“Good Luck Snowshoe Thompson!” was the cry as John A. Thompson left Hangtown (or Placerville as it was officially known) that cold winter day in 1856 on homemade snowshoes (skis as we call them today). True to the American West, no person of notoriety lasted very long without having a nickname bestowed upon them. So it was upon this day, the man who would save the Town of Genoa 75 miles away in Utah Territory, was so christened.