With fast-growing cities surging in south Placer County, it would be easy to believe the entire county is developing at warp speed. But step into downtown Colfax and you’ll find a progressive community whose streetscape seems locked in a time warp.
Unlike most foothills communities that developed during the Gold Rush, Colfax’s history is tangled in the tracks of the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR). Although the rail line’s name and function changed through the decades, trains still dominate the scenery in this former company town.
Before the railroad steamed into the territory in 1865, the mining settlement of Illinoistown was the largest village in the area. But when crews arrived to push the iron rails on up through the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, the population shifted toward the construction hub.
Known as Camp 20 along the line, the site was the base of operations for the engineers, laborers and equipment needed to route, pick, dig and blast their way through the wilderness to lay the tracks of the Transcontinental Railroad across the spine of the Sierra. Perched on the divide between the Bear River and the North Fork of the American River, and sitting just below the average snow line at about the 2,400-foot elevation, the basin was a prime spot for the rail company’s construction staging area.
Once the rail line was complete, land flanking the tracks was auctioned for residential lots. Because President Ulysses S. Grant’s vice president, Schuyler Colfax, had visited the camp to promote the costly project during the construction phase, the new citizenry voted to name their evolving city in his honor.
Sitting at crossroads connecting Illinoistown, the tanning yards at Iowa Hill and the mining towns of Grass Valley and Nevada City — and on the high-tech railroad line — Colfax steadily grew into a full-fledged city. While the railroad was laying an economic foundation in Colfax, the gold mining industry was playing out and the surrounding prospecting camps dried up.
Today, the train still whistles through Colfax, taking on or delivering passengers to a plaza in the heart of the little city. A renovated freight depot and a variety of train cars dot the downtown district, as living reminders of the town’s role in the development of the railroad that first linked the East and West coasts.
Colfax retains its small-town charm, despite contemporary tracts of homes and clusters of commercial centers stitched to its outskirts. The addition of fresh businesses to the rows of period homes and elderly storefronts gives the city a timeless quality.
Besides its schools, branch library, churches, boutiques and eateries, the Colfax area contains two parks; numerous equestrian, hiking and biking trails; and fishing, camping, swimming, waterskiing and boating on Rollins Lake. There also is whitewater rafting on the wild North Fork of the American River, when conditions permit, and camping along the Bear River.
As the train clatters through the middle of town each day, the oily tang of the engine contrasts with the aroma of neighboring flowers planted and tended by members of the local garden and Soroptimist clubs. It is the signature scent of a city celebrating its past as it prepares for the future.
In Colfax, it’s the smell of success.