Nearly 50 manuscript documents of various shapes, dates and sizes. Contains payment vouchers (labor at $100 per month), vouchers for meals, bills, affadavit, pay list, treasurer's report, receipts, etc.

Constructed between 1850 and 1852, with some work possibly done later, the road was designed to funnel emigrants coming over the Carson Pass to the town of Yankee Jim's, in Placer county between present day Colfax and Forest Hill. This was not an uncommon practice in the early 1850's, communities contracting to build roads connecting with passes through the Sierra Nevada, to encourage those crossing the plains to come to settle or mine in their areas, providing consumers, citizenry and tax payers. Many of the documents concern, at least peripherally, court cases involving Isaac A. Avery, one of the principals in the contracting, who fronted some of the monies from his private funds, then attempted to be reimbursed. In some cases he might have been reimbursed several times for the same expenses. The town of Yankee Jim's, where this originated, was on the North Fork of the American River, originally a horse corral built by a Sydney man named Robinson, known as "Yankee Jim" for some reason. He was hanged in 1852, a member of the so-called Ross Party and a bad customer. Also in 1852, hydraulic mining began in the Yankee Jim's area. The town was depopulated by 1875, and is today a ghost town.