On Dec. 26, 1846, some members of the ill-fated Donner Party are believed to have turned to cannibalism in order to survive during a Sierra Nevada snowstorm. The information below originally appeared in the Reno Gazette Journal on April 6, 2006 and May 11, 2010.
The Donner Party was a group of wagon-train emigrants who traveled west to California in the spring of 1846. They camped at the future site of Reno in October of that year and by Nov. 1 became entrapped in the Sierra by a series of snowstorms.
Some families stayed at what is now Donner Lake and the families of George and Jacob Donner camped in makeshift tents at Alder Creek, about six miles from what is now Truckee. Of the 81 people who were at the high camps, only 47 eventually arrived at Sutter’s Fort (in present-day Sacramento). The last survivor reached the fort in late April of 1847.
At the time, survivors and rescuers attested to cannibalism at both camps. To date, no human bones have been identified at either site, but digs at Alder Creek in 2003 and 2004 revealed a record of starvation — an account read in the bones of the pioneers’ meals.