Historical Site - 20 Mile Museum, Old Highway 40

About Us

The 20 Mile Museum at Donner Summit brings history to life with dozens of interpretive signs placed along Old Highway 40, each of which explains the history of the sign?s location, displays historical photographs, tells a good story, and lists activities to do right there.

The ''museum,'' actually a 20-mile route, begins west of Donner Summit at the Eagle Lakes turnoff from I-80. From Cisco Grove it follows Old Highway 40 up and over Donner Summit catching the Emigrant Trail wagon train route, the Lincoln Highway, old hotels, the ice industry at Ice Lakes, the first chair lift in California at Sugar Bowl, the Transcontinental railroad?s Summit tunnel, snow-sheds, China Wall, and more.