Colfax, California
city in Placer County, California
Colfax is a city in Placer County, California, at the crossroads of Interstate 80 and State Route 174. The population was 1,995 at the 2020 census. The town is named in honor of U.S. Vice President Schuyler Colfax (1869–73), a bronze statue of whom stands at Railroad Street and Grass Valley Street. (This is one of two known statues of Schuyler Colfax in the United States, the other located in Indianapolis, Indiana.)
Some of the town's notable features include the newly restored Southern Pacific Railroad colonnade-style depot (which houses the Colfax Museum and Chamber of Commerce) built in 1905, the downtown shops on Main Street, and Colfax High School, which serves a large surrounding area.
History
The area was initially denoted as "Camp 20" along the route of the transcontinental railroad. in July 1865, the Pacific Railroad Company (later to become the Union Pacific Railroad), purchased land along the railroad route near Illinoistown, and surveyed it into lots, and lots were offered for sale on July 29.
The city was renamed Colfax after then Speaker of the House (and later Vice President) Schuyler Colfax who visited the town in 1865 while inspecting progress of construction of the Central Pacific Railroad, the western portion of the first transcontinental railroad. The city was the southern terminus of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Railroad from 1876 until the railroad's removal in 1942. Historic U.S. Route 40 also runs through the city as well as the more modern Interstate 80. The city is mentioned in Jules Verne’s book Around the World in Eighty Days.
The public source identifies “Colfax, California” as city in Placer County, California. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Colfax, California and city.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Colfax, California”, the useful work is to connect “city in Placer County, California” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2190495. VIAF identifies the subject as 153612264. The Library of Congress control number is n81025861. Authority coordinates are 39.097, -120.954. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1869, 1905 and 1865.
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This entry incorporates text from “Colfax, California” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.