Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Newsletters

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Title: Volume 041-2 - April 2022 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Newsletters # of Pages: 10 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2023-12-30 11:47:48 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:35 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:35

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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Bringing High Pressure Water to the North Star Powerhouse by Frank Hamlin, Docent, North Star Mining Museum efore the North Star Powerhouse was built the North Star Mine used Pelton wheels located near the collar of the original shaft near Old Auburn Road. The Empire Mine got its water from a pipe going to a reservoir up by the airport that was destroyed when the runway was extended. After using the water it was gathered into a reservoir below the Empire club house, fed into another pipe then sent down to the North Star Mine to power their Pelton Wheels. From the North Star the water was again gathered in a reservoir off Old Auburn Rd, putinanother pipe and = \ sent down to the Allison = =#r"™" No we Ranch Mine to power their Pelton Wheels. A. D. Foote opened up the new Central Shaft, built a new stamp mill off Allison Ranch Rd, built the North Star Powerhouse and built a new water line that connected to the high pressure piping at the Empire Mine. These pipes and reservoirs provided the Empire Mine with 195 psi water, the original North Star mine with 115 psi, and the North Star Power House with 335 psi. I knew about the pipe to the original North Star Mine and have walked most of it with a GPS. It is fairly easy to follow just below the Empire reservoir. It then disappears around the WYOD mine and reappears just past the Hardrock trail and runs almost all the way to Highway 49. It next surfaces again at the aqueduct over Wolf Creek near the end of Wolf Creek Trail and again disappears going onto the North Star property. I have also followed the pipe from the airport reservoir to the Empire, but much of it is on private property or buried. What I had never been able to locate was the new 1895 pipe A. D. Foot ran from the Empire’s high pressure lines to the North Star Power House. I knew it ran under Empire Street and the valve connecting it was near Empire ZA >. WHERE THE WATER CAME FROM “. TO aoe THE Last B ie WHEELS Street and the Empire Mine parking lot. I borrowed a metal detector to find the new pipe and also find the missing sections of the old pipe. It turns out the metal detector helped in some areas but was not able to detect the pipe very deep and only part of what I knew was correct. The metal detector did fill in some of the missing pieces of the old pipe and to my surprise it found _ two parallel pipes about 10 feet apart, for .3 miles along the pipeline trail going from the airport to the Empire. I’m not sure why there are 2 pipes but I would guess that section of pipe was replaced and a new pipe was put into place with'— out disconnecting the old L. pipe. It was then quickly "replaced by connecting only the ends. Today, the two parallel pipes are not connected at the upper end and both run under highway 174 where I could no longer follow them. When I shared the information gathered about the old pipe, Gary Smith handed me what I had not been able to find. Gary had surveyors maps from 1959 showing the water line from the Empire to the Powerhouse. I transferred Gary’s information onto my maps and it turns out the connection to the Empire’s piping was made at a valve just below the Empire’s stamp mills not by the street. That 24 inch valve is still there in the = mine yard and now we know Fe ipe Gone past BRUNSWICK MINE & what it did. The above map shows the location of the pipe down from the airport, the pipe to the original North Star Shaft and the pipe to the power house. If anyone is interested in seeing what is still here I can provide GPX data that can be loaded into a GPS. © Nevada County Historical Society Page 4 2nd Quarter, April 2022