The Donner Party of people and wagons missed getting over the summit and down to Sutter's Fort (Sacramento) by about a week in late October of 1846. This group of people were the caboose in a long (wagon) train of people who DID make it all the way. Details of their saga can be read by clicking on Tahoetopia's Donner Party.

The park has 2.5 miles of hiking trails, campgrounds, 3 miles of frontage on scenic Donner Lake, a museum, and a number of plaques that tell about those who lived and died there in the winter of 1846-47. The Donner Party survivors were among the first easterners into California. Three years later, in 1850, California became a state.