This Day…

1876- Norwegian Jon Torsteinson was born in 1827 and died on this day after a four-day illness. Jon later changed his name to John Thompson. He later became known as Snowshoe Thompson, the intrepid skiing mail carrier of the High Sierras in the late 1856 when he made the run between Placerville, California and Carson City, Nevada on skis (snow shoes had been recommended to him) in three days carrying a sixty pound sack of mail. Snowshoe Thompson continued this for the next twenty years.