KYBURZ, CA

Kyburz (formerly, Slippery Ford and Slipperyford) is a small unincorporated community in El Dorado County, California. It is located along the South Fork of the American River and U.S. Route 50, and is surrounded by the Eldorado National Forest. Its elevation is 4058 feet (1237 m) above sea level.

Settlement began a mile west at Webster’s Sugar Loaf House as a remount station for the pony express on April 3, 1860. The route ran through where US 50 locally is today.

The Slippery Ford post office opened in 1861. The name was changed to Slipperyford in 1896, and to Kyburz in 1911, by its Postmaster Albert Kyburz, in memory of his father Samuel Kyburz, who was an early California pioneer with John Sutter. The locale was along the Lincoln Highway Sierra Nevada Southern Route by 1916.

Ski racer Spider Sabich grew up in Kyburz, where his father, Vladimir, Sr., was stationed with the California Highway Patrol. Spider and his younger brother Steve raced at the Edelweiss ski area, which closed in the 1960s, and is now known as Camp Sacramento.

Demographics

As of the 2000 Census the population was 167, although the road sign on Highway 50 stated 139 as of 2008. This included 86 males and 81 females, 65 males age 18 and older, 66 females age 18 and older, 11 males age 65 or older, and 16 females age 65 or older.

The median age was 45.5, and people age 18 and older numbered 131, age 21 and over 128, and age 65 and over 27.