Smithflat, California
unincorporated community in California

Smithflat (formerly, Smith's Flat, Smiths Flat, and Smith Flat) is an unincorporated community in El Dorado County, California, United States. It lies 4 km (2.5 mi) east of Placerville and 7.2 km (4.5 mi) west of Camino at an elevation of 2224 feet (678 m).
The Smith's Flat post office opened in 1876 and was renamed to Smithflat in 1895. The name honors Jeb Smith, a rancher who settled here early.
Smithflat was one of the 93 wagon train stops along the Johnson Pass route across the Sierra Nevada. The Smith Flat House, built in the 1850s, is the last of these stations still in existence. It is now a restaurant.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Smithflat, California” as unincorporated community in California. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as unincorporated community in California. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14683998. Authority coordinates are 38.735, -120.755. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1876 and 1895.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Smithflat, 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.