Volume 023-6 - December 1969 (3 pages)

ther ditch from Rock Creek to Coyote Hill, a distance of nine miles, Charles Marsh, a surveyor, joined them shortly afterwards, and with his energy and initiative, completed the ditch by December at a cost of $10,000. Water rates charged to miners along its course covered the financial output within six weeks. Two rival companies began constructing ditches to convey Deer Creek water to Nevada City in November, 1850. After completing them, the owners became embroiled in a suite over priority rights, and finally consolidated in the fall of 1851 as the Deer Creek and Coyote Water Company. Ground sluicing came into general use on the Coyote range in1852 after Anthony Chabot introduced some forty feet of canvas hose to sluice off the dirt from his claim on Buckeye Hill, Numerous ditches were constructed to supply the needed pressure for this method of mining, among them one from Deer Creek to Gold Flat, fifteen miles in length, by George Kidd and Dr. William Knox. With the introduction of hydraulic mining in 1853, Dan Rich and others built a ditch from Rock Creek to Sugar Loaf, a little above the Whartenby canal. They also began the Snow Mountain ditch at the Nevada City end to supply the extensive hydaulic mines on the slopes below Sugar Loaf, using water in the streams and springs as they were reached. The ditch was intended to extend to Deer Creek but finally terminated at Cold Spring Canyon, ‘Water rights were held in the order of the construction of ditches, and limited to their capacities. Sometimes even in wet weather there was not sufficient water to supply all of them, and friction resulted, water meaning money! Despite occasional fights, no one was killed, and eventually the companies consolidated into the Rock, Creek, Deer 2. OFFICE OF THE SOUTH YUBA CANAL COMPANY Corner of Main & Coyote Sts., Nevada City, California Creek, South Yuba Canal Company in 1854, The name was shorten to the SouthYuba Canal Company and incorporated as such in 1870. The decision to undertake the greatest engineering feat of that time, the building of the South Yuba canal was made during the winter of 1854, The water was to be brought from high mountain lakes or reservoirs to the South Yuba River and into Deer Creek. The following item from the Nevada Journal tells of its beginnings: October 5, 1855: ‘Over one hundred hands have been constantly employed since the first of April last. Sixteen tons of powder have been consumed and nearly a million feet of lumber sawed for thé conPART OF THE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH YUBA CANAL COMPANY struction of the canal, and we have strong and reliable assurance that the work will be completed before the commencement of another dry season,”’ From the river gorge below, what is now Lake Spaulding, the company blasted through a bluff of solid granite, for over a mile, The cliffs in some places were eighty or more feet in height. Seven miles of the canal ran through flumes resting upon rock shelves fifteen feet in width. At one point, for a mile and a half, workmen were suspended on rope slings to drill holes into the canyon wall for blasting. The company cut a tunnel through Steep Hollow ridge, 204 feet beneath the summit, a distance of 3100 feet. West of Bear Valley, a tunnel, one and a half miles long, carried the water of the South Yuba River to Deer Creek. 3. Tri-Weekly Herald (Nevada City) July 9, 1958: ‘‘The South Yuba ditch is heading in. It will carry water to the miners and is a great project. First a shaft was sunk and survey made, then a tunnel drven in opposite directions from the shaft, about thirty-two hundred feet. They have made a steam engine to pump the water from the shaft and the work has been going on for almost two years. Quite a good natured rivalry exists between the crew and last Saturday night they broke through and joined in two sections, so all came to down for a jamboree. Entertainment was not lacking, The ladies were giving a grand ball at the National Exchange Hotel, where Mr. Pearson had prepared a fine supper,’’ The engineering accomplishments were tremendous. Flumes Spanned deep canyons on trestles a hundred or more feet high. Where gulches could not be bridged, a siphoning process was, used and water flowing through pipe downone side of a canyon was pushed up the steep incline of the other. The first storage reservoirs were three small lakes on Devil’s Peak in the snow-covered mountains. By a series of ditches, they drained into another reservoir, 7300 feet in elevation, at Meadow Lake. These constructions began in 1858, being the first made in the high lake country by the South Yuba Canal Company. The dam at Meadow Lake consisted of a granite wall fifty feet high and fifteen feet thick, without mortar of any kind to hold it together. Extending 300 yards across a ravine, it formed an artificial lake two miles long and threefourths of a mile wide. Water was discharged from it through a small gate into g canal leading to a fork of the SouthYuba River. After the advent of hydraulic mining in 1853, it was Dan Rich who conceived the idea of bringing water

ther ditch from Rock Creek to Coyote Hill, a distance of nine miles, Charles Marsh, a surveyor, joined them shortly afterwards, and with his energy and initiative, completed the ditch by December at a cost of $10,000. Water rates charged to miners along its course covered the financial output within six weeks. Two rival companies began constructing ditches to convey Deer Creek water to Nevada City in November, 1850. After completing them, the owners became embroiled in a suite over priority rights, and finally consolidated in the fall of 1851 as the Deer Creek and Coyote Water Company. Ground sluicing came into general use on the Coyote range in1852 after Anthony Chabot introduced some forty feet of canvas hose to sluice off the dirt from his claim on Buckeye Hill, Numerous ditches were constructed to supply the needed pressure for this method of mining, among them one from Deer Creek to Gold Flat, fifteen miles in length, by George Kidd and Dr. William Knox. With the introduction of hydraulic mining in 1853, Dan Rich and others built a ditch from Rock Creek to Sugar Loaf, a little above the Whartenby canal. They also began the Snow Mountain ditch at the Nevada City end to supply the extensive hydaulic mines on the slopes below Sugar Loaf, using water in the streams and springs as they were reached. The ditch was intended to extend to Deer Creek but finally terminated at Cold Spring Canyon, ‘Water rights were held in the order of the construction of ditches, and limited to their capacities. Sometimes even in wet weather there was not sufficient water to supply all of them, and friction resulted, water meaning money! Despite occasional fights, no one was killed, and eventually the companies consolidated into the Rock, Creek, Deer 2. OFFICE OF THE SOUTH YUBA CANAL COMPANY Corner of Main & Coyote Sts., Nevada City, California Creek, South Yuba Canal Company in 1854, The name was shorten to the SouthYuba Canal Company and incorporated as such in 1870. The decision to undertake the greatest engineering feat of that time, the building of the South Yuba canal was made during the winter of 1854, The water was to be brought from high mountain lakes or reservoirs to the South Yuba River and into Deer Creek. The following item from the Nevada Journal tells of its beginnings: October 5, 1855: ‘Over one hundred hands have been constantly employed since the first of April last. Sixteen tons of powder have been consumed and nearly a million feet of lumber sawed for thé conPART OF THE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH YUBA CANAL COMPANY

struction of the canal, and we have strong and reliable assurance that the work will be completed before the commencement of another dry season,”’ From the river gorge below, what is now Lake Spaulding, the company blasted through a bluff of solid granite, for over a mile, The cliffs in some places were eighty or more feet in height. Seven miles of the canal ran through flumes resting upon rock shelves fifteen feet in width. At one point, for a mile and a half, workmen were suspended on rope slings to drill holes into the canyon wall for blasting. The company cut a tunnel through Steep Hollow ridge, 204 feet beneath the summit, a distance of 3100 feet. West of Bear Valley, a tunnel, one and a half miles long, carried the water of the South Yuba River to Deer Creek. 3. Tri-Weekly Herald (Nevada City) July 9, 1958: ‘‘The South Yuba ditch is heading in. It will carry water to the miners and is a great project. First a shaft was sunk and survey made, then a tunnel drven in opposite directions from the shaft, about thirty-two hundred feet. They have made a steam engine to pump the water from the shaft and the work has been going on for almost two years. Quite a good natured rivalry exists between the crew and last Saturday night they broke through and joined in two sections, so all came to down for a jamboree. Entertainment was not lacking, The ladies were giving a grand ball at the National Exchange Hotel, where Mr. Pearson had prepared a fine supper,’’ The engineering accomplishments were tremendous. Flumes Spanned deep canyons on trestles a hundred or more feet high. Where gulches could not be bridged, a siphoning process was, used and water flowing through pipe downone side of a canyon was pushed up the steep incline of the other. The first storage reservoirs were three small lakes on Devil’s Peak in the snow-covered mountains. By a series of ditches, they drained into another reservoir, 7300 feet in elevation, at Meadow Lake. These constructions began in 1858, being the first made in the high lake country by the South Yuba Canal Company. The dam at Meadow Lake consisted of a granite wall fifty feet high and fifteen feet thick, without mortar of any kind to hold it together. Extending 300 yards across a ravine, it formed an artificial lake two miles long and threefourths of a mile wide. Water was discharged from it through a small gate into g canal leading to a fork of the SouthYuba River. After the advent of hydraulic mining in 1853, it was Dan Rich who conceived the idea of bringing water