Video: 2011-10-20 - Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park with Greg Sheer (71 minutes)

Full Transcript of the Video:

[ Inaudible ] >> Is there anything about the court now? >> It's still on the endangered species list. [ Inaudible ] >> The state is going to make a decision as to which projects to go forward with and view of their reduced budget. But we are still on the list of ones possibly to survive. They're down to two choices. Demolish the old building and rebuild on the site or build a new one just down the road here in Highway 49 and Cement Hill Road. They say that if they build a new one, there's no feasible use for the old one. So they'll board it up and let it fall apart. We'll see. That's about it for now. >> If there's any structure out there, Willow Valley Road, wouldn't that be nice? >> They were waiting in San Francisco Tuesday and Wednesday, so I don't know. >> Well, the -- your court record has officially gone on record now. It's opposing the demolition of the courthouse. So we've also sent correspondence to that hearing, that effect. So we're now officially on record as opposing the -- >> Okay. That's good. >> Thank you. >> Any more comments on the courthouse or you talk about the courthouse? >> Hank. >> Hank, right there. >> No. >> Just one more. >> Any more comments on the courthouse? >> They had their hearings yesterday and today essentially to determine what they're going to do with the reduced budget. And I haven't heard a thing. >> Okay. >> So just a reminder, we have bulletin. Typically we bring all bulletins that are correlated with presentations. We have some old -- or publications back '01 and back '58, North Bloomfield, New Humbug, and also High Grade in Nevada County. So if you want to do some more reading after tonight's presentation about Malika, then value yourself to be all bulletins or just back at the table back there. Saturday night we're having a little shin dig. Where's Annette? Annette, would you like to talk about it Saturday night? >> I would love to. It's a dance. The first historical society to win a dance. And it'll be at the Horseman's Club from 7 to 11. There's finger food, live music. Finger food, by the way, is veggies and fruit and dip and cookies and jack crackers and cheese. There's hot coffee, hot tea, hot chocolate, and hot cider. And there's also a no-host bar for anybody who'd like beer or wine or something harder. And we anticipate a wonderful time. We have a live band called the Buffalo Gals, two gals and four terrific guys. And I guarantee you'll have one spring time here. $38 a couple, $20 a person. You can pay it to the room. And the police cadets, the high school police cadets, will be manning the parking lot. So we got everybody involved. >> And you do have some wires. >> And I do have eight. [laughter] We should get it out 400 years. Part of the historical society. So you should have gotten it there and if not, we're going to get bright yellow. Anybody? Going once? Going twice? Where's the Horseman's place? It's on Brunswick Avenue. It's a program. And if you go out from the grocery and the general shopping centers, you're head is if you're going to go to Colfax. And a block and a half beyond the developed area is you can see a corral. Of course, at that time it might be dark, but talking is definitely a block. So good luck. [laughter] Anybody else? I tell them the dance is not in the corral. They have a building. [laughter] They have a very nice building with a huge dance floor and a capacity for 388 people. And I cut it off at 370 because the band is seven and the staff is four. [laughter] See you there. See you on the dance floor. Thank you. >> Thank you, Deb. The program committee will be meeting soon to talk about next year's program. So if you have any ideas, get in contact with me. We're looking specifically for presentations that would yield a nice field trip. As you know, we've tried to implement the field trip concept where after the presentation we actually go see what they're talking about using the Saturday following. So if you have any ideas, please share those with me. We're going to do our lineup for 2012 here real soon. Cookies tonight were provided by Al Sobee and Priscilla Vanderthaus. Thank you very much. And beverages are by Desmond, as he normally does every month. Thank you very much. And then a raffle tonight. Can we pull up that raffle back there? Just remind us of the raffle tickets held today for the rendering every month. That looks quite nice. It's offered by Cyril Knowles Winery and a couple of board members at-- is the picture included as well? >> Yeah. >> And that's pertinent to the crossing, I think. >> Bird Island or Edwards. >> A madness print. >> The front says that, yeah. >> So that'll be quite a prize. But get your tickets. We'll continue to sell those tickets right at the very end. For some of you who have regular attendees, you might remember in months past we had kind of a dim image. Anybody ever seen that? It was kind of hard to see the image up here. Well, we discovered that my video projector, the camera, the bulb was failing. My wife was here tonight, and I watched it. She said they were recently, and it went out. So we have a brand new bulb, and it should be much brighter than mine. [ Inaudible ] Next month, we have coming up Scott Lanford. And his presentation is going to be entitled "Pahology 101, 10,000 Years of Human History at Lake Tahoe from Ice Age Mummies into Maryland Monroe. " It should be quite interesting. He has published a book on this topic recently. He's also a college professor, Stanford graduate, PhD. What I read up on him, it should be quite entertaining, so don't miss it. Next month. Any more announcements tonight before we get into our presentation? From the audience, going, going, gone? So tonight we have Ranger Greg Shear from Melancholpe State Park. And actually, I invited his wife. [ Laughter ] She's a really dull getting into the field. And I met Christie probably, I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago when I called up there and said, "I asked you, Boy Scouts, to meet a project. You have to meet me. " He said, "You bet. " So I got to know her in coordinating camping and concentration projects we did up there. And I must tell you that I've been going up there, I moved up there in '88. We've been going up there since '88, I think. We used to take our kids up there in the fall. Best time to be out there for sure when the color is changing. About a week from now, I love you, Wilma. I'm super loud. We would go up on Sunday afternoon where there'd be nobody there, and truly I'd go to town and we'd take a bike salon and a dinner or something. Kids are riding down the main street. I guess, probably weren't there in the police. It's a great time to go there. We'd come back and tell our friends, "You guys are going to Malacau?" And I'm always aghast by the local residents that never went to Malacau. Yeah, it's good. And that's proven by the fact that it is, in fact, the lowest attended state park in California. I went wrong, correct me, but it is. You're wrong. I used to it. But it's strongly attended by our local residents, so we really need to know about it. So that's why I've been trying to get Greg and the gym here for some time. And we're fabulous to store park in our backyard and slated to close. So we're going to hear more about that tonight. So, Greg? Well, thank you, Daniel, and thank you everyone for coming tonight. It's a really important time for the park and I think for just I always measure a health of a society by schools, libraries, health care, and parks. That's kind of my measure of the health of how we're doing. How are we doing in our country and so forth. And I went into state parks in 19, when was it? 1901. 1996 it was now. And I came into state parks, and I've stayed into state parks for the same reason. I believe in public open space that folks can come and learn from the past, that they can recreate, that they can refresh, they can rejuvenate their soul, they can come and write if they wish. And I fought along with my wife and folks that are in this room, too, Hank Mills. Every time I need a letter written, Hank is more than willing to write a letter and to folks in Sacramento and so forth. So we're still fighting to keep the park open, and I'll talk about that a little bit after the presentation. The presentation I want to focus on the magical parts of the park and some of the things that if you haven't been up there lately, please go up, especially in the next week, the colors are changing. It's a truly magical place, even in the middle of summer, when it's 90 degrees and it feels like 100 up there, but it's 90, really. It's a magical place, and it's a nationally registered historic site. It's right here, it's your park, and it's worth fighting to keep it open. We're open right now, and I'll give you a little bit of that after the presentation as well. But I'm glad to see everyone here tonight. I was trying to figure out if it was going to be a small crowd or a big crowd, and Christy said, "Greg, it's going to be a huge crowd. " And my daughter grabbed my leg and she goes, "It's going to be big!" And she jumped on my back and I said, "Well, it will be a big crowd because people care. People love this park. They adore this park. " And that's, I have to say that I started loving the park after I saw it. And just real quick, the story about how I got to this park is quite interesting. My wife and I were working as rangers in Santa Cruz, and I was actually doing a planning position at that time. I left being a ranger and was doing environmental planning for parks, for projects. And she came up and she saw the park, and she said, "Greg, we're going back in the field. " And I said, "Thank goodness. Get me out of the desk. " Santa Cruz was a very, very politically charged place, but we loved it. We couldn't afford to live there anyway. And so she came up here and she said, "You're going to love this park. " And I said, "Okay, put in for it. " I never saw it. I came up here. The first time I saw it, I was working. And I love this park. This park has depth. It's got history. It's got mystery. Kids ask me about ghosts and other stories. I'll think a little bit about that tonight. This park has soul. And it has soul because of the people that come up to it, school kids that come up to it, and the history. If I could go back into the 1800s, it probably wouldn't last a week there. But you can imagine how this period in the 1800s, when they were doing hydraulic mining, looked in California. And you'll see a little bit of the photos today. I brought some historic reproductions to the photos. It was raw. And it was a really wild place up at Malacopte-Diggins. Hydraulic mining was new. It was exciting. It was also dangerous. So we'll talk a little bit about that tonight, too. My presentation, I just wanted to open your eyes at what we do at Malacopte-Diggins and see what happens there. Hopefully it gets you up there in the next two weeks. So we can have a nice thanks very much. So Malacopte-Diggins State Historic Park. This is your park. If you look back over 100 years to the hydraulic mining era, and everyone in this room, this is historical society, so we really don't have to go back basics. When we do town tours, when we have the public come up, we say, "When did was the gold rush? When did people come out? When was statehood?" We go back, "I don't have to do that tonight. It's really nice. " But we can set the tone for Malacopte-Diggins. Hydraulic mining started, it was, the hydraulic mining monitor, I call it, was invented in the early 1850s. And in California in the early 1850s, people were still, gold miners, were still finding a lot of classer gold in the streams in the early 1850s. And that petered out 1853, 1854, 1855. But as it started to decrease in its plentifulness, other means were looked at in terms of getting gold out of the soil. At Empire Mine, you had what kind of mining? Hard-Arnold. Hard-Arnold mining, right. So you're looking for gold in a hard-right rock stratum, usually it followed the courts in terms of cooling and so forth. But in Malacopte-Diggins, you've got to get the gold out of these ancient river deposits, these rivers that ran millions of years ago through this area. You've got to get that gold out by using high-pressure water. It's a cheap technique if you control the water. That's the key. You have to be able to own the water rights or have someone who's going to give you a very good price on water when there's a drought. That's a really tough thing in the 1870s especially. So at Malacopte-Diggins, you have hydraulic mining. So what you're doing is you're putting back in solution gold that was deposited in the ancient river beds millions of years prior. Pretty basic, huh? But the town itself thrived. At one point, there was probably a little bit less than 2,000 people living in Malacopte-Diggins. But Malacopte-Diggins encompassed what was Lake City at that time, the thriving town as well. Malacopte-Diggins had just about everything you could imagine including the constant roar of the monitors. I would like to have sound right now in my ultimate presentation for the monitors. But at one time, you can imagine maybe nine monitors running simultaneously 24 hours a day in the Malacopte mine. That's why you've created it at Malacopte with the hydraulic mining over a mile long, hydraulic mining over 600 feet deep. It's a significant scar on the landscape to get gold out. And were they finding big chunks of gold there? What were they finding mainly in Malacopte-Diggins? Yeah, flakes of gold, right? So when you're moving 100,000 cubic yards of soil a day, you're looking for just a little bit of gold in each cubic yard. And when I take people through the Austrian liveries table at Malacopte-Diggins, I have a replica. It's not exactly a cubic yard. I had somebody measure it the other day. It's not exactly. My carpentry skills are not quite what they should be. But it gives you an idea of what a cubic yard of soil looked like. And you're looking at thousands and thousands of cubic yards of soil washed down every day. You had a lot of individuals at Malacopte-Diggins who were interested in this. Ostrom ran the livery stable. He made good money. You can see the livery stable sign up in the middle of what is now North Bloomfield Road coming right by the livery stable. And we do have the livery stable still at Malacopte-Diggins. And we have it open for town tours during our regular season. Again, I'll get you an update on the park at the end here. But you can see by the photo from, this is circa 1875, 1880, you can see the horses in town. Folks are coming out for a photograph. This was big stuff. Can anybody tell me other than Hank? I have to exclude Hank from this. How Malacopte-Diggins, why this important part of the history here, why did Malacopte-Diggins, why was it chosen as the place where a large investment group from San Francisco would put their money and try to extract gold from hydraulic mining? This is kind of the heart of, you know, we look at the largest hydraulic mine in the area, obviously. But why was Malacopte-Diggins, why was that chosen? Can anybody tell me that as we go through the slides? Did they nearby water supply? Well, they were able to secure the water supply, and that was the key. So the company actually invested a million dollars before they extracted the gold to bring the water into Malacopte. So that's very true, and they created what we now call as Bowman, Dredsport Bowman Lake, to bring the water in. And the water traveled a total of, it's a little bit less than 50 miles to get to Malacopte-Diggins. So they thought that out quite well, and that helped them as they went along because they had the water secured. But why did they choose the spot? Malacopte-Diggins, that's a, well, the company sent up geologists into this area, and the geologist said that this spot would yield, perhaps, is an exact sign, the most gold per cubic yard of soil. And that's why they chose Malacopte-Diggins. So it wasn't a random, they didn't throw up a picture of the Sierras and, you know, boom, they'd look at a dart over there and say, "Wow, let's put a million dollars into the water, and let's go from there. " That's not the case at all. It was a well-thought-out plan. And I'm going to divert from the history a little bit now and tell you about a little, some things that we do in the park with the kids and so forth. And a lot of you know that we have a Malacopte-Diggins fishing derby at the park, and we have it at the Blair Lake. We usually have donations. They bring in trout, and kids come in, and kids come from all over. And one of the things that I love about this park is you have this particular activity, and you have, and I'll show you some others with the school group coming in, in this historic town in this setting. And with the fishing derby, hopefully the kids get a chance to learn some things about them, outdoor education and so forth. And get out into the park and have a good time. [laughter] Yeah, we have, that's pretty impressive actually. This year the winning fish was nine pounds, and that was a big fish. I don't think the kid has recovered from that yet. The more have I actually. But the part that I like about it, everyone you see in here, other than myself, is a volunteer. And these folks not only give their time and effort, but they believe in getting people up to the park and having the park enjoyed because it's your park. Everywhere I go and speak about Malachoff Day is in state parks. It's your park. That's the important thing. Humbug Days. Has anybody been to Humbug Days here? The annual celebration. Humbug Days, we celebrate the park. And originally it was homecoming. It was meant to be for former residents, families, and relatives, and friends to come up and relive the gold rush and the times at Malachoff Daygens. And it's grown into a celebration where hopefully people not only learn about the park, but they get to participate in some old-time activities as well. And a lot of the folks you see in this are volunteers. Every week we have the Eclambus Phytus Chapter 10. They come and donate their time and efforts at the park as well. And they're actually becoming more involved as the park situation has become more critical. The Clampers, the Chapter 10, we're working, I'm working with them a lot more than in the past. They have a lot of good ideas in terms of keeping the park open. So there's my wife, Kristie, and she's been at the park obviously as long as I have. She's just for folks who know her. She's taken a year leave of absence from the department, which is, I wish I could do that right now in terms of let things settle out. But she's going, she's taken some medical classes and perhaps maybe going to the medical field as a physician's assistant. Because we've been, one of us eventually will have to probably change because of the nature of parks and so forth. But anyway, back onto the event. We have the shortest parade in the world we call it. Folks that you may recognize and may not recognize. A lot of volunteers from the neighboring areas and participate in Humbug Days as well. We've had square dancing in the past at Humbug Days. The root beer floats are always a big hit in the saloon. A lot of hand crafts. We have people dress up. Once in a while I actually get to dress up for homecoming as well, which is nice. We fire off the water monitor in town and we interpret the buildings in the time period, which is really the educational part of Malacop Diggins. The interpretation of hydraulic gold mining and the time period, especially in the 1870s, 1880s, that's really what we're concentrating on at Malacop Diggins. The mountain man comes. But you can see the crafts and we've also had the buffalo gouts. Someone said the buffalo gouts are going to play. Yeah, they're great. They're fantastic. We've had cloggers, candle making, tin punching, rope making. I think one of the most amazing things about Malacop Diggins are the people who are involved. Christy and I, I don't think I could ever leave the area. If they transfer me I'll probably just do something else. Because I love the people. And I love the park, but I love the people who are involved in it as well. And we start to get to know these folks after enough time spent with them and their passion. Rick Morehouse, the blacksmith that we have at Malacop, he does all the blacksmith programs for our fourth grade programs, which come and we have only, there's only 12 environmental living programs in the state where kids can come in and stay one or two nights, they can stay three if they wanted. Usually the budget doesn't allow that. One or two nights and learn about the gold rush history with hands-on activities. They stay in the park, they live as close as we can get, of course, to gold. I mean they have flush toilets and other things, so it's not authentic that way. But at the same time they get to spend time out away from school and they get to see the mind. And that's the value of someone coming up and seeing the mind and then coming in and seeing the town and then perhaps getting a town tour and learning the history. The value of the place cannot be understated. And I think that, you know, as we're looking at parks and, you know, significance and so forth, Malacop Digges has a tremendous amount going for it. They learn how to gold pan, of course. We have another special event, Labor Day, the ice cream social. And every Labor Day the kids come and play games. Of course I do too. It's my favorite day of the whole year. We serve ice cream and we make ice cream. So the kids do the hand-cranked ice cream as well. And so they learn and say, wow, you know, a lot of kids this year told me, they say, great, this is really hard. I said, well, it's a lot of work to make ice cream, isn't it? You have to turn that handle and you turn it a lot. And you have to, you know, add the ice and the salt and we talk about the process. But the kids aren't used to seeing things. You know, they didn't know what a chamber pot was. They didn't know what an ice box was. They didn't know that, you know, milk in other neighborhoods, milk was delivered to other neighborhoods. They didn't know a stagecoach actually came by, brought mail and other items. In our general store we have the stagecoach stop. Of course, the general store we have the mail. Actually, the post office was in the general store. And that's all at Malecoff. And so the kids are fascinated by this. You know, they go into the general store and they look at the general store and they see the different items hanging from the walls. They see the sliding ladders and they see the names like Hercules and other names above. And they think, wow, this is a lot different than the way we live today, where people are very much engrossed in electronic media. And one of my goals at Malecoff is to get kids out of that into some other things. And I don't have much problem with that because cell phones don't work out there. And you would be amazed. I, you know, talk to visitors every day out there. And you'd be amazed at how that throws people for a loop. Where can I drive? You use my cell phone. I'd say, well, you know, you can drive out of the park and you can drive out of the spot and I direct people up. And it's amazing how much time someone will spend up in that little spot with their cell phone. And I said, well, you know, do you think you could just, you know, shut it down for a while? Oh, I can't, you know. But that just tells you how things are changing. And it's worth having a park and things like that in order to show the contrast. I love to show the contrast. Another thing that I talk about at the park, I'm leaving slides up too long. And I'm here so you can say, oh, you can't leave the slide up for more than anyway. But I get excited about this because it's great. And it's an amazing park. Another thing I like to talk about too is the period of hydraulic mining, the step back in some history. When was the Civil War going on in our country? All right. What year was it over? '61. Okay, well, the hydraulic monitor was invented, I'll put quotes around that, in 1852 by Anthony Chaboll. And a lot of French came to this area and settled here, brought different trees, fruits, vegetables. They opened mining operations, the Le Du mine. And they had a profound influence here, as other cultures and people did as well, the Chinese. And so you have this one spot where everybody's coming in. And what are people doing at Malachoff when they're coming in for the, I mean, are they going there to live there for the rest of their lives and bring their families out? No. Most of them aren't, right? Most of them want to extract, take back, and buy a farm, something like that. So Malachoff was an area where everybody came in, kind of called like a feeding frenzy. And who could get out first, so to speak. But it was very typical, the gold rush. But it's also typical. One thing I love about history, think about the Silicon Valley, what happened in Silicon Valley with the computers and so forth. You know, you had all these people coming in, you know, I met people from India that were here for, they were hired as computer techs and computer programmers especially, and they were here for six months when they leave. And they were in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. And so human beings are constantly doing the same thing, no matter if it's in the 1850s, 1900s, 1950s, 1990s, Silicon Valley with the late 1990s and so forth. So I think that there's a lot of value to that, looking back in order to reach forward. Back on the ice cream social. This is one of our usual things. I got permission to use that, I had to use that. That was just a bit. And volunteers. Really a lot of the lifeblood of our park is volunteering. And in fact if you do want to volunteer at Malachoff Diggin, you can contact me, I'll leave my email tonight. You can call me, I'll return a call to whatever you're more comfortable doing. If you want to send me an email or call me off, I'll call you back. I might email you if I get on that, but I will call you back. And volunteers really help this park stay alive. And when the volunteers go home and into their communities, they talk about what happened at Malachoff, then other people come up. They're interested, the story is passed on. And I think that's one of the great gifts of this area, is the really the, not the need for volunteering, but people feel like it actually is helping if they volunteer, which it does. It's furthering the story and it's helping save a park really. In our environmental living program site, we rented the whole site with volunteer work and labor. And the site is still a tremendous site. Now if you come up now, the trees are changing colors, and you'll see the different buildings, historic buildings in town. You'll see some reproduction miners' cabins that we ran out. The trees pretty soon are going to be like this. We have a lot of red maples in town, though. These are not historic. People come up and say, "Wow, they were thinking so far ahead. " They planted the maples and said, "No, no, no, no. " You know, the locust trees and some of the other trees we can look at as being historic. But the, in fact, we have one of the largest English walnut trees. It's not the largest. Have you heard of a larger one, Hank, than the one behind the Marshall House? No, I don't know. Yeah, in fact, we just had that prune this year. Randy Frisell came up in the arborist here for years. He did the pruning on it. And that tree is one of the original walnuts brought into California. And it's at Malacoff. It's right up the main town. It's right behind what we call the Marshall House. It's labeled Marshall House. And so, anyway, the color is going to be changing pretty soon. But when you look at the colors, know that those are not, those trees were not planted in the gold rush era. Now, we have apples and pears there that we can, you know, perhaps, stretching a little bit too. But apples and pears, we have some quite old ones there, probably 100-year-old, a couple apples that are 100 years old. And the area that we live in, obviously, it's quite secluded at Malacoff-Diggins. So, one of the things that the state, and I'll talk about the state, I work for the state, but it's been an interesting process lately as well. And again, Blair Lake and the Diggins. And this photo, I like to use this photo because this photo shows the Diggins in the early 70s. And now, who's been up there recently, in the last couple years? Last couple weeks. Oh, yeah, Hank, I know. And so, you came up there two weeks ago, right? A couple weeks ago? Yeah, the Diggins, there's been quite a bit of infill with trees. Mostly manzanita and some pine and cedar, ponderosa pine and cedar, incense cedar. But it slowly, as the organic matter builds up, when you get some actual topsoil, slowly building up. But it doesn't take away from what's happened at Malacoff-Diggins in terms of, you know, washing away all of the topsoil in that area. And in fact, one of the things that I find very humorous, every year we get a bill from State Water Resources and we get fined $5,000 for allowing the sediment to flow out of the Diggins into Humbug Creek and then down to the South Huber River. It's an unnatural sediment load. So we get fined, so we write them a check and that comes from the general fund. So it's a nice little circle. But we get actually a dollar fine for allowing the sediment to flow out. Now, no one's going to be setting up a facility-accepted Empire Mine to precipitate all of the sediment out. I mean, that's crazy. We're just not going to do it. So every year we're going to continue to be fined for allowing the fine sediments to drain out of the mine. And it's an interesting thing because, of course, you're getting the sediment flow out of the mine. But at the same time, I don't think there's any way to solve that issue without a treatment plan. And that's a whole other--you know, that's not going to happen. So anyway, so it continues to flow out. And in fact, the sedimentation rate into the Diggins, those of you who have walked the Diggins Loop Trail, where we have the post with a yellow top on them in the Diggins Loop Trail. And those posts, we've redone those several times since I've been there. And the sedimentation rate is probably about four feet every ten years inside the Diggins in terms of coming from the walls into the main part of the Diggins. And then that washes out--some of that washes out-- down the Hiller Tunnel as well as the North Bloomfield Drain Tunnel. That's another question I get quite a bit. How do I get to the North Bloomfield Drain Tunnel? Well, I'm not going to tell anybody how to get to it. It's blocked off. You've ever seen the exit to that up in-- have you seen the exit by Humbug Creek? Yeah, the exit--you can see the exit, but the-- actually the inflow where it starts, I've never seen it. Have you seen it, Hank? No, it's filled up, I think. Yeah. The sedimentation-- The sedimentation number one. And so that's a 7,800 foot plus drain tunnel. It's a magnificent feat of engineering to actually complete that. But what you can see on that drain tunnel, if you take a hike down the Humbug Trail, which is a lovely hike, especially this time of year, with the trees and a lot of maples are changing, it's just gorgeous. And if you take the hike down, you can see these areas where they're fenced off. And, I mean, I don't think we'd have to fence them off, but we did. It's all liability, I guess. But they're large areas where they're filled with water, and they look like a circular area right off the trail. I think you can see five of the shafts. They dug the tunnel in shafts, and then they connected the shafts. They would dig towards--and the shafts are full of water, so you can see and get a sense of you're walking near where the large, straight tunnel was draining the water and debris out of Malachoff Tiggens. Therein lies the problem with hydraulic climbing, doesn't it? The debris goes somewhere. That--and I'm sure everyone here knows the story, just to reiterate it, in 1884, Judge Alonzo Sawyer finally said, after looking at all the evidence, said we cannot allow hydraulic mining to drain the water and debris down into the valley. It's just causing too much destruction with the farmers. And so hydraulic mining was not outlawed, but in order to make money with hydraulic mining, what do you need to do? You need to move a lot of soil, right? To do that, you have to use a lot of water. You're going to create a lot of debris. So if you wanted to catch your debris in your tailings, you could continue hydraulic mining, but that pretty much ended the era of large hydraulic mining in California. Now, they still hydraulic mined at Malachoff up until the 1900s, early 1900s, in fact, they were so sophisticated that it would telephone ahead and say, "The mining inspector's coming out. Stop the water. " And the inspector would come out and say, "It's all wet out here. You guys have obviously been mining. " "Nup, there's a cloud came over and it rained. " "We got a big thunderstorm. " "A big thunderstorm came into Diggins. " So they had a long-distance telephone line, and if you haven't heard the story from French Corral as well. So Malachoff-Diggins, you know, electricity in the mine, you're operating at 24 hours a day. In total, and you're looking at gold price in 18, say, '73, I think the average gold price for the year 1873 was $20. 83 or something an ounce. So, and that stayed kind of steady until the 1920s, and that price you can say $20-something an ounce, $18 million. They took out $3. 5 million roughly of gold out of Malachoff-Diggins. And that's a lot of gold when you're looking at dust, fine dust, but it's also a lot of debris. So think about the cost of getting that gold out of Malachoff-Diggins, and then I tried to trace it one time, and Hank, you might be able to help me with this too. Most of the gold from Malachoff-Diggins ended up, didn't it end up in Fort Knox? Oh, I don't know. It ended up in the basement. I think it ended up, I don't think it ended up actually circulating and doing some good for a majority of people. I think it ended up involved, and that's quite interesting. So I got close to the answer on that, but you can't really, that's a tough thing to find, to figure out. So they also use mercury at Malachoff-Diggins. They would use it obviously as quicksilver, and they amalgam, they would retort the amalgam to separate the gold from the mercury. Most of the mercury came from the new omelet in mine in San Jose. And so they did have some, what we would call some, you know, material that was, is, we don't want the mercury running around in the environment and changing forms, the methyl mercury and so forth. But that was really, we didn't have the same chemical process that they used at Empire Mine. And so it's a different type of mining, but you did have mercury. And they still find obviously mercury now, and then hot spots, they call them, in the South Weber River and other places. But a lot of that mercury is probably from the Malachoff mine, especially the drain tunnels. And in fact, one month in the drain tunnels, they would clean the drain tunnel, especially the North Bloomfield Tunnel, once a month, and they found over 500 pounds of gold in that tunnel from one month. And I think that was in 1882. Wow. So that's a lot of gold that was escaping out of the sluice boxes, down and draining out of the diggens that was in solution. And so by 1882, they were really, they worked quite a few feet, obviously, down from the top of the, they had gotten into the real, good gravel for yielding gold. And so they recovered quite a bit through the tunnels, was cleaning the tunnels, and I love that term, they used to clean the tunnels. And in fact, there's one photo that I brought up here, and I think I have it where there's a gentleman standing in the mine, and when we turn the lights on, we can see it again. He's standing in the mine, and I hope I brought it. He has an umbrella over his head. And he's, and I always wondered about that guy, and I started poking around and looking. He was called the bank man, and he had the voice of God. So when the walls were going to cave in, or something was going to happen to the folks that were doing the mining, inside the mine, he would earn his money at that point, and say, you know, there's a cave in or landslide, move out of the way, and he's the one with the umbrella. I always wondered about that, and I was like, was that the superintendent of the mine or something? But no, it was the bank man, the voice of God. So I'm just touching on some of the, you know, the real, this is a general overview of Malachoff with our time frame tonight, and so forth. If you want to hit the lights, I'll, I want to talk about the present state of the park, and what we're looking at. I want to take questions, because everyone here should know about, and I'll give you what I know about the park. So I'm not bashful about saying it. Hank knows that. These are your parks, so you need to know. So where are we with state parks right now at Malachoff Diggins? Well, Malachoff Diggins, the cabins that we rent, we rent three cabins, they're closed right now. They're not available for renting. That's a change. They've always been available for renting the whole year, even in the snow and so forth. The campground closed early this year. Usually we keep the campground open until November. Thereabouts, and we close it for three months, and then we reopen it. So the campground is closed as well. Now, the museum, the biggest change is the museum is not open Saturday and Sunday right now. Usually it's open 12 to 4 on Saturday and Sunday. It's not. Now, I don't know when that will change or if it will change, but I know one thing, though. They're going to cut the generators off at Malachoff probably next month. So when they shut the generators off, now, I'm looking at this from a glass half full. So when they cut the generators off, we stop using the diesel to power very few buildings and residences at Malachoff. We have a maintenance worker myself at Malachoff, and we have the alarm system there. All the buildings are alarmed, and we have some of the heating and ventilation for the artifacts. So we're going to cut the generators off. That means individual generators on the ranger residence, which is propane generator, the maintenance residence, and the private residences that are on the outside of the park that were grandfathered in with power and water, that's done. They're cut off. So they put their own generator in and their own solar system in already. They've been pretty proactive about that. So I don't think this is bad. I don't think this is a really bad thing. So we're going to have a quiet town now. We don't have to worry about the wind and the generators. The trick now is to keep the park from being boarded up. I don't think it's going to be boarded up. I really don't. And I'm going to be right up front with you. I don't think we're going to have a full shutdown of Malachoff. What I want is I want the park to be open in some respect with this horrible economy and budget cuts that we've taken, and I want the school programs to go. So once I have the okay for the school program, because I'm already full, Malachoff, I mean, I've got every single one of my environmental living program dates taken. Everything. I mean, the demand is there. I mean, the teachers want this. They love the program up there. The kids obviously want it, and the parents want it. And that drives that little avenue. So I'm full with my programs. The Day You School programs are another program that we offer, and those fill up as the year goes on. And I emailed the superintendent again today, and I'm trying to get an answer of when I can tell those school groups, "Yes, you're coming in. " And then I can order my supplies, and I can run the park pretty much the same as in past years. And it'll be quiet. So there's, I mean, yes, we have some, you know, potential bad news, but at the same time, I think that people, because they've written so much, they've caused such an uproar of this particular park closing, you know, no one wants to, I don't think if you close this park, you can ever reopen it. I really don't. I think it has to stay open to stay open. I really do. And I think that given the current situation, I think we can keep it open. But the one thing that we probably have to do, it's probably one step further. So people ask, "Why was Malakoff single-depth?" Well, we have low visitation. Look where we are. We get snow. We get some bad weather in the year. But we're far out. I mean, we're not like Empire of Mine, where you can swing off the freeway, take East End Empire Street, and go see Empire of Mine. We just, we're not set up that way. You've got to want to get to Malakoff. You really do. And at $4. 00 and something cents a gallon for gas, you know. So that's one thing that's been going against us, is the fact that we're so far out. But we also have something that's going for us, the fact that we have school programs every year and a high demand for the school programs. We have a national registered historic site. And that is gold. No pun intended. It has so much weight. It really does. And that is something that is difficult to attain. And it's also something that we have to keep preserved and improving and continue to work on. That's a big thing that Malakoff's diggens have to go forward to. So we're cutting the cost to operate the park. I think we can increase the visitation perhaps. But what can we really do to take ourselves off the list so we don't have to worry about this every year? It's driving me crazy. It really is. It's just absolutely, you know, I'm spinning a circle. So once I found out why the state put Malakoff on the list, okay, low visitation, we don't bring a lot of money, you know. I never thought I was a businessman. I really didn't. And so, and then the third thing is our operating cost because of the diesel generators is real high. So what we can do is we can take that operating cost out. We're going to do that. We're going to have the propane generators. And I want to put solar in with the propane generators. So for example, the bathroom that's in the main part of town, when you walk in, there's lights on, as you would expect, and the pathways lighted at night. Well, when we shut the main generator off, I'm not going to be able to do that. So what we're going to have probably is we're going to have solar lights in front. We're going to have solar panels in the backside so it's not visible from the historic town. And then when you walk in, the switch, it's an easy switch out for the switch. The switch will know someone's in there and will activate the lights. That's what we're going to do at Malakoff. We're going to cut the cost to such a negligible amount that we won't show up on the list. And that's the one thing I think we can really attack this year. Because State Parks is going to take an $11 million cut July 1st. We haven't taken the cut yet. This is what's really fun about this. And then the next year we take a $22 million cut July 1st. And that's a large part of our operating budget. So if I can say there's zero cost to run the park, basically, then I think we can keep it open. The plans are our superintendent wants a caretaker there, someone there, and wants a school program. He doesn't, you know, these folks are not wanting the park to shut down. And, you know, they're really not. But at the same time, with those kind of cuts with a small department, it's been very challenging. My point is this. So we're trying to cut the cost to zero, basically, to run the park, just some propane here and there. But we need to keep the pressure on. There's two legislatures that are Assemblyman and Mr. Logan. I left a letter up here in front, actually, addressed with talking points. Thanks. And could you read the Mr. Logan, Mr. DeMalfa? Could you read the talking points really quick here? If you don't mind. Number one, Malecoff is the only park in the world that captures the excitement and controversy of the hydraulic mining method and the resulting environmental and social impacts. And let me just pause on that one for a minute. So this park that you have in your county is the only park that preserves the story of hydraulic mining. It's fantastic. Now, there's a lot of hard rock mines. But this is the hydraulic mining park. And for those of you who have been to other parks in the country, I've been to Banach State Park in Montana. It's close. This park is-- I've been to some parks in Nevada where you drive through and there's a picture of how the building used to be. And there's a little caption underneath it and it's blowing off in the wind. Malecoff is special. There's a lot of buildings that need work. We know that. But what we have here is worth saving. It really is. Not for my job or anything else. It's worth saving because it is one of a kind. And it's the best preserved that I have seen. And maybe there's another one somewhere like South Africa that I haven't seen. But this is the best that I have seen in terms of the era and the interpretive period. Go ahead. North Bluefield is a National Register. Talked about that. Great. Malecoff hosts one of only 12 of the nine educational experiences about California called "Rush History" for fourth graders in the state. Right. Hydraulic mining led to the invention of the world's first born with its telephone system. The first licensed woman pharmacist is the one who served for training in North Bluefield. Right. And so it has quite a bit of history that's worth transferring to our children and for those children to eventually transfer to their children. Because the story is magical and we need to keep this park open. So I have given the information, the letter that we pre-drafted and I've given that to thousands of people this year. And in the last five years, I don't know how many letters, probably 30,000 letters maybe. If you can hand write one of those points, hand write it and send it to one of the two folks that I've mentioned. That makes a huge impact. Every week I write a letter to Jerry Brown. Every week. And I send him three different pictures of this park. And I remind him that he had property off of Purdon Road. Shortly after he purchased his property there, it was paid. That was ironic. I mean, that was a coincidence. But I point out that he had a vested interest in this area as well. And that he probably knows about this park. So every week I write him a letter. And if you write a letter, it's worth quite a bit. Because we're human. And in fact, I just heard something the other day. I was complaining to my mom about our current federal situation. And I was complaining and I said, "Son of a--" And then I heard on the radio, I heard, "President Obama gets 20,000 letters a day. " And whether you're--I don't care what you're for or whatever. But he gets 20,000 letters a day and he has a staff that sorts through them. And they give him 10 letters each day. And there's a book called "10 Letters That's Coming Out. " And he reads those 10 letters when he goes home. And he writes responses to two every night. I like that. I really like that. I was looking for something really good. And I like that a lot because it's human. Everybody can relate to a handwritten letter. It takes time, takes effort, takes postage. And it usually is something that means something to someone. And that's what it's all about. And so a lot of the folks that have written to the president, who have got a response, whether things have changed or not, I don't know. But in particular, some have suffered from leukemia and other things. And we'll respond. If you call me, I'll call you back. I know that. I won't write you a handwritten letter, I don't think. But I will call you back. But please write a handwritten letter if you can. It makes a big difference because we're human. All of us are underneath, maybe getting through all the politics or whatever of someone their beliefs. But we're all human. And I do believe that we've made a difference. And the reason why I'm up here able to speak to you about Malacoff being open still, because you can come in, you can register for the day, and you can hike the trails. We're still open. Not in the same way, but we're still open. And the reason, I believe, is because of the letters that folks like you have written. And I've gone down, I've met with Assemblyman as well, and the state senators. And I've done what I can too. So I think it's made a big difference because it's your park. And it's a magical, magical place. Long after I'm gone, people don't think I'm going to leave, but I am. Eventually, Malacoff, the story needs to remain, as well as for other state parks, as their treasures. So I look forward to hearing from you. Do you have any questions? I mean, I've been up here rambling on for almost an hour. And yes, yeah. I have two questions. One is, is there a way to donate money to help save this particular park? Yeah, the answer is yes. And I'll tell you about it. Okay. And the other question is, have you had any problems with bambles? Yeah. And they'll have like a little. . . And they said, they're really good questions. So yes, you can donate to help save the park. There's two ways really to do it. There's a young man named Alden Olmstead, who has his jars out everywhere. I like that a lot. I've met with him. I like him. He's got a lot going, and he's in it for the right reasons. That's one way you can donate. You can go on his website, as well. It's John Olmstead. I think it's under John Olmstead. We can donate under the web. And the jars are out at Briar Patch. We have them in our parks out there, but they're down there, as well. He's going to present a check to the governor and say, "These are the parks that this check will cover. Take them off your list. " I love that. Dollar in, dollar out. I think it's beautiful. And just, I think it's. . . He's such an interesting man. I just, I really enjoy meeting him. And the other way you can do it is we have a park association, a Malecoff-Diggins Park Association. And you can donate through the park association, because they support, obviously, the park interpretive. So you can do one of two ways. That's my. . . So that's the answer to that. And the second question, give it to me again? Vandalism. Vandalism has been very low at Malecoff-Diggins. And people who live around the park, I think they value the park. And so I don't have any. . . I've never seen anything spray painted on a building since I've been there. Also, I think, Christy and I have a really good rapport with the. . . With the people that live in this community. It has probably something to do with it too, but the people have very much respected it. Once in a while, I'll find a lock that's been cut, someone's gone in an area. But I haven't had really anything. . . Other than maybe one time I had the LeDumine monitor, somebody chain, put a chain on it, and they pulled the concrete out. But they didn't drag it away or take it. We just flipped it back over. So there's been a couple, but very little. And that's 11 years. So it's a testament really to the community. The community just doesn't happen. So I'm really, really proud of that. Yeah. Good question. Anybody else with any questions for me while you've got me? Because you've got to remember I'm covering Malecoff, South Huber River. And we don't know what's happening there either. That'll be a real fun one. And then Empire Mine. So I'm away from the park a lot now, which is not as good as it could be. Yes, Priscilla. I was going to say a lot of the people maybe don't know that there's a lot of hiking trails around. And will those be still open? Yeah. In fact, they're all open now. People call me almost every day. And it's embarrassing to even have to answer questions like that. But I have maps. These are free maps and I have some historic brochure type information for you as well. And all the trails on here are open. So there's nothing that's closed. Just please come and pay for your car. Everybody here is a senior. Seven dollars for the day. So just use the envelopes in front of the museum. Or if you see me, I'll take care of you too. Yeah. Are dogs still excluded from most of the trails? No, they're not actually. The Humbug Trail, which a lot of people like, the one that goes down to actually the South Eber River, near Humbug Creek, that trail is open to dogs now on a leash. And the two trails from the campground, the slaughterhouse trail and the town trail, or the town site trail, those are also open to dogs on a leash. Because we were finding that people were camping in the campground, they couldn't walk down the trail to their dogs. It's ridiculous. I got that changed too. The only place you can't take dogs at Malacoff, legally, the Diggins Loop Trail, I hear I see you laughing at me, Diggins Loop Trail and the Blair Lake. Blair Trail. Those are the two. Where's the lake? The lake is right just outside the town site, as you head up the hill, up North Loop Trail. How large is the area of my house? Oh, it's over a mile long and at one time it was well over 600 feet deep. About how many? So we're looking at a little piece of Utah, small. It's quite impressive if you want to look at it that way. Was it a natural lake or was it due to the hydraulic? Due to the hydraulic mine, yeah. In the lake you're talking about, there's an area where water accumulates every year. There's a lot of reeds growing in there now and two leaves and so forth. But there's another lake farther up the Blair Lake where we have the fish and derby and that type of thing. That's farther up out of, it's a little bit of waste from the mine. So it's about a mile and a quarter from that. It's a good question. Yes? I noticed you guys have an interesting headstone in your cemetery. Oh yeah, that you were even. . . Okay, the cemetery. Well, that's a good question. The cemetery is run by the Nevada County Cemetery District. And the headstones in the cemetery, a lot of those names will match up with obviously Malakoff-Tiggins history. Skidmore. Skidmore Saloon, the Skidmore family. Skidmore House, which is still standing built in 1862. Le Doux, the Le Doux family. Quite a few Le Dues are buried there. In fact, Ed Le Doux comes to the park every year. In fact, he just came to the park recently. He's in his late 80s and he wanted to know if he could have the school bell back. He owns it. He's loaned it to the park. And this is what's happening though. Since the park's going to close, people want their stuff back because they gave it to the park and trusted the park with keeping it and showing to people and interpreting the history. That's what I'm dealing with. So they're saying, "Okay, I want my bell back. " I'm like, "Okay. " You know, if we close it, if they're going to ship things out of here, I'll make sure you get your bell back. Well then, Marty Callenberger, who's the grandson of the barber in town, Callenberger Barber Shop, who has donated all the original straight razors, the towels with his grandfather's initials on the towels, the barber chair. He has donated a tremendous amount of items, original items, to the park. Books that he used in the schoolhouse. He went to school there that he has his name on as well as the other children have their names on, Skidmore and so forth. And he said, "Great. " He said, "When should I come up?" He's 91. "When should I come up and get my stuff?" He said, "Well, you don't need to yet, Marty, but I'll let you know. " You know, because he put it on loan with the park. Some people gift it to the park. Some people loan it to the park. It depends on how they want to do it. Well, he wants to get his stuff too. I said, "You know, I don't blame anyone for calling and wanting to do this. " But at the same time, we're not to that point yet. We don't want to get to that point where we're taking the items out and then we don't need to because that's quite a bit of-- I think that would be the greatest nightmare actually is deaccessioning all the items from Malacoff. It would be very depressing. So I don't want to do that. But at the same time, the cemetery, it's run by the Nevada County Cemetery District. I patrol there every day. So I keep an eye on it. It's got a fence around it. But the fence is not locked. You can open the gate. It's open to the public. The thing we ask people not to do, other than stealing headstones, which doesn't happen very often up there at least, is I ask them not to do that. The kids like to do the tracing. Yeah, and we've had-- I remember about nine years ago, I had a kid that was doing a tracing on a pretty large column. And the column didn't make it. And it was probably weathered at the bottom anyway. But he pushed it over and it-- So, no tracing. The cemetery, yes. And the cemetery is active? It is active. So if you want to buy a plot for you or your loved one, you can do it in the cemetery. Christy asked me, she said, "Craig, do you want to buy a plot for a cemetery?" I said, "No. " I said, "43. I don't want anything to do with that. I don't want to be buried where I worked. " I don't want that to happen. But you can still buy a plot. There are a lot of the folks that come up to the cemetery that live in the area. They have plots already preselected. And so when there is a funeral up there, it's quite interesting because obviously the family is just like any other funeral, but they lower the casket into the ground and they cover it. And then a little bit later, they'll finish with the headstone and so forth, if that's what the family wants. So what you see at first is not the final product, but it's beautiful up there. And the cemetery, if you haven't been to it, it's got ponderosa pines growing in it. I think it's a really beautiful spot. It's right next to the schoolhouse. So if you grab a map right next to the schoolhouse is the cemetery. And in fact, I asked my father before he passed away, I said, "Do you want to be buried in a cemetery like this?" He never talked to me about that. He still didn't talk to me about it. So we made the decision. So that's a real personal thing, obviously. But yeah, Christy asked me and I said, "I'm not ready to take that on yet. " Yeah, the cemetery is all over the area as well. If you go towards Graniteville, there's a cemetery. There's Graniteville and Relief Hill. Up at Relief Hill, there's a cemetery. So there's quite a few around, but I don't think they're in a lot of more of a condition than this one. This one's pretty well maintained for one that's far out. I don't know what would happen if we abandoned it. But I know if we left, if there was not a ranger there or a caretaker, then I see the people coming in to yank me out. But I see Daniel standing closer. But if there wasn't a ranger there or a caretaker, I think that the park would probably suffer a little more than it does now. Yep. They're not, but they won't commit. I can't get a written commitment to be caretakers. And that's one of the reasons why my wife went for the year of the leave of absence. I can't get it in writing. I'm living day to day and loving it. And that's what I know. And hopefully that will change. Because I would like there to be a caretaker there at all times. Yeah. Alright, Daniel. I told you I could talk all night long. [applause] We're going to stick around after work while we have freshmen. So I'm sure I'll post more questions for you all. I want to tell you, I was going to be in a camping night with scouts up there. And one of our objectives in scouting is to get our youth good memories. I can assure you that I toured through that cemetery on a movement night. Some ghost stories. They put out some memories. Especially when you walk over to the schoolhouse, after a week through the window, there's mannequin sitting in the benches there. Daniel, I drive by some nights and I'm tired. It still gets me. I still stop on like, just, I. . . I just got to sleep that night. Once the raffles have one story I have to tell. Okay, we'll do that. It's too good. Let's do the raffles first. We have an original mannequin's print here. And a hundred houses. Houses in Sierra Nol's winery. Okay, here we are. Ready? Yeah, the winner is 377-955. 377-955. Very good. [applause] There you go. [laughter] Oh, yeah. One more. Yeah, so I think that everyone asks me, we've been there so long, what is the strangest thing I've seen in Malapau, Vegas? Are you going to get this on tape? I am. [laughter] I'll change the story a little bit. [laughter] I'll send this back to Sacramento saying, "Get him out of there!" I've been there too long. But one particular evening, the maintenance work, we used to have a maintenance mechanic that lived in the Goss House. Charlie Goss was the last resident living, actually the park was there in 1965. He lived there until he passed away in 1972. Charlie Goss was living in what we call the Goss House. Beautiful house right off the North Bloomfield Road, just below the main part of the town. And our maintenance mechanic, that is where the maintenance mechanic lives. There's a person who does the water system and the generators. We have to treat the water, it's well water, but we have to treat it because it's served to the public, etc. , etc. So we have a maintenance mechanic who knows how to do those things, fix all the equipment. He was living in that house, and one morning, or late at night, I should say, I was driving through, and I saw him running from the house. And that was very strange behavior, so I stopped and I said, "Hey, hey," and I won't mention his name, I'm going to say, "Hey, John. John, John, what's going on?" And he just kept on running and he ran all the way through town. And I followed him and I eventually caught up to him. And he told me the story, and I'll never forget it, he was in the kitchen in the Goss House. And when you go into the Goss House, it's an interesting experience, but he's in the kitchen, and he would set a bowl on top of the stove. There's an old wood stove in there. He would set a bowl on top of the stove and he would go in the other room, and then the bowl would be in another spot. And he would put spoons and forks in it, and he would go in another room. And he was mentally very sound, up until this point. And it would be in a different place. The forks and the spoons, when he came back in the room, would be in a different place as well. And he had a dog in his yard, everyone up there has a dog, and he had a carabiner on his collar. And so the carabiner was a screw carabiner. And every day he came home, the dog was loose from its collar, from the screw carabiner. And it just can't happen. I mean, the collar can come off the dog, but the dog can't unscrew the carabiner. So I said, "Well, I'll take care of that. " So I drilled a hole through it, and I put a cotter pan through it. And I sanded off the sides. I couldn't keep it on the dog. Those two things, the bowl and the forks and the spoons, happened all, after that happened all the time to him. He never saw it move. But every time he left, it was in a different spot when he came back. That is, I think, such a great, because he's a very sharp guy. And so I never saw that, but I don't doubt it either. So some strange things, people say they see some strange things up there. And I saw the Northern Lights. The first night I was up at Malacop-Diggins, the first night I was up there, the first full night, you could see the Northern Lights come above. And we were just, I guess it was one in every 50, 60-year occurrence at this low. But I saw the Northern Lights, so I knew it was a pretty fun place at that point, too. But thank you all for coming today. And thank you for being, you know, by being here supportive of the history and the parks here, it's crucial. And I really appreciate your showing interest. So thank you very much. It was an honor. [ Applause ]