May 12, 1971 (8 pages)

ae i CS nema und Kinyon was never ascertained, But. rife was the belief that he must have had an obliging friend to offer concealment, Substance attached to such theory by reason of the circumstance that for several years fresh flowers appeared in intervals on Ohman's pauper grave in Old City Cemetery. SOAP FORTUNE BUILDS A POWER HOUSE Each of the half-score of power houses of the present, ‘whether standing, resplendent of shining paint by the side of a highway or immured in canyons so deep and inaccessible as to be seen but seldom by other than the men who service them, has its story well worth the telling, They depict hand-tohand combats with Nature in her more rugged moods, of building diversion dams, penstocks and generating plants where every fact proclaimed that the job could not be done, of hanging miles of flumes against almost perpendicular walls, of installing high-power transmission lines for the marketing of the product, To recount such tales in detail would be.a pleasure were such venture feasible under the limitations of space, Slightly aside, but still typical, is the Colgate power plant on the North Yuba river, the dividing line between Nevada and Y uba counties, It was there that John Martin and Eugene de Sabla. and their big-moneyed associate, Romulus R, Colgate, linking both higher education and soap, set their stakes in 1896, The tide of power development drifted to the Middle and North Yuba in the earlier part of the 1896 decade when Romulus R, Colgate, who might now be referred to as a tycoon of industry, came to this region equipped with a generous checkbook, Despite his high rating, his name Romulus was too cumbersome for the westerners, so they promptly shortened it to Rome, and the magnate accepted the change with relief and pleasure, The paternal grandfather of Rome had alike established the name Colgate relative to the daily ablutions of mulittudes of people and the imposing Colgate fortune of the early part of the eighteenth century, Out of the latter emerged Colgate College, a nationally-known educational institution situated at Hamilton, New York, Romulus, the younger, came west with his inherited resources to build in California a career on his own account, E, W, Hopkins, .an associate of Marti and de Sabla, was not adverse to retiring, Colgate purchased the Hopkins interest, and thus was formed the Big Three which was to dominate the electrical power scene for two. decades, Super-promoter Martin, whose association with the Brown's Valley Irrigation District is mentioned in the preceding chapter, had worked out . plans for a large power development. high on the Middle Fork of the Yuba, Came a day when he broached the subject to Colgate, An old sketch records this conver sation: by aN Colgate: "How much will it cost to start?" Martin: "Three hundred thousand dollars." Colgate: "How much will you put in, John?” .Martin: "I'll put in one quarter of it, R Martin: "I'll put in one quarter of it, Rome." . Colgate (without hesitation): "All right; I'll put in the other three quarters," The inception ofa huge power project involving millions of capital was in 1896 as easy as that. But, of course, the project had to be implemented by the forming of a company. So the Yuba Electric Power Company was incorporated. No time. was wasted, By September, 1897, preliminary construction work was underway. What was known as the Little Yuba Power Plant already existed on the Yuba, but the Big Three desired to wring more of waterfall from the roistering stream than was potential there. So they went a few miles upstream to the old Missouri Bar foot-trail from North San Juan to the Dobbins country. Ame iil! — oo = ae Co a es yet Historical Scrap Book — "This," they said in unison, "is the place!" There the Middle Yuba offers the spectacle of a ribbon of water flowing between precipitous walls a mile high, Old timers shook their heads and the faces of the engineers bore a dubious look, It was pointed outthat it would be impossible to build a road into the canyon at that point, to say nothing of constructing a power house at water level, But the men who could so easily do a juggler’s act with potential millions were not easily discouraged, The order was that the power house be built at the Missouri Bar trail, But the doubters were half right, To this day no wheeled vehicle has been driven to the Colgate power house. The builders laid down a massive tramway to do the transportation service of 2 road, From Camptonville came the irrepressible Bill Bull Meek to set up sawmills, Other sub-contractors hurried © materials to the rim, The tramway which affords a thoroughfare to the present service colony carried the construction materials to the power house site,Eight miles upstream from the power house on the North Fork, .a low but massive diversion dam was constructed, The giant flume which was threaded along the rocky walls of the canyon had a fall of twelve feet nine inches to the mile as compared with the average fall of the river itself of one hun‘dred feet to the mile. By the time the flume water arrived opposite. the power house it was designed to take a single, perpendicular plunge of slightly over seven hundred feet, That was the powerful penstock desired by the Big Three, Time, it appears, was a crowding element in the building of the Colgate works of fifty years ago. Sacramento and other cities were clamoring for light and power. All phases of the construction were advanced simultaneously, But for secure foundationthe builders had to dig down fifty feet into the bed of the stream. As the structure arose the essential machinery units were sliding down that long tramway. Incredibly, the construction was completed in five months and eleven days, (At a later period it was to be rebuilt and enlarged.) Soon electrical current was flowing from Colgate to the State Capitol, In a matter of months the transmission line was to reach San Francisco, Then it was that old Bill Slingsby, storekeeper at Dobbins, came up with a name, Colgate, And that little understood desig-nation abides as of the present, Hydroelectric developments, as pioneere.: in this region, underwent many changes with the passing years, One by one the independent companies merged and the works of their building functioned as units of the domain of the Pacific Gas and Electric company, The Big Three, Colgate, Martin and de Sabla, faced by advancing age, gradually retired from an industrial picture seldom equaled in California, Romulus R, Colgate died in 1926, It was then that friends and associates disclosed that he had long regarded the hiddenaway Colgate Power Plant as his monument, THE END ——_— Rights reserved by the _Nevada County Publishing Company —_ — hit ite tines j Joy ‘ ott. ie

ae i CS nema und Kinyon was never ascertained, But. rife was the belief that he must have had an obliging friend to offer concealment, Substance attached to such theory by reason of the circumstance that for several years fresh flowers appeared in intervals on Ohman's pauper grave in Old City Cemetery. SOAP FORTUNE BUILDS A POWER HOUSE Each of the half-score of power houses of the present, ‘whether standing, resplendent of shining paint by the side of a highway or immured in canyons so deep and inaccessible as to be seen but seldom by other than the men who service them, has its story well worth the telling, They depict hand-tohand combats with Nature in her more rugged moods, of building diversion dams, penstocks and generating plants where every fact proclaimed that the job could not be done, of hanging miles of flumes against almost perpendicular walls, of installing high-power transmission lines for the marketing of the product, To recount such tales in detail would be.a pleasure were such venture feasible under the limitations of space, Slightly aside, but still typical, is the Colgate power plant on the North Yuba river, the dividing line between Nevada and Y uba counties, It was there that John Martin and Eugene de Sabla. and their big-moneyed associate, Romulus R, Colgate, linking both higher education and soap, set their stakes in 1896, The tide of power development drifted to the Middle and North Yuba in the earlier part of the 1896 decade when Romulus R, Colgate, who might now be referred to as a tycoon of industry, came to this region equipped with a generous checkbook, Despite his high rating, his name Romulus was too cumbersome for the westerners, so they promptly shortened it to Rome, and the magnate accepted the change with relief and pleasure, The paternal grandfather of Rome had alike established the name Colgate relative to the daily ablutions of mulittudes of people and the imposing Colgate fortune of the early part of the eighteenth century, Out of the latter emerged Colgate College, a nationally-known educational institution situated at Hamilton, New York, Romulus, the younger, came west with his inherited resources to build in California a career on his own account, E, W, Hopkins, .an associate of Marti and de Sabla, was not adverse to retiring, Colgate purchased the Hopkins interest, and thus was formed the Big Three which was to dominate the electrical power scene for two. decades, Super-promoter Martin, whose association with the Brown's Valley Irrigation District is mentioned in the preceding chapter, had worked out . plans for a large power development. high on the Middle Fork of the Yuba, Came a day when he broached the subject to Colgate, An old sketch records this conver sation: by aN Colgate: "How much will it cost to start?" Martin: "Three hundred thousand dollars." Colgate: "How much will you put in, John?” .Martin: "I'll put in one quarter of it, R Martin: "I'll put in one quarter of it, Rome." . Colgate (without hesitation): "All right; I'll put in the other three quarters," The inception ofa huge power project involving millions of capital was in 1896 as easy as that. But, of course, the project had to be implemented by the forming of a company. So the Yuba Electric Power Company was incorporated. No time. was wasted, By September, 1897, preliminary construction work was underway. What was known as the Little Yuba Power Plant already existed on the Yuba, but the Big Three desired to wring more of waterfall from the roistering stream than was potential there. So they went a few miles upstream to the old Missouri Bar foot-trail from North San Juan to the Dobbins country. Ame iil! — oo = ae Co a

es yet Historical Scrap Book — "This," they said in unison, "is the place!" There the Middle Yuba offers the spectacle of a ribbon of water flowing between precipitous walls a mile high, Old timers shook their heads and the faces of the engineers bore a dubious look, It was pointed outthat it would be impossible to build a road into the canyon at that point, to say nothing of constructing a power house at water level, But the men who could so easily do a juggler’s act with potential millions were not easily discouraged, The order was that the power house be built at the Missouri Bar trail, But the doubters were half right, To this day no wheeled vehicle has been driven to the Colgate power house. The builders laid down a massive tramway to do the transportation service of 2 road, From Camptonville came the irrepressible Bill Bull Meek to set up sawmills, Other sub-contractors hurried © materials to the rim, The tramway which affords a thoroughfare to the present service colony carried the construction materials to the power house site,Eight miles upstream from the power house on the North Fork, .a low but massive diversion dam was constructed, The giant flume which was threaded along the rocky walls of the canyon had a fall of twelve feet nine inches to the mile as compared with the average fall of the river itself of one hun‘dred feet to the mile. By the time the flume water arrived opposite. the power house it was designed to take a single, perpendicular plunge of slightly over seven hundred feet, That was the powerful penstock desired by the Big Three, Time, it appears, was a crowding element in the building of the Colgate works of fifty years ago. Sacramento and other cities were clamoring for light and power. All phases of the construction were advanced simultaneously, But for secure foundationthe builders had to dig down fifty feet into the bed of the stream. As the structure arose the essential machinery units were sliding down that long tramway. Incredibly, the construction was completed in five months and eleven days, (At a later period it was to be rebuilt and enlarged.) Soon electrical current was flowing from Colgate to the State Capitol, In a matter of months the transmission line was to reach San Francisco, Then it was that old Bill Slingsby, storekeeper at Dobbins, came up with a name, Colgate, And that little understood desig-nation abides as of the present, Hydroelectric developments, as pioneere.: in this region, underwent many changes with the passing years, One by one the independent companies merged and the works of their building functioned as units of the domain of the Pacific Gas and Electric company, The Big Three, Colgate, Martin and de Sabla, faced by advancing age, gradually retired from an industrial picture seldom equaled in California, Romulus R, Colgate died in 1926, It was then that friends and associates disclosed that he had long regarded the hiddenaway Colgate Power Plant as his monument, THE END ——_— Rights reserved by the _Nevada County Publishing Company —_ — hit ite tines j Joy ‘ ott. ie