Perusing old newspapers can turn up interesting stories.
“Hank Webber, the cowboy is crossing the Sierras [sic] on his snowshoe horse ‘California,’” the Mariposa Gazette reported on Feb. 19, 1916. Then on March 11, the paper had this story: “Hank Webee [sic] has challenged a snowshoe horse race against his horse ‘California.’”
The Oakland Tribune wrote the journey was based on “an episode recounted by Jack London in one of his books. Many people in a San Francisco club said it was impossible.” But “Hank Webber, Wyoming cowpuncher, and ‘California,’ the original ‘Snowshoe Hoss,’” set out on a “death-defying trip” to prove it was possible.
“I’m not a Jack London hero,” the cowboy told the Tribune; “but I’m a first-class hoss-rider, and if it can be done, I am the man to do it.” He expected it to take a week to cross from the eastern side of the Sierra to Truckee…