to carry mail and messages over the snow-covered mountains, a feat he said Thompson accomplished on homemade skis.

Regional newspapers published accounts of the dangerous difficulties and failed commercial attempts to deliver mail over the mountains during the winter months. In 1855, Thompson saw an ad published in the Sacramento Union: “People Lost to the World: Uncle Sam Needs Carrier.” The Placerville postmaster desperately wanted someone to carry the mail over the Sierra, 90 miles east to the Carson Valley, in the dead of winter. There weren’t any takers until Thompson decided to answer his new country’s call to duty.

Web-style snowshoes were common in the West, but only a few Scandinavian gold miners had begun gliding over the deep Sierra snow on long, hand-carved wooden boards. Precursor to the modern ski, these crude contraptions, often crafted from barrel staves, were called snowshoes in the 19th century mining camps.

Snowshoe Thompson

Relying on his memory of the Norwegian “snow skates” from his youth, Thompson carved himself a new pair of skis from oak; they were nine feet long, weighed nearly 25 pounds, and the front tips curved up by heating the wood. It takes a strong person to control skis of such magnitude, but Thompson was the man for the job. He stood six feet tall and weighed a solid 180 pounds. With his blonde hair and beard, fair skin and piercing blue eyes, he looked every bit the fierce Norseman of his ancestry.

Thompson answered the postmaster’s ad and offered to haul the mail over the rugged High Sierra. No one in the region had seen skis before Thompson showed them his homemade long boards and the single steering/brake pole. On his first attempt from the snowline above Placerville over to the Carson Valley, his rucksack was packed with 20 pounds of letters and packages. Thompson’s friends and neighbors feared that he would never survive the trek, but the skiing mailman conquered the hazardous journey east in just three days. The return trip up and over the Sierra’s eastern escarpment took only 48 hours. Thompson made the difficult and uncharted trans- Sierra route without a map or compass, by sticking to the high mountain ridges above most avalanche paths.

Thompson carried mail and supplies between Placerville and Genoa for two winters, 1856 and 1857. His pack could weigh nearly 90 pounds when newspapers, medicine, and sometimes ore samples were stuffed into it. (The Virginia City Territorial Enterprise credited Snowshoe Thompson with accelerating the Comstock silver discovery and Nevada statehood because he carried the first ore samples to California to be assayed for value.) Other vital supplies he hauled included clothing, books, tools, pots and pans. He also carried the type and newsprint (paper) for Nevada’s first newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise.

In 1856 State Senator Swift Berry of Placerville published a report when he was Secretary of the Overland Pony Express Trails Association that chronicled some of Thompson’s achievements: “Although not officially carrying mail on the Placerville- Carson route after 1858 when the Pioneer Mail stages took over, Thompson carried some mail on his back on skis over the winter snows in the Sierra over a period of 20 years — mostly unofficially. In 1861 and 1862 he carried mail over Ebbetts Pass, 8,730 feet in elevation, and down to Mokelumne Hill. Later he carried and traveled on skis on the snow-covered toll road that connected the Carson Valley and Murphy’s Camp.” (Calaveras County, CA)

Fair skies or storm, rain or snow, Snowshoe Thompson always delivered. For personal protection, he carried only matches, some beef jerky, crackers and biscuits — no blanket, no gun, no camping gear or compass. He wore a simple Mackinaw jacket, a wide brimmed hat, and smudged his cheekbones with charcoal to prevent snow blindness. Thompson rarely stopped to rest and sometimes built a fire for heat, but when a blizzard made that impossible he danced a jig on a flat rock to stay warm. He preferred to sleep under projecting rocks, using the mail sacks for pillows. Thompson skied best at dawn and dusk when the snow was hard, crusted and very fast. He navigated in the dark using the stars as a compass and he judged his progress and elevation by observing familiar rock formations along the route.

Express Delivery

In 1859, Thompson formed a partnership with Judge Childs of Genoa to operate a sleigh line for passengers and express packages across the Sierra, The business utilized dogs and sometimes horses wearing custom snowshoes made of metal and stiff leather to pull the loaded sleds, but when severe storms made the trip too dangerous for the animals, Snowshoe would go alone carrying the mail and supplies.

Thompson’s skiing ability was legendary. He rocketed down mountain slopes at 60 miles per hour, and was credited with making jumps exceeding 100 feet. After famed Comstock journalist Dan De Quille watched Snowshoe perform, he wrote: “He flew down the mountainside. He did not ride astride his pole or drag it to one side as was the practice of other snowshoers, but held it horizontally before him after the manner of a tightrope walker. His appearance was graceful, swaying his balance pole to one side and the other in the manner that a soaring eagle dips its wings.” Early settlers had seen skis before, but nobody danced on the heavy wooden boards like Snowshoe. Stay tuned for the conclusion next issue.

Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at local stores or at TheStormKing. com. Check out his blog: TahoeNuggets.com.