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Volume 055-3 - July 2001 (8 pages)
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Page: of 8
NCHS Bulletin July 2001
A view of the Lower Cascade near Gracie Road. Note the
flat at the far middle right —it is part of the berm for the
reservoir, which supplied the pipeline to the Charonnat
Mine. (Photo by author.)
agent and the other stations: V-Flume Company lumber
yard at Town Talk, the Cascade Ditch Station and the VFlume Company sawmill. The Cascade conversation went
like this:
He tells us to “ring three bells,” the call for Cascade
Ditch Station, 12 miles from where we stand. As
before, but an instant elapses before the signal is answered. The interrogations are resumed.
“Is A. A. Shields, the water agent, on deck?”
“Yes, here I am,’ that gentleman instantly replies.
“How much water are Sargent and Jacobs, over at
Quaker Hill, using now?”
“About six hundred inches, that is their average at
present.”
Five times the crank was next turned, and H. A.
Noyes, water agent up at Big Tunnel, 22 miles away
replied and was asked, “Running much water?”
“Considerable. There is about 4100 inches in the
main ditch. 2500 of that goes to Chalk Bluff, 1000 runs
into Deer Creek for the Cascade and Snow Mountain
ditches, and 600 more goes over to Blue Tent.”
[After all the stations had been called, the Cascade
agent called the main office and asked] if someone at
the town office would not favor him with a song.
Messrs. Earl and Ed Brown sang a sweet selection
from Norma, in their usual happy manner. The far removed listener said it sounded splendidly, and he was
asked to warble something in return, which he did. The
song he rendered was “Our Little Ones at Home,” and
the clear notes of his pleasant, good natured voice fell
upon the ears of the delighted auditors.
The telephone system was connected to Fordyce Reservoir,
70 miles away, within a few weeks. The more famous
“Ridge telephone line” was started in September and
completed in December of that same year.
4
The first phase of the Cascade’s life was devoted to capturing gold from the ancient gravel of the ancestral Yuba. At
Scotts Flat 12 million yards of gravel were mined. At
Quaker Hill (including the largest mine holding in the area,
the Sargent and Jacobs mine) an estimated 35 million yards
were removed, with an estimated 140 million yards left as
of 1900. Drift mining also took place, especially on the
Greenhorn side, to get at the rich “blue lead” at the bottom
of the deposit.
This phase of the Cascade’s life was ended by the
Sawyer Decision of 1884, which stopped large-scale hydraulic mining. Most ditches were then simply abandoned.
Some, however, were able to find a new life—and the Cascade had already found one.
The Hard-Rock Mining Era
The invention of the Pelton water wheel set the stage for a
revolutionary change in the quartz mining business in
Nevada County. Quartz mining required drilling down deep
into the hard-rock to find the gold-bearing ore. The Grass
Valley/Nevada City districts became the most productive in
the whole state. There were problems and challenges with
this type of mining, however, because of the need to drill,
hoist, crush, compress and other forms of “doing work.”
This work was mostly handled by steam power, which
was bulky, expensive and relied on large quantities of wood
to burn. For example, the Empire Mine consumed an average of 20 cords per day. This usage was multiplied several
times over by the many mines in the area. The landscape
soon became almost barren because of the harvest of trees
to serve the needs of the mines. Operation costs went up,
and “lost leads” and general financial conditions compounded the problems of the mine owners.
Lester Pelton invented his wheel at Camptonville, Yuba
County, in 1878. His invention, based on the “splitter” concept, was patented in 1880. He moved his operation to
A section of the 22-inch pipeline to the Empire Mine is still
visible along the “Pipeline Trail’? on Union Hill. (Photo by
author.)