3283

Snow-Shoe Thompson

Currency:USD Category:Stamps / US Postal History Start Price:50.00 USD Estimated At:100.00 - 200.00 USD
Snow-Shoe Thompson
SOLD
50.00USDto 8*****S+ buyer's premium (11.25)
This item SOLD at 2015 Apr 17 @ 16:05UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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This lot contains articles and photos of Snow-Shoe Thompson: Snow lashed at his bearded face and the mail satchel straps bit into hie shoulders under the pull of one hundred pounds, John "Snow-Shoe" Thompson plodded toward a homesteader's cabin in the high sierra; medicine for a sick, five-month-old baby in his bag." Snowshoe Thompson (April 30, 1827 – May 15, 1876) was a nickname for the Norwegian-American John Albert Thompson, an early resident of the Sierra Nevada of Nevada and California. He is considered the father of California skiing. Between 1856 and 1876, he delivered mail between Placerville, California and Genoa, Nevada and later Virginia City, Nevada. Despite his nickname, he did not make use of the snowshoes that are native to North America, but rather would travel with what the local people applied that term to: ten-foot (over 3-meter) skis, and a single sturdy pole generally held in both hands at once. He knew this version of cross-country skiing from his native Norway, and employed it during the winter as one of the earlier pioneers of the skill in the United States. Thompson delivered the first silver ore to be mined from the Comstock Lode. Later he taught others how to make skis, as well as the basics of their use. Despite his twenty years of service, he was never paid for delivering the mail. Thompson typically made the eastward trip in three days, and the return trip in two days. He usually traveled the route known as "Johnson's Cutoff", a pathway first marked by early explorer (and first man to deliver mail over the Sierra) John Calhoun Johnson, which is today the route of U.S. Route 50 as it winds its way from Placerville, California to South Lake Tahoe. Thompson carried no blanket and no gun; he claimed he was never lost even in blizzards. A rescue attributed to him was that of a man trapped in his cabin by unusually deep snow. Thompson reached him, realized the damage to the man's legs from frostbite was sufficient to kill him, skied out to get chloroform, skied back in with it, and delivered the chloroform in time to save him.

City:
State: California/Nevada,
Date: 1856/1876

FHWAC#: 25224