Phillips is a small unincorporated community

Unincorporated area

In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...

 in El Dorado County

El Dorado County, California

El Dorado County is a county located in the historic Gold Country in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and foothills of the U.S. state of California. The 2010 population was 181,058. The El Dorado county seat is in Placerville....

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. It is located on the South Fork of the American River

American River

The American River is a California watercourse noted as the site of Sutter's Mill, northwest of Placerville, California, where gold was found in 1848, leading to the California Gold Rush...

 2.5 miles (4 km) west of Echo Summit

Echo Summit

Echo Summit is a mountain pass located in eastern El Dorado County, California, USA. At an elevation of , it is the highest point on U.S...

, at an elevation of 6873 feet (2095 m). It is the site of the Sierra-at-Tahoe

Sierra-at-Tahoe

Sierra-at-Tahoe is a ski and snowboard resort in Twin Bridges, California south of Lake Tahoe. Sierra-at-Tahoe is approximately 16 miles south of Stateline, Nevada and 12 miles south of South Lake Tahoe on Highway 50 and is contained within the Eldorado National Forest...

 ski resort. The ZIP code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

 is 95720. The community is inside area code 530

Area code 530

North American area code 530 is a California telephone area code that covers Auburn, Chico, Colfax, Davis, Grass Valley, Marysville, Oroville, Placerville, Redding, Red Bluff, Susanville, Truckee, Woodland, Yuba City and South Lake Tahoe....

.

Joseph Wells Davis Phillips began cattle ranching here in 1859, and opened a hotel in 1863. The Vade post office operated at Phillips from 1912 to 1961.