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Collection: Directories and Documents > Historical Clippings
Historical Clippings Book (HC-12) (520 pages)
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Page: of 520
ALBERT G, CHEW
@hoto courtesy of Lyle L. White)
CUS bla .
You Bet history begins on
Squirrel Hill in the year 1852
By Lyle White-local historial interested in Nevada County's
history and especially in You Bet and the Red Dog area.
The history of You Bet begins on Squirrel Hill, located
about a mile South of the present site of You Bet. Discovery
of rich surface diggings on Squirrel Hill brought a gold rush
to the place in 1852, which resulted in the first surveyed townsite in Nevada County. (Grass Valley and Nevada City were
not surveyed until 1868-9.)
Four of Nevada County's most prominent first citizens
laid out the town as a real estate promotion--L J. Rolfe and
F, H, Rolfe, publishers of Nevada County's first newspaper, the
"Nevada Journal" (1851), and Warren B, Ewer, later one of the
first editors of Grass Valley's first paper, the "Grass Valley
Telegraph" (1853), and Charles Marsh, the principal developer
of Nevada City's Water Works, and also the South Yuba Canal
Company, (which later became the Nevada Irrigation District).
Marsh, a surveyor at the time, surveyed the townsite in
streets and lots, and the group did a brisk business in selling
lots, They named the new town "Guadalupe," after the chief
of the Wemah (Weimar) Indians, whose ancient village site was
appropriated by the survey. The name was soon corrupted to
‘Walupe,"' and late to ''Walloupa."
Many lots were sold, and about 40 buildings were soon erected
plus many cabins and tents, housing a population between 300400. But the rich surface deposits were soon exhausted, and the
deeper gravels under Squirrel Hill proved to be not so rich as
, Browns Hill, about a mile north east on the opposite rim of
Birdseye Canyon,
So, one by one, the buildings of Walloupa were moved over
to a flat on the north rim of Birdseye Canyon, and a business
district became centered around the early day saloon of one
Lazerus Beard, more commonly known as "Old You Bet"
Beard, after his favorite expression. :
Beard was the son of the man whose name was given to the
of ,of Beardstown, Kentucky, By the middle 1860s, You Bet was.
a thriving village, and Walloupa had become a thing of the past,
The gravel under Browns Hill proved to be very rich but
very deep, and therefore was worked mostly by “aritts™ (nels on bedrock where the richest gold concentrations lay)
rather than byhydraulic mining, which was still a small process in the 60s--they were still using canvas and leather
hoses, with nozzles about the size of today's fire hoses,
The "giant"* monitors, fed by 15 to 20 inch iron pipes, were
not in general use until in the 1870s. Consequently, although a
few companies were "whittling away" with water, at the weer
levels of the vast Browns Hill deposit, there were Many moze
companies burrowing around underneath on bedrock, running
"grits," and “stoping out" vast "rooms" where fhe gold was
concentrated in certain areas,
Ease . .