It will sometimes happen that an eye-witness account of events in 1867 sheds precious light upon the history of Dutch Flat and the Tahoe Sierra. I speak of a time when the railroad had not yet passed the summit of the Sierra, Andrew Johnson was President, and a whole new world was rising from the ashes of the Civil War.
Ah, history. How exciting the good old days, how dull our modern sphere.
*******
CHAPTER I
It was toward the close of a bright October day. The last rays of the
setting sun were reflected from one of those sylvan lakes peculiar to the
Sierras of California. On the right the curling smoke of an Indian village
rose between the columns of the lofty pines, while to the left the log
cottage of Judge Tompkins, embowered in buckeyes, completed the enchanting
picture.
Although the exterior of the cottage was humble and unpretentious, and in
keeping with the wildness of the landscape, its interior gave evidence of
the cultivation and refinement of its inmates. An aquarium, containing
goldfishes, stood on a marble centre-table at one end of the apartment,
while a magnificent grand piano occupied the other. The door was covered
with a yielding tapestry carpet, and the walls were adorned with paintings
from the pencils of Van Dyke, Rubens, Tintoretto, Michael Angelo, and the
productions of the more modem Turner, Kensett, Church, and Bierstadt.
Although Judge Tompkins had chosen the frontiers of civilization as his
home, it was impossible for him to entirely forego the habits and tastes of
his former life. He was seated in a luxurious armchair, writing at a
mahogany escritoire, while his daughter, a lovely young girl of seventeen
summers, plied her crotchet-needle on an ottoman beside him. A bright fire
of pine logs flickered and flamed on the ample hearth.
Genevra Octavia Tompkins was Judge Tompkins's only child. Her mother had
long since died on the Plains. Reared in affluence, no pains had been spared
with the daughter's education. She was a graduate of one of the principal
seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly
beautiful, she was dressed in a white moirŽ antique robe trimmed with tulle.
That simple rosebud, with which most heroines exclusively decorate their
hair, was all she wore in her raven locks.
The Judge was the first to break the silence.
"Genevra, the logs which compose yonder fire seem to have been incautiously
chosen. The sibilation produced by the sap, which exudes copiously
therefrom, is not conducive to composition."
"True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant
crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned ligneous
fragments."
The Judge looked admiringly at the intellectual features of the graceful
girl, and half forgot the slight annoyances of the green wood in the musical
accents of his daughter. He was smoothing her hair tenderly, when the shadow
of a tall figure, which suddenly darkened the doorway, caused him to look
up.
CHAPTER II
It needed but a glance at the new-comer to detect at once the form and
features of the haughty aborigine, -- the untaught and untrammeled son of
the forest. Over one shoulder a blanket, negligently but gracefully thrown,
disclosed a bare and powerful breast, decorated with a quantity of
three-cent postage-stamps which he had despoiled from an Overland Mail stage
a few weeks previous. A cast-off beaver of Judge Tompkins's, adorned by a
simple feather, covered his erect head, from beneath which his straight
locks descended. His right hand hung lightly by his side, while his left was
engaged in holding on a pair of pantaloons, which the lawless grace and
freedom of his lower limbs evidently could not brook.
"Why," said the Indian, in a low sweet tone, -- "why does the Pale Face
still follow the track of the Red Man? Why does he pursue him, even as O-kee-chow,
the wild cat, chases Ka-ka, the skunk? Why are the feet of Sorrel-top,
the white chief, among the acorns of Muck-a-Muck, the mountain forest? Why,"
he repeated, quietly but firmly abstracting a silver spoon from the table,
-- "why do you seek to drive him from the wigwams of his fathers? His
brothers are already gone to the happy hunting-grounds. Will the Pale Face
seek him there?" And, averting his face from the Judge, he hastily slipped a
silver cake-basket beneath his blanket, to conceal his emotion.
"Muck-a-Muck has spoken," said Genevra softly. "Let him now listen. Are the
acorns of the mountain sweeter than the esculent and nutritious bean of the
Pale Face miner? Does my brother prize the edible qualities of the snail
above that of the crisp and oleaginous bacon? Delicious are the grasshoppers
that sport on the hillside, -- are they better than the dried apples of the
Pale Faces? Pleasant is the gurgle of the torrent, Kish-Kish, but is it
better than the cluck-cluck of old Bourbon from the old stone bottle?"
"Ugh!" said the Indian, -- "ugh! good. The White Rabbit is wise. Her words
fall as the snow on Tootoonolo, and the rocky heart of Muck-a-Muck is
hidden. What says my brother the Gray Gopher of Dutch Flat?"
"She has spoken, Muck-a-Muck," said the Judge, gazing fondly on his
daughter. "It is well. Our treaty is concluded. No, thank you, -- you need
not dance the Dance of Snow-shoes, or the Moccasin Dance, the Dance of Green
Corn, or the Treaty Dance. I would be alone. A strange sadness overpowers
me."
"I go," said the Indian. "Tell your great chief in Washington, the Sachem
Andy, that the Red Man is retiring before the footsteps of the adventurous
pioneer. Inform him, if you please, that westward the star of empire takes
its way, that the chiefs of the Pi-Ute nation are for Reconstruction to a
man, and that Klamath will poll a heavy Republican vote in the fall."
And folding his blanket more tightly around him, Muck-a-Muck withdrew.
CHAPTER III
Genevra Tompkins stood at the door of the log-cabin, looking after the
retreating Overland Mail stage which conveyed her father to Virginia City.
"He may never return again," sighed the young girl, as she glanced at the
frightfully rolling vehicle and wildly careering horses, -- "at least, with
unbroken bones. Should he meet with an accident! I mind me now a fearful
legend, familiar to my childhood. Can it be that the drivers on this line
are privately instructed to dispatch all passengers maimed by accident, to
prevent tedious litigation? No, no. But why this weight upon my heart?"
She seated herself at the piano and lightly passed her hand over the keys.
Then, in a clear mezzo-soprano voice, she sang the first verse of one of the
most popular Irish ballads:--
"O Arrah ma dheelish, the distant dudheen
Lies soft in the moonlight, ma bouchal vourneen:
The springing gossoons on the heather are still,
And the caubeens and colleens are heard on the hill."
But as the ravishing notes of her sweet voice died upon the air, her hands
sank listlessly to her side. Music could not chase away the mysterious
shadow from her heart. Again she rose. Putting on a white crape bonnet, and
carefully drawing a pair of lemon-colored gloves over her taper fingers, she
seized her parasol and plunged into the depths of the pine forest.
CHAPTER IV
Genevra had not proceeded many miles before a weariness seized upon her
fragile limbs, and she would fain seat herself upon the trunk of a prostrate
pine, which she previously dusted with her handkerchief. The sun was just
sinking below the horizon, and the scene was one of gorgeous and sylvan
beauty. "How beautiful is nature!" murmured the innocent girl, as, reclining
gracefully against the root of the tree, she gathered up her skirts and tied
a handkerchief around her throat. But a low growl interrupted her
meditation. Starting to her feet, her eyes met a sight which froze her blood
with terror.
The only outlet to the forest was the narrow path, barely wide enough for a
single person, hemmed in by trees and rocks, which she had just traversed.
Down this path, in Indian file, came a monstrous grizzly, closely followed
by a Californian lion, a wild cat, and a buffalo, the rear being brought up
by a wild Spanish bull. The mouths of the three first animals were distended
with frightful significance, the horns of the last were lowered as
ominously. As Genevra was preparing to faint, she heard a low voice behind
her.
"Eternally dog-gone my skin ef this ain't the puttiest chance yet!"
At the same moment, a long, shining barrel dropped lightly from behind her,
and rested over her shoulder.
Genevra shuddered.
"Dern ye -- don't move!"
Genevra became motionless.
The crack of a rifle rang through the woods. Three frightful yells were
heard, and two sullen roars. Five animals bounded into the air and five
lifeless bodies lay upon the plain. The well-aimed bullet had done its work.
Entering the open throat of the grizzly it had traversed his body only to
enter the throat of the California lion, and in like manner the catamount,
until it passed through into the respective foreheads of the bull and the
buffalo, and finally fell flattened from the rocky hillside.
Genevra turned quickly. "My preserver!" she shrieked, and fell into the arms
of Natty Bumpo, the celebrated Pike Ranger of Donner Lake.
CHAPTER V
The moon rose cheerfully above Donner Lake. On its placid bosom a dug-out
canoe glided rapidly, containing Natty Bumpo and Genevra Tompkins.
Both were silent. The same thought possessed each, and perhaps there was
sweet companionship even in the unbroken quiet. Genevra bit the handle of
her parasol, and blushed. Natty Bumpo took a fresh chew of tobacco. At
length Genevra said, as if in half-spoken reverie:--
"The soft shining of the moon and the peaceful ripple of the waves seem to
say to us various things of an instructive and moral tendency."
"You may bet yer pile on that, miss," said her companion gravely. "It's all
the preachin' and psalm-singin' I've heern since I was a boy."
"Noble being!" said Miss Tompkins to herself, glancing at the stately Pike
as he bent over his paddle to conceal his emotion. "Reared in this wild
seclusion, yet he has become penetrated with visible consciousness of a
Great First Cause," Then, collecting herself, she said aloud: "Me-thinks 't
were pleasant to glide ever thus down the stream of life, hand in hand with
the one being whom the soul claims as its affinity. But what am I saying?"
-- and the delicate-minded girl hid her face in her hands.
A long silence ensued, which was at length broken by her companion.
"Ef you mean you're on the marry," he said thoughtfully, "I ain't in no wise
partikler."
"My husband!" faltered the blushing girl; and she fell into his arms.
In ten minutes more the loving couple had landed at Judge Tompkins's.
CHAPTER VI
A year has passed away. Natty Bumpo was returning from Gold Hill, where he
had been to purchase provisions. On his way to Donner Lake rumors of an
Indian uprising met his ears. "Dern their pesky skins, ef they dare to touch
my Jenny," he muttered between his clenched teeth.
It was dark when he reached the borders of the lake. Around a glittering
fire he dimly discerned dusky figures dancing. They were in war paint.
Conspicuous among them was the renowned Muck-a-Muck. But why did the fingers
of Natty Bumpo tighten convulsively around his rifle?
The chief held in his hand long tufts of raven hair. The heart of the
pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In a
moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp "ping" Muck-a-Muck
leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of the remaining
savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of Muck-a-Muck, and dash
rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins, was the work of a moment.
He burst open the door. Why did he stand transfixed with open mouth and
distended eyeballs? Was the sight too horrible to be borne? On the contrary,
before him, in her peerless beauty, stood Genevra Tompkins, leaning on her
father's arm.
"Ye'r not scalped, then!" gasped her lover.
"No. I have no hesitation in saying that I am not; but why this abruptness?"
responded Genevra.
Bumpo could not speak, but frantically produced the silken tresses. Genevra
turned her face aside.
"Why, that's her waterfall!" said the Judge.
Bumpo sank fainting to the door.
The famous Pike chieftain never recovered from the deceit, and refused to
marry Genevra, who died, twenty years afterwards, of a broken heart. Judge
Tompkins lost his fortune in Wild Cat. The stage passes twice a week the
deserted cottage at Donner Lake. Thus was the death of Muck-a-Muck avenged.
*******
Cheers,
Russell Towle
P.S. Oh, wait.
I just found out, the above is one of Bret Harte's Condensed Novels.
Sorry for the confusion,
R.T.
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Visit to Meadow Lake
On Monday Ron Gould and I made a visit to Meadow Lake, the site of a gold-mining boom town of the middle 1860s. This lake stands high on the divide between the South and Middle Yuba at nearly 7000' elevation. A low dam of dressed granite was made late in the 1850s to impound water for hydraulic mining, and the lake trends nearly north and south, draining south to Fordyce Creek, a major tributary of the South Yuba.
Nothing is left of the town, with its many buildings, saloons, hotels, stores and houses. Several wagon roads led to Meadow Lake, one from near what would be known as Cisco. The story of this town makes a fascinating chapter in local history. The gold is found in heavily mineralized areas which to my eye seem unusual, since they do not seem to be dominated by quartz. The gold proved too difficult to refine away from its binding mineral matrix, the boom ended abruptly, dozens of claims and thousands of stock certificates became instantly worthless, a fire swept off most of the buildings, and now, nothing. Just high rocky ridges, and high forested ridges, and sloping dry meadows, and a top-of-the-world feeling, with the granite massif of Old Man Mountain rising to the southwest.
Driving up Highway 80 eastbound, one gains several fine views of this same Old Man Mountain, a sort of grey half-dome-looking-thing. A glimpse near Nyack is followed by more sustained and closer views at Yuba Gap and just beyond. Like Red Mountain, Grouse Ridge, Black Buttes, Snow Mountain, and Black Mountain, Old Man Mountain is a "bedrock high," a topographically high part of the old, ancestral, pre-volcanic Sierra. Now that the glaciers have ripped up and torn away so much of the great plateau of andesitic mudflow and rhyolite ash, these old mountains have been redefined and reexposed. They are found in a rough line parallel to the Sierra crest, about five to ten miles southwest. Some stood too high to ever have been buried by the young volcanics, others were so buried, but only shallowly.
At any rate, Ron and I drove up to Highway 20, dodged a few miles down towards Nevada City, and picked up the Pacific Turnpike, one of the old wagon roads to Virginia City. One branch of this road began in Dutch Flat, another, in Nevada City. It crossed the Sierra at Henness Pass. We drove north across the South Yuba and, passing the side roads to Grouse Ridge etc., paused a minute at Windy Point, above a major tributary of the South Yuba called Canyon Creek. Here a trail drops away into the heavily-glaciated canyon and proceeds down towards the Yuba, near the town of Washington. We scouted around for the trailhead, and saw something which looked probable, tho unsigned and unmarked in any way. This trails runs along the base of the canyon for maybe seven miles before climbing to Windy Point.
Just east we passed Bowman Lake, an old hydraulic mining reservoir revamped by PG&E. This was once a huge meadow. In a few miles we turned south onto a road which climbs past Tollhouse Lake to finally reach Meadow Lake. Here some signs inform one of the town's history. One is a polished rock slab placed by the Clampers, a joking take-off on fraternal organizations like the Masons and Odd Fellows, dating nearly to the Gold Rush.
We had two main objectives: to find and explore a trail leading north from Meadow Lake down into the headwaters basin of the Middle Yuba, near Moscove Meadow; and to visit some petroglyphs just southwest of Meadow Lake.
Ron had seen this trail on several old maps. It is not shown on modern maps. By correlating the old maps to one another and then to the modern topographic map, we felt we had a good sense of its course. We had visions of some fine old path winding through ancient forest with ancient blazes cut into the trunks of the gigantic trees.
At the north end of Meadow Lake the dividing ridge separating the South and Middle Yuba has been torn down by the glaciers into a low pass. It looks much as though ice from the Fordyce basin, to the south, spilled north through the pass into the Middle Yuba. Here a topographic low in the pre-volcanic topography had accumulated especially thick sequences of andesitic mudflows, on the order of 1000' or more. All of the ridges nearby, and the pass itself, were carved from these mudflows or lahars.
As we approached the probably trailhead, in the very axis of the pass, we saw a road leading north into the Middle Yuba. We parked and scouted widely for blazes or any sign whatever of our trail; I went east, Ron west. We found nothing certain, except skid trails, stumps, log decks, roads, and OHV tracks.
Undaunted, we descended a couple hundred feet to a lower level. The nearly flat-lying strata of volcanics often find topographic expression in broad terraces. Again we scouted high and low and every which way. Rich forests of Red Fir, Western White Pine, and occasional Lodgepole Pine were interspersed with sloping dry meadows, with a precious few late-season wildflowers still gleaming with color here and there. I saw some asters and some Mustang Mint in bloom. Troops of birds threaded through the forest. Once again we found nothing of our old trail.
A still lower terrace level seemed to express the presence of a layer of welded rhyolite ash, probably the same "pink welded tuff" one sees exposed at many places in the upper North Fork American.
Eventually, we drove on down the road to Moscove Meadow, explored various side roads, and returned back up to the pass. We were struck by the almost universal extent of timber harvests in the area. Often many large trees remained, to the point one might well expect vestiges of a trail to persist; but the logging had been done with bulldozers swarming everywhere, plowing up the forest floor into grooves and ridges, and despite our best efforts, we never found even one blaze, or one scant inch of the trail itself. By constantly comparing our maps with the topography, we at last concluded that there was a good chance the main road had been cut directly into the line of the old trail. We had to leave it at that.
Returning to Meadow Lake, we parked near the southwest corner and followed an old trail through the woods, past several mining prospect pits, to an exposure of glaciated fine-grained granitoid rock threaded through with a million tiny dikes and veins of lighter rock, perhaps aplite. A small woodland pond nestled nearby, and Hartley Butte reared up darkly to the east. On this expanse of polished and striated rock are the petroglyphs. Here and there patches of a dark, almost black "varnish" had developed somehow on the smooth surfaces, and many of the petroglyphs were cut into these dark areas.
There were a wide variety of designs spread across a broad area. I was struck by the seeming absence of the "bear footprint" motif, and yet in general, the petroglyphs looked distinctly akin to those found elsewhere in the upper Yuba and American basins, a style which has been called "Sierran Abstract." These carvings are thought to date back before the advent of the bow and arrow, to between 1500 and 4500 years ago.
The Meadow Lake site is one of the largest, in terms of number of designs and areal extent. One projecting boss of rock was covered with circles and concentric circles. At other places, strict geometric patterns of triangles or ladder-like objects are found, or closely-spaced sets of curving lines, or star motifs. There is one design which looks as tho it was meant to depict a rattlesnake.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the site, and resting on the sun-warmed rocks, until the sun lowered and the breezes began to bite shrewdly cold. We left via a road leading east and then north, to Webber Lake and a paved road breaking east to Highway 89. We had rejoined the line of the Pacific Turnpike. It had been a very nice day in the local high country. A longish drive took us to Truckee and I-80 which we followed west across the Sierra to our homes.
Nothing is left of the town, with its many buildings, saloons, hotels, stores and houses. Several wagon roads led to Meadow Lake, one from near what would be known as Cisco. The story of this town makes a fascinating chapter in local history. The gold is found in heavily mineralized areas which to my eye seem unusual, since they do not seem to be dominated by quartz. The gold proved too difficult to refine away from its binding mineral matrix, the boom ended abruptly, dozens of claims and thousands of stock certificates became instantly worthless, a fire swept off most of the buildings, and now, nothing. Just high rocky ridges, and high forested ridges, and sloping dry meadows, and a top-of-the-world feeling, with the granite massif of Old Man Mountain rising to the southwest.
Driving up Highway 80 eastbound, one gains several fine views of this same Old Man Mountain, a sort of grey half-dome-looking-thing. A glimpse near Nyack is followed by more sustained and closer views at Yuba Gap and just beyond. Like Red Mountain, Grouse Ridge, Black Buttes, Snow Mountain, and Black Mountain, Old Man Mountain is a "bedrock high," a topographically high part of the old, ancestral, pre-volcanic Sierra. Now that the glaciers have ripped up and torn away so much of the great plateau of andesitic mudflow and rhyolite ash, these old mountains have been redefined and reexposed. They are found in a rough line parallel to the Sierra crest, about five to ten miles southwest. Some stood too high to ever have been buried by the young volcanics, others were so buried, but only shallowly.
At any rate, Ron and I drove up to Highway 20, dodged a few miles down towards Nevada City, and picked up the Pacific Turnpike, one of the old wagon roads to Virginia City. One branch of this road began in Dutch Flat, another, in Nevada City. It crossed the Sierra at Henness Pass. We drove north across the South Yuba and, passing the side roads to Grouse Ridge etc., paused a minute at Windy Point, above a major tributary of the South Yuba called Canyon Creek. Here a trail drops away into the heavily-glaciated canyon and proceeds down towards the Yuba, near the town of Washington. We scouted around for the trailhead, and saw something which looked probable, tho unsigned and unmarked in any way. This trails runs along the base of the canyon for maybe seven miles before climbing to Windy Point.
Just east we passed Bowman Lake, an old hydraulic mining reservoir revamped by PG&E. This was once a huge meadow. In a few miles we turned south onto a road which climbs past Tollhouse Lake to finally reach Meadow Lake. Here some signs inform one of the town's history. One is a polished rock slab placed by the Clampers, a joking take-off on fraternal organizations like the Masons and Odd Fellows, dating nearly to the Gold Rush.
We had two main objectives: to find and explore a trail leading north from Meadow Lake down into the headwaters basin of the Middle Yuba, near Moscove Meadow; and to visit some petroglyphs just southwest of Meadow Lake.
Ron had seen this trail on several old maps. It is not shown on modern maps. By correlating the old maps to one another and then to the modern topographic map, we felt we had a good sense of its course. We had visions of some fine old path winding through ancient forest with ancient blazes cut into the trunks of the gigantic trees.
At the north end of Meadow Lake the dividing ridge separating the South and Middle Yuba has been torn down by the glaciers into a low pass. It looks much as though ice from the Fordyce basin, to the south, spilled north through the pass into the Middle Yuba. Here a topographic low in the pre-volcanic topography had accumulated especially thick sequences of andesitic mudflows, on the order of 1000' or more. All of the ridges nearby, and the pass itself, were carved from these mudflows or lahars.
As we approached the probably trailhead, in the very axis of the pass, we saw a road leading north into the Middle Yuba. We parked and scouted widely for blazes or any sign whatever of our trail; I went east, Ron west. We found nothing certain, except skid trails, stumps, log decks, roads, and OHV tracks.
Undaunted, we descended a couple hundred feet to a lower level. The nearly flat-lying strata of volcanics often find topographic expression in broad terraces. Again we scouted high and low and every which way. Rich forests of Red Fir, Western White Pine, and occasional Lodgepole Pine were interspersed with sloping dry meadows, with a precious few late-season wildflowers still gleaming with color here and there. I saw some asters and some Mustang Mint in bloom. Troops of birds threaded through the forest. Once again we found nothing of our old trail.
A still lower terrace level seemed to express the presence of a layer of welded rhyolite ash, probably the same "pink welded tuff" one sees exposed at many places in the upper North Fork American.
Eventually, we drove on down the road to Moscove Meadow, explored various side roads, and returned back up to the pass. We were struck by the almost universal extent of timber harvests in the area. Often many large trees remained, to the point one might well expect vestiges of a trail to persist; but the logging had been done with bulldozers swarming everywhere, plowing up the forest floor into grooves and ridges, and despite our best efforts, we never found even one blaze, or one scant inch of the trail itself. By constantly comparing our maps with the topography, we at last concluded that there was a good chance the main road had been cut directly into the line of the old trail. We had to leave it at that.
Returning to Meadow Lake, we parked near the southwest corner and followed an old trail through the woods, past several mining prospect pits, to an exposure of glaciated fine-grained granitoid rock threaded through with a million tiny dikes and veins of lighter rock, perhaps aplite. A small woodland pond nestled nearby, and Hartley Butte reared up darkly to the east. On this expanse of polished and striated rock are the petroglyphs. Here and there patches of a dark, almost black "varnish" had developed somehow on the smooth surfaces, and many of the petroglyphs were cut into these dark areas.
There were a wide variety of designs spread across a broad area. I was struck by the seeming absence of the "bear footprint" motif, and yet in general, the petroglyphs looked distinctly akin to those found elsewhere in the upper Yuba and American basins, a style which has been called "Sierran Abstract." These carvings are thought to date back before the advent of the bow and arrow, to between 1500 and 4500 years ago.
The Meadow Lake site is one of the largest, in terms of number of designs and areal extent. One projecting boss of rock was covered with circles and concentric circles. At other places, strict geometric patterns of triangles or ladder-like objects are found, or closely-spaced sets of curving lines, or star motifs. There is one design which looks as tho it was meant to depict a rattlesnake.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the site, and resting on the sun-warmed rocks, until the sun lowered and the breezes began to bite shrewdly cold. We left via a road leading east and then north, to Webber Lake and a paved road breaking east to Highway 89. We had rejoined the line of the Pacific Turnpike. It had been a very nice day in the local high country. A longish drive took us to Truckee and I-80 which we followed west across the Sierra to our homes.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
Visit to Humbug Canyon
One of the most popular trails in Tahoe National Forest is the Euchre Bar Trail, which drops something less than 2000 feet to the North Fork American. A drive of a few miles leads from the Alta exit on I-80 to the trailhead. At the base of the trail, a suspension bridge spans the river across opposing cliffs, and large trout can be seen swimming the deep pool hemmed within that little gorge.
Euchre Bar has a body of glacial outwash sediments clinging to the canyon wall. This was attacked by a variety of methods, and gold was wrested from the ponderous masses of boulders, cobbles, sand and silt. It was a mining camp in its own right, and in the early newspapers of Placer County one can read the election returns for many such camps, including Euchre Bar. Most are now deserted.
From the bridge a trail continues up the North Fork two or three miles to Humbug Canyon. This short tributary of the North Fork has its own complex of outwash deposits, and was worked quite intensively in the early 1850s. Like Green Valley it counted as a town, for a few years anyway. In 1862 it was regarded as "worked out," the "music of the saw and the hammer" was no longer heard, no one was left. Yet, as seems often the case, that "no one" was an inexact and relative term, and the Humbug Canyon of 1862 had a store, and sixty men worked the mines in the summer, and twenty remained working through the winter.
Later an era of hard-rock mining began, for many are the gold-bearing quartz veins which lace the Shoo Fly Complex rocks in that area. The Pioneer Mine, the American Eagle, the Dorer Mine, the Blackhawk, the Southern Cross, and many many more, are scattered across the steep slopes.
The Dorer family arrived in Humbug Canyon at least as early as 1864, and to this day own the Dorer Ranch, near the base of the canyon in a sunny meadow with an Indian grinding rock, on a glacial outwash terrace. A house and some outbuildings still stand there, and a road switches back and forth all the way down to the ranch, from Elliot Ranch Road, up on the canyon rim.
The easiest approach to Humbug Canyon from civilization is along the Foresthill Divide. Yet the Divide runs to near 5000' in elevation on the approach to Humbug, so snow lies deep in the winter. Hence from the earliest times supplies came, during the winter, on mule trains from Dutch Flat and Towle (near Alta). These pack trains continued into the 20th century.
Saturday Gay Wiseman and I joined Steve Hunter, and Alan and Jay Shuttleworth, for a visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve is a good friend of Bob Dorer and has a key to the gate. I was quite interested in trying to find an old trail from Sawtooth Ridge down to Humbug Bar, where a bridge once crossed the North Fork. Last fall Tom Molloy and I had found the upper end of this trail, but had been unable to follow it very far. It seemed to disappear. Here was an opportunity to follow the same old trail--call it the SawBug Trail--from the river, up. Waldemar Lindgren's ca. 1900 geologic map shows this trail crossing the Dorer Mine quartz lode on the climb to the summit of Sawtooth.
The ca. 1960 "Volcano Fire" burned a vast area between the Middle and North Forks of the American. We drove through the old burn for miles, up on top of the Divide, where plantations of young trees seem to be thriving. As we approached Humbug Canyon, more and more patches of larger, older trees appeared, which had survived the fire. The descent into Humbug was through forests of Black and Canyon Live Oak, alternating with coniferous forests dominated by Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine. Around springs there were masses of dogwoods and maples and alders and ferns.
We stopped for a time at the Dorer Ranch, and met Bob Dorer and the ranch caretaker, Danny. Then we walked to the North Fork, a scant couple hundred yards away.
The rest of the party, led by Steve, hiked up to the American Eagle Mine, and then crossed to the north bank of the North Fork to visit other mining areas, including a gigantic cavern with railroad tracks leading into it. I, however, hopped across the river at the confluence of Humbug Creek, found the old bridge site, and struck out upriver on the old north-side trail.
This upriver trail shows on various old maps, but not on our modern Westville 7.5 quadrangle. I was a little surprised to find it changing into a wagon road, complete with large dry-laid stone walls, and in places, blasted out of the very cliffs.
With loppers at maximum power I made swift progress in the midday heat. I sensed that I had likely passed the Dorer Mine, but had seen no sign of it, and the old road was so easy, that it seemed best just to follow along. Without realizing it, I walked nearly a mile, and entered a forested flat, with the remains of an old wood stove, and other artifacts of human occupation and mining.
Could this be the Dorer Mine? Scouting around, I found a couple of wagon roads leading up the canyon wall, and began following the most likely, the most user-friendly, of the two. Difficulties arose. Ten thousand small Douglas Fir trees blocked my way at first, and then my "wagon road" seemed to melt into a squirrel trail, and that led into a knot-hole, and I was done.
Done? No! I thrashed around on the steep slopes, up, west, east, and then, saw another trail, which insensibly widened, and widened, and my wagon road was reborn!
I followed it higher and higher as the day grew warmer and warmer. Could this be the pesky SawBug Trail? No; I was too far east; or was the old map in error, as old maps are wont to be, so that maybe I was *not* "too far east'' but rather, exactly the right farness east? These serious questions occupied me as I lopped hundreds of branches and watched my wagon road shrink and swell and admired its dry-laid stone walls and the places where even it was blasted from the very rocks ... .
But wait; why would the SawBug be blasted? How could one justify that much work on a mere trail? Surely this wagon road led to some obscure gold mine: a hole in the ground, masses of dirty quartz lying everywhere. And soon enough I found just that. A tunnel, partially collapsed, followed a quartz vein into the sun-kissed mass of Sawtooth Ridge, and, peering past a disturbed bat, I saw light within the gloomy room, and realized that a shaft opened to the surface, somewhere above.
My wagon road seemed to end right there. Yet, climbing to examine the shaft, I caught a glimpse of a trail continuing, climbing up Sawtooth Ridge, and bearing east. So I struck out on that, and lopped many many more branches and small Douglas Fir trees, and the trail shrank, and widened, and had dry-laid stone retaining walls, or had none, and once again I began to think, This is It! This is the long-sought-after, the legendary, the one-and-only SawBug Trail!
But then a nasty notion darkened my mind's eye: perhaps this fine old trail only led to yet another hole-in-the-ground-with-quartz-all-around.
And so it did. In fact, it led to a very deep hole, a strange rectangular shaft plunging at the least a hundred feet down, only two by four feet in cross-section. And near this shaft, some signs of a collapsed tunnel. And once again, the trail seemed to utterly end. I scouted higher and to the east, I followed a bear trail to a bear bed, and I found strange masses of white quartz sand sown across the steeps, and did some involuntary skiing on these sharp little shards. And so I knew that more mine workings were somewhere above.
I was over five hundred feet above the North Fork and was drenched in sweat. One member of our party needed to get back to Colfax by some ungodly early hour, so my explorations must stop. It was nearly two p.m.
So, I lopped along back down the trail, back down the high wagon road, to the main wagon road at Wood Stove Flat, and heard voices. I lopped along the main wagon road east and found the rest of the party near a pile of old narrow-gauge track and iron strapping, such as were used for ore carts. They had just visited a most amazing cavern, and reproached me for missing out. I in turn reproached *them* for missing out. Silly aficionados of mining history who laugh at my loppers!
Then we marched on back to Humbug Canyon and swam in the lovely pool near the bridge site and ate lunch and talked with Bob Dorer and Danny, the Caretaker. After a time we dragged ourselves up the short trail to our cars.
On the way back, I took Elliot Ranch Road and passed the long and lovely meadow at the ranch site. Skirting along the rim of the North Fork canyon, I passed the head of the Green Valley Trail and met with Giant Gap Road and at last was on pavement again at Iowa Hill Road.
In another hour I was home.
Such was a visit to Humbug Canyon.
Euchre Bar has a body of glacial outwash sediments clinging to the canyon wall. This was attacked by a variety of methods, and gold was wrested from the ponderous masses of boulders, cobbles, sand and silt. It was a mining camp in its own right, and in the early newspapers of Placer County one can read the election returns for many such camps, including Euchre Bar. Most are now deserted.
From the bridge a trail continues up the North Fork two or three miles to Humbug Canyon. This short tributary of the North Fork has its own complex of outwash deposits, and was worked quite intensively in the early 1850s. Like Green Valley it counted as a town, for a few years anyway. In 1862 it was regarded as "worked out," the "music of the saw and the hammer" was no longer heard, no one was left. Yet, as seems often the case, that "no one" was an inexact and relative term, and the Humbug Canyon of 1862 had a store, and sixty men worked the mines in the summer, and twenty remained working through the winter.
Later an era of hard-rock mining began, for many are the gold-bearing quartz veins which lace the Shoo Fly Complex rocks in that area. The Pioneer Mine, the American Eagle, the Dorer Mine, the Blackhawk, the Southern Cross, and many many more, are scattered across the steep slopes.
The Dorer family arrived in Humbug Canyon at least as early as 1864, and to this day own the Dorer Ranch, near the base of the canyon in a sunny meadow with an Indian grinding rock, on a glacial outwash terrace. A house and some outbuildings still stand there, and a road switches back and forth all the way down to the ranch, from Elliot Ranch Road, up on the canyon rim.
The easiest approach to Humbug Canyon from civilization is along the Foresthill Divide. Yet the Divide runs to near 5000' in elevation on the approach to Humbug, so snow lies deep in the winter. Hence from the earliest times supplies came, during the winter, on mule trains from Dutch Flat and Towle (near Alta). These pack trains continued into the 20th century.
Saturday Gay Wiseman and I joined Steve Hunter, and Alan and Jay Shuttleworth, for a visit to Humbug Canyon. Steve is a good friend of Bob Dorer and has a key to the gate. I was quite interested in trying to find an old trail from Sawtooth Ridge down to Humbug Bar, where a bridge once crossed the North Fork. Last fall Tom Molloy and I had found the upper end of this trail, but had been unable to follow it very far. It seemed to disappear. Here was an opportunity to follow the same old trail--call it the SawBug Trail--from the river, up. Waldemar Lindgren's ca. 1900 geologic map shows this trail crossing the Dorer Mine quartz lode on the climb to the summit of Sawtooth.
The ca. 1960 "Volcano Fire" burned a vast area between the Middle and North Forks of the American. We drove through the old burn for miles, up on top of the Divide, where plantations of young trees seem to be thriving. As we approached Humbug Canyon, more and more patches of larger, older trees appeared, which had survived the fire. The descent into Humbug was through forests of Black and Canyon Live Oak, alternating with coniferous forests dominated by Douglas Fir and Ponderosa Pine. Around springs there were masses of dogwoods and maples and alders and ferns.
We stopped for a time at the Dorer Ranch, and met Bob Dorer and the ranch caretaker, Danny. Then we walked to the North Fork, a scant couple hundred yards away.
The rest of the party, led by Steve, hiked up to the American Eagle Mine, and then crossed to the north bank of the North Fork to visit other mining areas, including a gigantic cavern with railroad tracks leading into it. I, however, hopped across the river at the confluence of Humbug Creek, found the old bridge site, and struck out upriver on the old north-side trail.
This upriver trail shows on various old maps, but not on our modern Westville 7.5 quadrangle. I was a little surprised to find it changing into a wagon road, complete with large dry-laid stone walls, and in places, blasted out of the very cliffs.
With loppers at maximum power I made swift progress in the midday heat. I sensed that I had likely passed the Dorer Mine, but had seen no sign of it, and the old road was so easy, that it seemed best just to follow along. Without realizing it, I walked nearly a mile, and entered a forested flat, with the remains of an old wood stove, and other artifacts of human occupation and mining.
Could this be the Dorer Mine? Scouting around, I found a couple of wagon roads leading up the canyon wall, and began following the most likely, the most user-friendly, of the two. Difficulties arose. Ten thousand small Douglas Fir trees blocked my way at first, and then my "wagon road" seemed to melt into a squirrel trail, and that led into a knot-hole, and I was done.
Done? No! I thrashed around on the steep slopes, up, west, east, and then, saw another trail, which insensibly widened, and widened, and my wagon road was reborn!
I followed it higher and higher as the day grew warmer and warmer. Could this be the pesky SawBug Trail? No; I was too far east; or was the old map in error, as old maps are wont to be, so that maybe I was *not* "too far east'' but rather, exactly the right farness east? These serious questions occupied me as I lopped hundreds of branches and watched my wagon road shrink and swell and admired its dry-laid stone walls and the places where even it was blasted from the very rocks ... .
But wait; why would the SawBug be blasted? How could one justify that much work on a mere trail? Surely this wagon road led to some obscure gold mine: a hole in the ground, masses of dirty quartz lying everywhere. And soon enough I found just that. A tunnel, partially collapsed, followed a quartz vein into the sun-kissed mass of Sawtooth Ridge, and, peering past a disturbed bat, I saw light within the gloomy room, and realized that a shaft opened to the surface, somewhere above.
My wagon road seemed to end right there. Yet, climbing to examine the shaft, I caught a glimpse of a trail continuing, climbing up Sawtooth Ridge, and bearing east. So I struck out on that, and lopped many many more branches and small Douglas Fir trees, and the trail shrank, and widened, and had dry-laid stone retaining walls, or had none, and once again I began to think, This is It! This is the long-sought-after, the legendary, the one-and-only SawBug Trail!
But then a nasty notion darkened my mind's eye: perhaps this fine old trail only led to yet another hole-in-the-ground-with-quartz-all-around.
And so it did. In fact, it led to a very deep hole, a strange rectangular shaft plunging at the least a hundred feet down, only two by four feet in cross-section. And near this shaft, some signs of a collapsed tunnel. And once again, the trail seemed to utterly end. I scouted higher and to the east, I followed a bear trail to a bear bed, and I found strange masses of white quartz sand sown across the steeps, and did some involuntary skiing on these sharp little shards. And so I knew that more mine workings were somewhere above.
I was over five hundred feet above the North Fork and was drenched in sweat. One member of our party needed to get back to Colfax by some ungodly early hour, so my explorations must stop. It was nearly two p.m.
So, I lopped along back down the trail, back down the high wagon road, to the main wagon road at Wood Stove Flat, and heard voices. I lopped along the main wagon road east and found the rest of the party near a pile of old narrow-gauge track and iron strapping, such as were used for ore carts. They had just visited a most amazing cavern, and reproached me for missing out. I in turn reproached *them* for missing out. Silly aficionados of mining history who laugh at my loppers!
Then we marched on back to Humbug Canyon and swam in the lovely pool near the bridge site and ate lunch and talked with Bob Dorer and Danny, the Caretaker. After a time we dragged ourselves up the short trail to our cars.
On the way back, I took Elliot Ranch Road and passed the long and lovely meadow at the ranch site. Skirting along the rim of the North Fork canyon, I passed the head of the Green Valley Trail and met with Giant Gap Road and at last was on pavement again at Iowa Hill Road.
In another hour I was home.
Such was a visit to Humbug Canyon.
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Meadow Vista Trails Association
Last night I gve a talk to the Meadow Vista Trails Association (MVTA), in the back room of Mountain Mike's pizzeria. The largely equestrian audience was interested to hear about the old trails in the Placer high country, and the gradual loss of these trails to logging, subdivisions, gates, and so on. They were very well informed, and most seemed to know of the 1953 Placer County Board of Supervisors' ordinance, in which sixty-odd historic trails were declared to be "County roads" so as to secure continued public access.
It all went off well, though if I had a video projector to show pictures and maps it would have been even better.
I learned that some members of MVTA have been GPS-ing trails in that area and supplying maps to Placer County, so that, possibly, in the course of future land subdivision and issuance of building permits, the County will be in a position to protect such-and-such trail. For who can really blame the County when it allows an old trail to be blocked, if the County never knew it existed?
We of the NFARA have discussed doing this same thing. It is such a good idea, to develop a database of mapped trails, and provide the information to Placer County, Tahoe National Forest, and the BLM. I have supplied Placer County with GPSed maps of the Canyon Creek and Green Valley trails, but so much more could be done!
Ron Gould and I have been making minute examinations of various old maps, and correlating the old trails depicted therein with the modern USGS 7.5-minute topographic maps. The old maps are full of errors, large and small. Somewhat strangely, our modern USGS maps have plenty of errors too; for instance, some of the trails shown down in Green Valley on the Dutch Flat quadrangle never existed.
Ron recently discovered 1928 and 1939 Tahoe National Forest maps showing quite a few trails which no longer appear on modern maps. The trail from Gold Run to Iowa Hill by way of Fords Bar crossed the North Fork on a bridge, labeled "Warner Bridge" on the 1939 map. Ron asked me what I knew of that. Yesterday, while leafing through my own "Dutch Flat Chronicles," I found the very legal notice, published in the "Dutch Flat Forum" newspaper in 1875(?), in which one J.E. Warner applied to the Placer County BOS for permission to operate a toll bridge at Fords Bar.
Hence Warner Bridge on the 1939 TNF map! The bridge is long gone. Curiously, this map shows the Blue Wing Trail, on the Iowa Hill side of the North Fork at Warner Bridge, as a road! 'Twas never.
Unfortunately, the Gold Run terminus of this historic trail has a brand-new subdivision plunked right atop it, and public access there has ended.
It all went off well, though if I had a video projector to show pictures and maps it would have been even better.
I learned that some members of MVTA have been GPS-ing trails in that area and supplying maps to Placer County, so that, possibly, in the course of future land subdivision and issuance of building permits, the County will be in a position to protect such-and-such trail. For who can really blame the County when it allows an old trail to be blocked, if the County never knew it existed?
We of the NFARA have discussed doing this same thing. It is such a good idea, to develop a database of mapped trails, and provide the information to Placer County, Tahoe National Forest, and the BLM. I have supplied Placer County with GPSed maps of the Canyon Creek and Green Valley trails, but so much more could be done!
Ron Gould and I have been making minute examinations of various old maps, and correlating the old trails depicted therein with the modern USGS 7.5-minute topographic maps. The old maps are full of errors, large and small. Somewhat strangely, our modern USGS maps have plenty of errors too; for instance, some of the trails shown down in Green Valley on the Dutch Flat quadrangle never existed.
Ron recently discovered 1928 and 1939 Tahoe National Forest maps showing quite a few trails which no longer appear on modern maps. The trail from Gold Run to Iowa Hill by way of Fords Bar crossed the North Fork on a bridge, labeled "Warner Bridge" on the 1939 map. Ron asked me what I knew of that. Yesterday, while leafing through my own "Dutch Flat Chronicles," I found the very legal notice, published in the "Dutch Flat Forum" newspaper in 1875(?), in which one J.E. Warner applied to the Placer County BOS for permission to operate a toll bridge at Fords Bar.
Hence Warner Bridge on the 1939 TNF map! The bridge is long gone. Curiously, this map shows the Blue Wing Trail, on the Iowa Hill side of the North Fork at Warner Bridge, as a road! 'Twas never.
Unfortunately, the Gold Run terminus of this historic trail has a brand-new subdivision plunked right atop it, and public access there has ended.
Gold Run and the North Fork American W&SR
For years I have been wondering why the BLM allows mining claims on its lands in the Gold Run Diggings. Recently I have tried once again to discover the basis for this BLM policy. For, there is a special northward extension of the North Fork American W&SR corridor; and lands within the W&SR corridor ought to be closed to mineral entry.
In 1978 Congress added the North Fork American River to our national Wild & Scenic River system. The relevant part of this legislation reads as follows:
*******
(21) AMERICAN, CALIFORNIA. -- The North Fork from a point 0.3 mile above Heath Springs downstream to a point approximately 1,000 feet upstream of the Colfax-Iowa Hill Bridge, including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, "Proposed Boundary Maps" contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, "A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River" published by the United States Forest Service, Department of Agriculture; to be designated as a wild river and to be administered by agencies of the Departments of Interior and Agriculture as agreed upon by the Secretaries of such Departments or as directed by the President.
*******
Why did Congress create the special Addition? Because the Diggings are wild, they are beautiful, they are historic, and there are two trails--the Canyon Creek and Pickering Bar trails-- which give access to the North Fork American itself. Congress recognized that the Gold Run Diggings constitute a kind of "portal" to the North Fork American.
Now, it happens that in the more southern part of the Gold Run Diggings, there is very much BLM land. These BLM lands are just those which lie within the so-called "Gold Run Addition" as mentioned in the legislation, above. Yet the Folsom BLM has, over all the time it has managed the lands at Gold Run, and in particular, since 1978, considered that these BLM lands within the Addition are open to "mineral entry," i.e., to mining claims.
A careful examination of the "big" Tahoe National Forest map will reveal that all these BLM lands in the Diggings are marked as within the W&SR corridor. Ordinarily, the W&SR corridor is considered to extend only one-quarter mile from the center of the river. Yet Congress wanted to extend the corridor to the north at Gold Run, and created the special Addition.
Ordinarily, all public lands within any river's W&SR corridor are immediately "withdrawn from mineral entry," that is, closed to any further mining claims. I believe it is also typical for there to be an off-highway-vehicle (OHV) closure on all public lands within the W&SR corridor. This a natural consequence of managing a river to be a Wild & Scenic River.
Yet at Gold Run, BLM lands remain open to mineral entry and to OHVs.
This has led to significant adverse impacts upon BLM lands at Gold Run. For instance, one claimant, apparently, used his key to the BLM gate at the end of Garrett Road to bring a backhoe and dump truck into the Diggings and remove large quantitites of petrified wood. The pieces weighed in the 200-300 pound range, but included the very last petrified log of any size exposed at the surface, around fifteen feet long and two to three feet in diameter. This happened just a few years ago.
These impacts include blading out roads wider with a bulldozer, creating new roads, and making many "test pits" to justify the existence of a valid mining claim. In fact, so far as I have been able to discover, it was these mining claimants who placed the gate at the end of Garrett Road. They, the claimants, actually made the very policy which excludes the rest of us from driving in to the head of the Pickering Bar Trail.
Now, in this last case, I reluctantly go along with the adverse impact. The gate reduces vehicular access to a wild and beautiful area I like to hike in. That makes it nicer for hiking. Also, there had been problems with squatters down that road, before the gate went in.
Nevertheless, I oppose leaving these lands within the special Gold Run Addition open to mining claims. And I still do not understand the basis for this BLM policy. I am told that the "master plats" or master maps upon which the BLM relies do not show the Addition as within the W&SR corridor. Why not?
For, after all, Congress itself wrote
"... including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, 'Proposed Boundary Maps' contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, 'A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River' published by the United States Forest Service ... ."
The TNF map reflects the extended corridor as depicted in the 1978 "Proposed Boundary Maps." The BLM master plats do not. Why? I still do not understand.
Everything within the Gold Run Addition ought to be closed to mineral entry and closed to OHV use.
Deane Swickard, Area Manager of Folsom BLM, tells me that in 2004 a new management plan will be developed for the entire Folsom Resource Area. There will be opportunity for public comment. Perhaps at that time we can exert influence to exclude the BLM lands at Gold Run from mineral entry and OHV use.
In 1978 Congress added the North Fork American River to our national Wild & Scenic River system. The relevant part of this legislation reads as follows:
*******
(21) AMERICAN, CALIFORNIA. -- The North Fork from a point 0.3 mile above Heath Springs downstream to a point approximately 1,000 feet upstream of the Colfax-Iowa Hill Bridge, including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, "Proposed Boundary Maps" contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, "A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River" published by the United States Forest Service, Department of Agriculture; to be designated as a wild river and to be administered by agencies of the Departments of Interior and Agriculture as agreed upon by the Secretaries of such Departments or as directed by the President.
*******
Why did Congress create the special Addition? Because the Diggings are wild, they are beautiful, they are historic, and there are two trails--the Canyon Creek and Pickering Bar trails-- which give access to the North Fork American itself. Congress recognized that the Gold Run Diggings constitute a kind of "portal" to the North Fork American.
Now, it happens that in the more southern part of the Gold Run Diggings, there is very much BLM land. These BLM lands are just those which lie within the so-called "Gold Run Addition" as mentioned in the legislation, above. Yet the Folsom BLM has, over all the time it has managed the lands at Gold Run, and in particular, since 1978, considered that these BLM lands within the Addition are open to "mineral entry," i.e., to mining claims.
A careful examination of the "big" Tahoe National Forest map will reveal that all these BLM lands in the Diggings are marked as within the W&SR corridor. Ordinarily, the W&SR corridor is considered to extend only one-quarter mile from the center of the river. Yet Congress wanted to extend the corridor to the north at Gold Run, and created the special Addition.
Ordinarily, all public lands within any river's W&SR corridor are immediately "withdrawn from mineral entry," that is, closed to any further mining claims. I believe it is also typical for there to be an off-highway-vehicle (OHV) closure on all public lands within the W&SR corridor. This a natural consequence of managing a river to be a Wild & Scenic River.
Yet at Gold Run, BLM lands remain open to mineral entry and to OHVs.
This has led to significant adverse impacts upon BLM lands at Gold Run. For instance, one claimant, apparently, used his key to the BLM gate at the end of Garrett Road to bring a backhoe and dump truck into the Diggings and remove large quantitites of petrified wood. The pieces weighed in the 200-300 pound range, but included the very last petrified log of any size exposed at the surface, around fifteen feet long and two to three feet in diameter. This happened just a few years ago.
These impacts include blading out roads wider with a bulldozer, creating new roads, and making many "test pits" to justify the existence of a valid mining claim. In fact, so far as I have been able to discover, it was these mining claimants who placed the gate at the end of Garrett Road. They, the claimants, actually made the very policy which excludes the rest of us from driving in to the head of the Pickering Bar Trail.
Now, in this last case, I reluctantly go along with the adverse impact. The gate reduces vehicular access to a wild and beautiful area I like to hike in. That makes it nicer for hiking. Also, there had been problems with squatters down that road, before the gate went in.
Nevertheless, I oppose leaving these lands within the special Gold Run Addition open to mining claims. And I still do not understand the basis for this BLM policy. I am told that the "master plats" or master maps upon which the BLM relies do not show the Addition as within the W&SR corridor. Why not?
For, after all, Congress itself wrote
"... including the Gold Run Addition Area, as generally depicted on the map entitled, 'Proposed Boundary Maps' contained in Appendix I of the document dated January 1978 and entitled, 'A Proposal: North Fork American Wild and Scenic River' published by the United States Forest Service ... ."
The TNF map reflects the extended corridor as depicted in the 1978 "Proposed Boundary Maps." The BLM master plats do not. Why? I still do not understand.
Everything within the Gold Run Addition ought to be closed to mineral entry and closed to OHV use.
Deane Swickard, Area Manager of Folsom BLM, tells me that in 2004 a new management plan will be developed for the entire Folsom Resource Area. There will be opportunity for public comment. Perhaps at that time we can exert influence to exclude the BLM lands at Gold Run from mineral entry and OHV use.
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Footnote on N.B. Willey
While leafing through my "Dutch Flat Chronicles" today I found one more reference to N.B. Willey, Superintendent of the Red Rock Mine. The reason my text search didn't turn it up yesterday is that his name is misspelled "Wiley" instead of "Willey."
The item below was contributed by Willey himself to the Colfax Sentinel, in 1896. We see that Willey was mining in Green Valley, on the North Fork American near Dutch Flat, in the 1850s. I have always thought it would be quite interesting to go down to Sacramento and find the court records for this case.
At any rate, we find that ex-Governor Willey was an old resident of Placer County.
*******
Colfax Sentinel
April 17, 1896
Chinese Arrested in Green Valley
Dutch Flat, April 13, 1896
Editor of the Sentinel:-The public interest in the recent arrest of Chinamen in this section for hydraulic mining contrary to law is noteworthy. It is said to be the first instance when malefactors of this sort have been taken "red-handed." Now, I hardly think the Chinamen are entitled to much sympathy. They ought not to be permitted to prosecute an unlawful act when other people are prohibited. But, the circumstances ought to be considered. I know something of this particular piece of mining ground. I worked on it in the 1850's. I sold it to Chinamen 21 years ago, and I am informed it has been worked continuously by them ever since. I examined it again about ten days before the owners were arrested. It is obvious to me and to anyone acquainted with mining that the quantity of earth washed away in all that time is not as much as would be moved by a single monitor in the Dutch Flat, You Bet, or Nevada City districts in a single week.
The bench is a mass of rocks from top to bottom. It is forty or fifty feet high. It is conveniently situated for work at a little distance above the river so that the great mass of rocks issuing from the flumes is deposited before it reaches the water; and even if they were dropped in the middle of the river the current is insufficient to move them away. The sand and gravel is so insignificant that they did not use to be and are not now sufficient even so much as to discolor the river for a half mile. The water used in these mines comes from springs and small ravines on the mountain side. It is saved in reservoirs and at best is barely sufficient for a head of about 200 inches of water for an hour and a half twice a day. How can 500 inches of water pass through a 3-inch nozzle with a fall of no more than 60 or 70 feet?
There are many gravel claims working in this county by the ground-sluicing process, keeping strictly within the law as regards place of deposit, percentage of sediment in the water, and all other details, each one of which discharges into streams so much more earth than the one in question that the latter is not to be thought about for a moment. And, indeed, it does not appear that the mining in itself can do any harm or is objectionable, but only the manner of it. That formidable 3-inch nozzle is liable to "overwhelm" somebody. I scarcely need refer to the alleged effort of the Valley spies some weeks ago to blackmail these Chinamen and their inability or unwillingness to pay $200 to secure immunity. This has no bearing upon the argument.
N.B. Wiley
*******
The item below was contributed by Willey himself to the Colfax Sentinel, in 1896. We see that Willey was mining in Green Valley, on the North Fork American near Dutch Flat, in the 1850s. I have always thought it would be quite interesting to go down to Sacramento and find the court records for this case.
At any rate, we find that ex-Governor Willey was an old resident of Placer County.
*******
Colfax Sentinel
April 17, 1896
Chinese Arrested in Green Valley
Dutch Flat, April 13, 1896
Editor of the Sentinel:-The public interest in the recent arrest of Chinamen in this section for hydraulic mining contrary to law is noteworthy. It is said to be the first instance when malefactors of this sort have been taken "red-handed." Now, I hardly think the Chinamen are entitled to much sympathy. They ought not to be permitted to prosecute an unlawful act when other people are prohibited. But, the circumstances ought to be considered. I know something of this particular piece of mining ground. I worked on it in the 1850's. I sold it to Chinamen 21 years ago, and I am informed it has been worked continuously by them ever since. I examined it again about ten days before the owners were arrested. It is obvious to me and to anyone acquainted with mining that the quantity of earth washed away in all that time is not as much as would be moved by a single monitor in the Dutch Flat, You Bet, or Nevada City districts in a single week.
The bench is a mass of rocks from top to bottom. It is forty or fifty feet high. It is conveniently situated for work at a little distance above the river so that the great mass of rocks issuing from the flumes is deposited before it reaches the water; and even if they were dropped in the middle of the river the current is insufficient to move them away. The sand and gravel is so insignificant that they did not use to be and are not now sufficient even so much as to discolor the river for a half mile. The water used in these mines comes from springs and small ravines on the mountain side. It is saved in reservoirs and at best is barely sufficient for a head of about 200 inches of water for an hour and a half twice a day. How can 500 inches of water pass through a 3-inch nozzle with a fall of no more than 60 or 70 feet?
There are many gravel claims working in this county by the ground-sluicing process, keeping strictly within the law as regards place of deposit, percentage of sediment in the water, and all other details, each one of which discharges into streams so much more earth than the one in question that the latter is not to be thought about for a moment. And, indeed, it does not appear that the mining in itself can do any harm or is objectionable, but only the manner of it. That formidable 3-inch nozzle is liable to "overwhelm" somebody. I scarcely need refer to the alleged effort of the Valley spies some weeks ago to blackmail these Chinamen and their inability or unwillingness to pay $200 to secure immunity. This has no bearing upon the argument.
N.B. Wiley
*******
The Railroad-Tracks-in-Space Mine
Over the past few days some of the history of the "Railroad Tracks in Space" mine has emerged, with the help of old maps, a 1902 CA Bureau of Mines report, and the Internet.
This is the mine with nearly-level ore-cart runs running along the side of Fulda Canyon, near Lost Camp, and within the 600 acres owned by Siller Brothers lumber company, where a massive and monstrous timber harvest is planned. Lost Camp is a ghost town, embedded within a complex of hydraulic mines, in Section 23 of T16N, R11 E. The Railroad Tracks in Space, which is properly known as the Red Rock Mine, is in adjacent Section 24, just to the east.
The country rock is steeply-dipping strata of the Shoo Fly Complex, the oldest rocks in the Sierra, here metasediments, along the lines of meta-sandstone, meta-shale, with some chert. It is called a "complex" because it is not one discrete formation, but several. The nearly vertical strata strike north and south and have endured several episodes of deformation. Here they have been intruded by a system of quartz veins which follow the north-south strike, which veins must likely be assigned to that same system which is also found farther west, on the flanks of Sawtooth Ridge and within Humbug Canyon. Many "hard-rock" mines exploited these gold-bearing quartz veins, most notably, the Rawhide Mine and the Pioneer Mine. The source of the quartz may have been the granitic plutons to the north and east, visible around Lake Spaulding and Loch Leven Lakes, which intruded the Shoo Fly and other metamorphic rocks in the Jurassic or Cretaceous.
So much for the geology. Now for the historical evidence.
Around 1900 the first good topographic maps of this part of the Sierra were published, and the renowned Waldemar Lindgren used this topographic base to complete a geologic map of the same region. On Lindgren's map one sees the body of Eocene river gravels at Lost Camp, and, just to the east, a red stripe running north and south, denoting a quartz vein, with a crossed pick-and-shovel symbol, denoting a mine, and the words, "Red Rock."
The CA Bureau of Mines published a "Report of the State Minerologist" in 1902 which lists many of the mines in California, county by county, with tables of information. Here we find the Red Rock Mine to have had a water-powered, ten-stamp mill; a workforce of four men; the mine superintendent being one N.B. Willey; and the owner(s) in Philadelphia. The mine is listed as patented, that is, the lands there had passed from public to private ownership, in a process which involved demonstrating a viable commercial potential for the mineral deposit.
Not all mining claims were patented. For instance, at Gold Run, more than half of the dozens of claims were patented, the rest were not, and it is those unpatented claims which comprise the moderately large BLM holdings in the southern part of the Gold Run Diggings. These claims were never patented because they were "worked out," that is, the miners had finished hydraulicing away the gold-bearing gravel.
Parenthetically, the hydraulic mines at Lost Camp itself were patented in 1872, by Osmyn Harkness, who also had claims at Gold Run. This man Harkness is found in the remarkable record of the 1881 case, State of CA vs. the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company, in which 27 volumes of testimony were written down. These may be examined on microfilm at the Auburn Library. Harkness gave testimony about the early history of the Gold Run Diggings, remarkable testimony, for, in 1881, he could remember events in 1852 day by day.
Last Friday Ron Gould and I had found the very ditches which supplied the water which powered the ten-stamp mill at the Red Rock Mine. Then, in a telephone conversation, Steve Hunter told me of the remains of cabins higher on the ridge, which may have been used by the miners themselves. The Red Rock Mine was coming into focus.
I chanced a Google on "N.B. Willey" and found references to man of that name who was Governor of Idaho in 1892. It hardly seemed likely that a man would go from being governor to mine superintendent.
It seemed to me that I remembered the name, N.B. Willey, from the old Placer County newspaper articles in my book, the "Dutch Flat Chronicles." So I opened the text file on my computer, and searched for Willey.
I found two items. One was significant:
*******
Colfax Sentinel
October 2, 1896
Gen. Geo. H. Roberts and his son, A.C.B. Roberts, with Gov. N.B. Willey were down from Blue Ca–on Tuesday. The General is largely interested in mining all through the mining country and is one of the owners of the Redstone mine, near Blue Ca–on. The mine has been closed down for a time, but will resume work in a few days.
********
The mine is incorrectly named the "Redstone." Set that aside, mark it off to human error. What's interesting is the reference to "Gov. N.B. Willey." It can only be a certainty that Idaho's governor, and the Red Rock Mine's superintendent, are one and the same.
Returning to the Internet, I found several sites which describe Governor (Norman) Willey's involvement in labor disputes in Idaho. For instance, see
http://www.kued.org/productions/fire/photos_stories/coeur.html
From another site I gleaned the following:
*******
A bitter labor dispute grew out of company efforts to try to operate Coeur d'Alene lead silver mines in face of union opposition to a lower wage scale. Efforts to bring in organized, outside workers, protected by company armies, provoked considerable trouble. (Idaho's state constitution had a provision, growing out of the national railway strikes of 1886, against admission of private armies to the state. But no serious effort was made to enforce the law on this matter.) When the miners discovered that their union secretary also served the companies as a Pinkerton agent, the whole conflict literally exploded. On June 11, 1892, in an open war, a force of miners dynamited an abandoned mill at Gem. At this point, the mine owners prevailed (without any difficulty) upon Governor N. B. Willey (a mine superintendent from Warrens) to proclaim martial law.
*******
So, here was a little about our superintendent of the Red Rock Mine. What about the "General largely interested in mining," Geo. H. Roberts?
I found (using Google) that, during Willey's term of office as governor, in the early 1890s, one Geo. H. Roberts had been Attorney General of Idaho. This is beyond the pale of possible coincidence. But could service as a state Attorney General earn one the honorific title, 'General'? I didn't really know, but I doubted it. Then I struck gold with the following reference to our General George H. Roberts, excerpted from a query on a genealogical site:
*******
... a Civil War veteran who, it is said, was the youngest breveted-General from the Civil War.
His name was George H. ROBERTS and he was "on the staff" of
Gen. Joe HOOKER. He was wounded three times, at least one of those
happened at Gettysburg. All I know of that injury comes from a
newspaper article about his return to Gettysburg for the 50th
anniversary. It says he "took a long walk down a familiar dusty
road ... vaulted over a stone wall ... and walked again through the same
orchard where five decades ago, he had left a crimson trail of his
own blood." (Not much to go on, huh?)
But then this wonderful story: "General ROBERTS was seeking
the farm house where two Pennsylvania-Dutch girls had hidden him and
nursed him after he had staggered wounded through their kitchen
door. Standing at the entrance now and filled with bittersweet
memories, he pulled the bell cord, wondering as he did so if the two
women were still living here ... The door opened to reveal a stout,
comfortably dressed woman, her cheeks had the same rose, wrinkled
bloom as the apples in the orchard through which he had passed.
General ROBERTS removed his hat with a gallant flourish and bowed,
before inquiring for the ladies Ellen and Lizzie RIDENBOUGH who had
lived there as girls 50 years ago. He started to tell her his name
but before he could finish she cried, 'Lizzie, be comin' now. Here's
our George ROBERTS.'"
The rest of what I know about George ROBERTS is that he was
born in Philadelphia on 13 Jul 1841 of Welsh and Quaker ancestry.
His grandfather was said to be the Lord High Sheriff of Wales who
came to PA with William PENN. He joined the Union Army when he was
22 and a student at the Univ. of PA, with his family purchasing him
a commission as 2nd LT.
After the War, he married Julia CULBERTSON, daughter of a
renowned fur trader on the Upper Missouri, and became attorney
general of NE and then the first attorney general of ID.
*******
Such is what I found about the Red Rock Mine. Steve Hunter mentioned debris near the cabin sites which suggests occupation much later than 1896 or 1902. It seems possible that the Red Rock Mine was worked intermittently through the 1930s. The ten-stamp mill is gone, and descending to the ore-processing area, and cutting the lines of the two ore-cart runs, is a kind of bulldozed skid trail, with small trees growing in it. Steve and I guess that this skid trail is coeval with the last timber harvest on Fulda Ridge, which we think occurred in the 1950s or 1960s. No trees were taken from the ore-processing area at that time. We conclude that someone, either the owner of the property, or perhaps one of the logging crew, used a bulldozer to remove the stamp mill.
It is known that Wendell Robie once owned the 600 acres at Blue Canyon/Lost Camp/Fulda Canyon. Perhaps Robie himself had the stamp mill brought out.
Such, then, is a little history bearing upon the Red Rock Mine.
This is the mine with nearly-level ore-cart runs running along the side of Fulda Canyon, near Lost Camp, and within the 600 acres owned by Siller Brothers lumber company, where a massive and monstrous timber harvest is planned. Lost Camp is a ghost town, embedded within a complex of hydraulic mines, in Section 23 of T16N, R11 E. The Railroad Tracks in Space, which is properly known as the Red Rock Mine, is in adjacent Section 24, just to the east.
The country rock is steeply-dipping strata of the Shoo Fly Complex, the oldest rocks in the Sierra, here metasediments, along the lines of meta-sandstone, meta-shale, with some chert. It is called a "complex" because it is not one discrete formation, but several. The nearly vertical strata strike north and south and have endured several episodes of deformation. Here they have been intruded by a system of quartz veins which follow the north-south strike, which veins must likely be assigned to that same system which is also found farther west, on the flanks of Sawtooth Ridge and within Humbug Canyon. Many "hard-rock" mines exploited these gold-bearing quartz veins, most notably, the Rawhide Mine and the Pioneer Mine. The source of the quartz may have been the granitic plutons to the north and east, visible around Lake Spaulding and Loch Leven Lakes, which intruded the Shoo Fly and other metamorphic rocks in the Jurassic or Cretaceous.
So much for the geology. Now for the historical evidence.
Around 1900 the first good topographic maps of this part of the Sierra were published, and the renowned Waldemar Lindgren used this topographic base to complete a geologic map of the same region. On Lindgren's map one sees the body of Eocene river gravels at Lost Camp, and, just to the east, a red stripe running north and south, denoting a quartz vein, with a crossed pick-and-shovel symbol, denoting a mine, and the words, "Red Rock."
The CA Bureau of Mines published a "Report of the State Minerologist" in 1902 which lists many of the mines in California, county by county, with tables of information. Here we find the Red Rock Mine to have had a water-powered, ten-stamp mill; a workforce of four men; the mine superintendent being one N.B. Willey; and the owner(s) in Philadelphia. The mine is listed as patented, that is, the lands there had passed from public to private ownership, in a process which involved demonstrating a viable commercial potential for the mineral deposit.
Not all mining claims were patented. For instance, at Gold Run, more than half of the dozens of claims were patented, the rest were not, and it is those unpatented claims which comprise the moderately large BLM holdings in the southern part of the Gold Run Diggings. These claims were never patented because they were "worked out," that is, the miners had finished hydraulicing away the gold-bearing gravel.
Parenthetically, the hydraulic mines at Lost Camp itself were patented in 1872, by Osmyn Harkness, who also had claims at Gold Run. This man Harkness is found in the remarkable record of the 1881 case, State of CA vs. the Gold Run Ditch & Mining Company, in which 27 volumes of testimony were written down. These may be examined on microfilm at the Auburn Library. Harkness gave testimony about the early history of the Gold Run Diggings, remarkable testimony, for, in 1881, he could remember events in 1852 day by day.
Last Friday Ron Gould and I had found the very ditches which supplied the water which powered the ten-stamp mill at the Red Rock Mine. Then, in a telephone conversation, Steve Hunter told me of the remains of cabins higher on the ridge, which may have been used by the miners themselves. The Red Rock Mine was coming into focus.
I chanced a Google on "N.B. Willey" and found references to man of that name who was Governor of Idaho in 1892. It hardly seemed likely that a man would go from being governor to mine superintendent.
It seemed to me that I remembered the name, N.B. Willey, from the old Placer County newspaper articles in my book, the "Dutch Flat Chronicles." So I opened the text file on my computer, and searched for Willey.
I found two items. One was significant:
*******
Colfax Sentinel
October 2, 1896
Gen. Geo. H. Roberts and his son, A.C.B. Roberts, with Gov. N.B. Willey were down from Blue Ca–on Tuesday. The General is largely interested in mining all through the mining country and is one of the owners of the Redstone mine, near Blue Ca–on. The mine has been closed down for a time, but will resume work in a few days.
********
The mine is incorrectly named the "Redstone." Set that aside, mark it off to human error. What's interesting is the reference to "Gov. N.B. Willey." It can only be a certainty that Idaho's governor, and the Red Rock Mine's superintendent, are one and the same.
Returning to the Internet, I found several sites which describe Governor (Norman) Willey's involvement in labor disputes in Idaho. For instance, see
http://www.kued.org/productions/fire/photos_stories/coeur.html
From another site I gleaned the following:
*******
A bitter labor dispute grew out of company efforts to try to operate Coeur d'Alene lead silver mines in face of union opposition to a lower wage scale. Efforts to bring in organized, outside workers, protected by company armies, provoked considerable trouble. (Idaho's state constitution had a provision, growing out of the national railway strikes of 1886, against admission of private armies to the state. But no serious effort was made to enforce the law on this matter.) When the miners discovered that their union secretary also served the companies as a Pinkerton agent, the whole conflict literally exploded. On June 11, 1892, in an open war, a force of miners dynamited an abandoned mill at Gem. At this point, the mine owners prevailed (without any difficulty) upon Governor N. B. Willey (a mine superintendent from Warrens) to proclaim martial law.
*******
So, here was a little about our superintendent of the Red Rock Mine. What about the "General largely interested in mining," Geo. H. Roberts?
I found (using Google) that, during Willey's term of office as governor, in the early 1890s, one Geo. H. Roberts had been Attorney General of Idaho. This is beyond the pale of possible coincidence. But could service as a state Attorney General earn one the honorific title, 'General'? I didn't really know, but I doubted it. Then I struck gold with the following reference to our General George H. Roberts, excerpted from a query on a genealogical site:
*******
... a Civil War veteran who, it is said, was the youngest breveted-General from the Civil War.
His name was George H. ROBERTS and he was "on the staff" of
Gen. Joe HOOKER. He was wounded three times, at least one of those
happened at Gettysburg. All I know of that injury comes from a
newspaper article about his return to Gettysburg for the 50th
anniversary. It says he "took a long walk down a familiar dusty
road ... vaulted over a stone wall ... and walked again through the same
orchard where five decades ago, he had left a crimson trail of his
own blood." (Not much to go on, huh?)
But then this wonderful story: "General ROBERTS was seeking
the farm house where two Pennsylvania-Dutch girls had hidden him and
nursed him after he had staggered wounded through their kitchen
door. Standing at the entrance now and filled with bittersweet
memories, he pulled the bell cord, wondering as he did so if the two
women were still living here ... The door opened to reveal a stout,
comfortably dressed woman, her cheeks had the same rose, wrinkled
bloom as the apples in the orchard through which he had passed.
General ROBERTS removed his hat with a gallant flourish and bowed,
before inquiring for the ladies Ellen and Lizzie RIDENBOUGH who had
lived there as girls 50 years ago. He started to tell her his name
but before he could finish she cried, 'Lizzie, be comin' now. Here's
our George ROBERTS.'"
The rest of what I know about George ROBERTS is that he was
born in Philadelphia on 13 Jul 1841 of Welsh and Quaker ancestry.
His grandfather was said to be the Lord High Sheriff of Wales who
came to PA with William PENN. He joined the Union Army when he was
22 and a student at the Univ. of PA, with his family purchasing him
a commission as 2nd LT.
After the War, he married Julia CULBERTSON, daughter of a
renowned fur trader on the Upper Missouri, and became attorney
general of NE and then the first attorney general of ID.
*******
Such is what I found about the Red Rock Mine. Steve Hunter mentioned debris near the cabin sites which suggests occupation much later than 1896 or 1902. It seems possible that the Red Rock Mine was worked intermittently through the 1930s. The ten-stamp mill is gone, and descending to the ore-processing area, and cutting the lines of the two ore-cart runs, is a kind of bulldozed skid trail, with small trees growing in it. Steve and I guess that this skid trail is coeval with the last timber harvest on Fulda Ridge, which we think occurred in the 1950s or 1960s. No trees were taken from the ore-processing area at that time. We conclude that someone, either the owner of the property, or perhaps one of the logging crew, used a bulldozer to remove the stamp mill.
It is known that Wendell Robie once owned the 600 acres at Blue Canyon/Lost Camp/Fulda Canyon. Perhaps Robie himself had the stamp mill brought out.
Such, then, is a little history bearing upon the Red Rock Mine.
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