USA > California > Nevada County > History of Nevada County, California; with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and manufactories > Part 13
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Soon after that date the mines at this point became exhausted, and the people began to move away. Nearly all the houses, including Odd Fellows' Hall, were moved to You Bet, which place then became the live town of the district. There are now but the unoccupied briek store and oue other building standing on the old site of the town of Red Dog. A school was started in 1860 in the lower story of the Odd Fellows Hall. In 1863
MARCH|IBCS
PUBLISHED BY THOMPSON & WEST.
. ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH & MT. GRASS VALLEY, NEVADA CO
--
C. L. SMITH & CO. LITH. OAKLAND CAL
MT. SAINT MARY'S CONVENT. VADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
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HISTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
You Bet and Red Dog united and built a school house midway between the two towns.
YOU BET.
This mining camp was first settled and named by Lazarus Beard, son of the man whose name was given to Beardstown. Kentucky. He built a small saloon abont 12 x 12 feet on the hill opposite Walloupe, nud three hundred yards east of the site of the present town. The ground on which the saloon stood has been washed awny. This way as early as 1857. People came here from Wallonpa w have a good time, and Beart located his place as a towu lot. Having done so he cast about him for a name, and called to his assistance Win. King and Jnines Todd- kill from Wallonpa, who frequently repaired to the salonu and drunk freo whisky while employing their brains in this service. They were always enreful to suggest and urge some name that they were sure he would object to, so as to protrnet the delib- orations and the accompanying whisky as long as possilde. If Benrd used one slung expression more than another, it was "yau bet," which was n grent favorite with him, and in a juking wuy the twa privy counselors suggested that as a name for the tawn. To their surprise it met with favor and was adopted, and their free whisky was stopped.
One by one houses were built here, and ky 1860 quite a town hid sprung up, nearly all of Walloupa having been moved over la the new town. A hotel, store, Inrge saloon and shops were suon built, mining was commenced on a Inrge scale and the town grew rapidly. By 1864 there were forty or fifty built- ings in the town and within n radius of five miles from You Bet were thirteen cement mills.
On Saturday, April 24, 1869, You Bet was completely de- stroyed hy tire. The tire originated in a Chinese wash house and in n few minutes consumed the whole of the town proper, some thirty buildings, including Mrs. Stitch's Hotel, Kennebeck Hotel, Beard's Hotel, Good Templar's Hall, four stores, five saloons, two variety stores, butcher shop, shoemaker shop, two blacksmith shops, tin shop nud post office. The loss was about $37,000.
The town was partially rebuilt, and many houses were moved over from Red Dog. In 1871 and 1872, most of the buildings were moved to the present site, and the old town has been washed away. Another fire occurred September 7, 1873, by which the new town was entirely consumed, except the store of Mason & Fox. After this calamity the town was again rebuilt, and at present contains two stores, two saloons, hotel, post office, meat market, shoemnker shop, Odd Fellows' Hall, school- house and sixteen dwellings.
In 1863 a school house was built midway between You Bet and Red Dog. In 1875 this house was torn down and the present one built. The Odd Fellows' Hall was moved here
from Red Dog A Sunday school was held in this hall for a long time, but is now di-continual. There are two old cement inills starling here, that have not been in operation since 1572.
WALLULPA.
This town was the birth of an excitement over the discoveries of 1552, and lived but a few years. When news of the dis- coveries at Squirrel Hill reached Nevada City, there was a great rush to the spot. Warren B. Ewer, T. II. Rolfe, I. J. Rulfe, Charles Marsh, Abram Niece and many others hastened hither and staked off claims. They immediately Inid ont a town and called it Walloupa, after a chief of Woman's hand of Indians. Wallonpa was a corruption of Guadalupe, a name the chief had received from the Missionaries. The town was surveyed by Charles Marsh, who was a surveyor and had brought his instruments with him. Lines were held and stakes driven by the other Nevada gentlemen. Each one took as many lats as he cared to own, and the rest were left for the many miners that came pouring in. The whole world was invited to come and take lots, the only stipulation being that they should conform to the survey in erceting build- ings.
The whole world neglected to improve the opportunity to obtain valuable town lots at a reasonable rate, but some three or four hundred men did put in an appearance and erected about forty houses. For a while matters progressed finely ; the town was rapidly growing, business was good, boarding houses, saloons and stores were opened. This lasted for a few months, and then there was a scampering for the rich diggings just discovered at Red Dog. The winter was a severe one and provisions became scarce and high, and soon the miners became scarce also. The ridge on which Walloupa was built was soon discovered to be not so rich as that across Birdseye ciñon, where You Bet was afterwards built. The town was revived in 1855 for a short time, but by 1860 it had been nearly all moved to You Bet, and Walloupa soon became a thing of the past.
HUNT'S HILL, OR GOUGE EYE.
This place was first located by a French company about 1855. The claim was "jumped" by another company and a fight ensued, during which one of the Frenchmen lost an eye. It was this circumstance that led Thomas Concord to namne the place Gouge Eye when a little mining camp sprang up. In
Hunt's Hill the blue lead was discovered in 1857, and a great many claims were staked off. The little town that grew up was known both as Hunt's Hill and Gouge Eye. At one time an effort was made to change the name to Camden, but it was unsuccessful. There are now one small store and saloon com- bined and a few houses here.
CHAPTER XXV.
MEADOW LAKE TOWNSHIP.
Why Created-Boundaries-Quarts Discoveries of 1883 The Rush of 1865- Summit City-Meadow Lake lacorporated Stock Boanl -Turapiko Roads-Oxsaville, Carlyle, Paris and Mendoza-Prospects in 1866- The Meadow Lake San-Downfall of the City - Burned in ISTR Trucker-Coburn's Station Burned-New Town of Truckre Burned in 15:1-Other Fires- Chinese Drivea Out Chinese Allation Kint Incorporation-Industries-The Truckre of Today-" 101"- Death of D. B. Friak-Shooting of Spencer-Street Fight - Mad Dog in Trucker Beren -Other Points.
The township of Meadow Lake is the youngest of the mud sulalivisions of the county, and was born of the excitement of 1865, that sent thousands into the heart of the Sierras to battle for wealth minid the drifting and whirling snows of the sum- init. But little was known of this region prior to 1865, there being no inhabitants, except a few ditch men, and no induce- ments to draw people into these mountain solitudes. Travelers passed through by the Henness Pass or Donner Lake ronto, lait knew nothing of the region between. The beautiful Trucker basin, which lies partly in this township, was more or less known, being a favorite route for travel over the mountains. The fate of the kunented Donner Party in 1846 gave this region an unenviable reputation for the severity of its winter storms, that has been amply sustained hy subsequent expe- rienec. The summers, however, are most benutiful, and noth- ing can excel in beauty the lofty Sierras with an occasional snow crowned peak, when arrayed in their summer garh of green.
Originally this was a portion of Washington township, but the quartz excitement of the Meadow Lake district, which led to the rapid peopling of that region in 1865, induced the Board of Supervisors to create a separate township.
Although the district for which this change was made has become almost totally depopulated, another locality, the Truekey river valley, by the magic influence of the Central Pacific Rail- road has become thriving and populous, and fully sustains the claim of Meadow Lake township to be ranked as one of the first in the county. The boundaries of the township are: Beginning at the southeast corner of Washington township, at the corner of sections 19, 24, 25 and 30, township 17, north, ranges 13 and 14, east, and running thence east on the Placer county line to the eastern boundary line of the State; thence north on the State line nine miles, to a point on the north line of section 8, township 18, north, range 18, east; thence west to the source of the Middle Yuba, above English dam; thence south to the place of beginning.
MEADOW LAKE, OR SUMMIT CITY.
This portion of Meadow Lake township was first invaded by
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HISTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
the South Yuba Canal Co. who built a stone wall across a ravine to form a reservoir from which to supply their ditehes further down the mountains. Other water companies came up into the mountains for the same purpose, and this company made "greater improvements, all of which will be detailed in the chapter on mining ditches.
No better history can be given of the settlement of this por- tion of the township than the one contributed by F. Tilford to Bean's History, and for that reason it is quoted. It was writ- ten when Meadow Lake was in its glory and when everything was fresh in the mind of the writer. The sad end of its most glorious hopes and the present condition it is our task" to record. The name first given to this region was Excelsior.
" No discovery, not even a suspicion of the existence of mineral treasures followed the lahors of the first explorers of the distriet. They passed over ledges sinee proven to be exceed- ingly rich, without a dream of the wealth beneath their fect. A faet, at first view so remarkable, can only be accounted for in the peculiar appearance of the country, differing in almost any respect from what is presented in any other portion of California. Elsewhere the gold bearing ledges rise above or ean be traced unmistakably upon the carth's surface. What- ever may be the character of the country rock, whether por- phyry, slate or granite predominates, the quartz ledges may be casily discovered by the practieed eye of an experienced miner. The geological formation of Excelsior presents great difficulties to the prospector. In sowie plaees immense forests cast their shadows over the ground, which is carpeted with luxuriant grasses; in other loealities huge bowlders or vast masses of granite, among which it was once a favorite theory that true fissure veins of gold and silver were never found, are the pro- minent features of the landseape. The ledges, lying even with the masses of granite around them, and eapped with a speeies of mineral which is not pure quartz or country roek, are traecable only by broad stains of a dark, reddish hue. It is not then, on reflection, surprising that parties whose attention and energies were direeted to other purposes than the search for gold, should have failed to discover the existence of treasures so strangely concealed by nature. The time for the discovery of the wondrous riches of the Sierra summits was not far dis- tant. It was, however, made like that of Marshall in 1848, under cirenmstanees, and by a person, unlikely to aceomplish sueli an event.
" Some time in 1860, Henry Hartley, an Englishman, wandered to these mountain solitudes. He eame partly, as the writer has been informed, with a view to the improvement of his health, threatened somewhat with eonsumptive tendencies, and partly to trap the wild game of the mountains, when the deep snows of winter should have fallen. No idea of gold hunting seems to have occurred to the hardy trapper, as he plunged
into solitudes more dreary and desolate than the lonely island of Selkirk. The long winters of the mountains were his choice seasons. Then it was, when not imprisoned in his cabin by the fury of the storm, the adventurer glided with his snow shoes over the frozen expanse which surrounded him. In the spring the trapper resorted with the rewards of the ehase to the low lands, lingered there during the summers, and returned with his supplies when the snows first announeed the approach of winter. Thus passed three years of his sojourn in the wilderness, when in June of 1863 Hartley first observed with some surprise, a number of ledges about half a mile distant, in a sonthcasterly direction, from the site of the present town of Meadow Lake. In August of the same year, Hartley, accompanied by John Simons and Henry Feutel, to whom he had communicated the news of his discovery, visited the newly found ledges, and in September made the first loca- tions in Exeelsior, then forming a part of Washington town- ship. They located, under the title of Excelsior Company, two thousand feet on each of the parallel ledges, named Union No. 1 and 2. These lodes were about seventy-five feet apart and could be distinetly traced northwesterly and southeasterly for the distance of a mile. The quartz on the surface is stained a dark, reddish brown hy the aetion of oxyde of iron, derived from the gold bearing pyrites which it contains in great abundance. In many places the decomposed sulphurets of the ledge were resplendent with fine gold. Every experiment which these prospeetors made with their pans and horns, an invariable por- tion of a miner's equipment, strengthened their first impressions of the riehness of their discovery. The writer is happy to have it in his power to state that assays sinee made, as well as results of milling on a large scale, have confirmed the judgment of the original loeators, and demonstrated that these claims are among the foremost of the distriet. * * * Not, however, until the summer of 1865, was publie attention attracted to the auriferous region, where the adventurous Hartley had dwelt so long amidst the solitude of nature.
" The first movement was from Virginia City in the State of Nevada. Faint rumors had been carried to that place of ' rieh prospects struek' on the summits of the Sierra, and of vast ledges showing anywhere on their surface free gold. Speeimens of superior quality were exhibited as indieations of the mineral wealth of the El Dorado which nature had loeated more than eight thousand feet above the level of the ocean. Times were exceedingly dull around Virginia, and indeed throughout Washoe. The great Comstoek, at the depth then explored, wore threaten- ing appearanees of failure. Humboldt, Reese River and Esmer- alda had, in the expressive language of the mining regions, been 'played out!' Idaho, although rieh, was too far distant; Montana was then almost unknown; in fine, the new field of Excelsior had no competitor in popular favor, and was hailed
by a large erowd of restless and discontented miners, dwelling in or near Virginia City, as another chance which propitious fortune had thrown in their way. With such characters to resolve and act, when action consists merely in transition from one loeality to another, mean substantially the same thing.
" From June until late in the fall of 1865, hundreds eame in, an eager and cxeiting crowd, over the roads from Washoe to Nevada county. In the meantime a similar exeitement, al- though in a less degrce, had sprung up in Placer, Sierra and the lower portions of Nevada, and indeed through all northern California. Miners with their prospecting and working imple- ments strapped to their shoulders, traders with their wares, and adventurers of every character; many with no definite idea of how a subsistenee was to be made, mueh less how a fortune was to be acquired, spread over the hills and valleys of the promised land. In the month of July, a public meeting, the first one held in Excelsior, was called at the site of the present town of Meadow Lake. Even then a few eahins had been constructed on the western banks of the reservoir, and the place was known as Summit City. The assemblage was convened as a miners' meeting, and proceeded to adopt boundaries for the new district, which then formally received its title of Meadow Lake. The mining laws of Nevada eounty were adopted by aeelamation, and the County Recorder's office was designated as the proper place for the filing of notices of locations, elaims and transfers. No time was lost in the work of prospeeting. Stakes, with notices, elothed the whole region, and every mass of roeks, which bore the slightest resemblance to a ledge, was claimed and located. It is estimated that during the summer of 1865, twelve hundred locations were made in the distriet, containing in the aggregate more than 1,200,000 feet of so called auriferous ledge roek. In the feverish exeitement which prevailed, locations were made over the whole country. Bowl- ders, masses of granite, roeks of every description assumed to the distempered faney of the prospeetor the shape and outlines of a quartz ledge, and were duly entered, under glittering titles upon the Recorder's books. To one who had ever resided in Washoe in the flush times of the silver land, it was the old seene repeated on a new stage, and with a slight differenee in the east of characters. In the month of July, Meadow Lake was surveyed and laid out as a town. It was eoneluded within the limits of a survey of 160 aeres, made and filed hy Eriek Prahm, under the Possessory Aet of 1852. Prahm had been a loeator of the California claims the previous year, and his pre- emption entry was in trust, and for the benefit of the California Company. The new town was laid out into spacious streets, eighty feet wide, and the blocks divided into lots with a frontage of sixty and a depth of eighty feet. Through the center of the blocks ran alley ways sixteen feet wide. A spacious plaza was reserved and dedicated for public use in tho
A
WILWAN WATT BORN JULY 14, 1826 DICO
JULY 6,1878.
FRIENDSHIPS MEMORIAL
W.WATT
FROM G. GRIFFITH'S GRANITE WORKS, PENRYN, CAL.
WATT MONUMENT, MASONIC CEMETERY, GRASS VALLEY, NEVADA CO, CAL.
PUBLISHED BY THOMPSON K WEST.
73
HISTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
northern part of the future city. Lots were sold by the Cali- fornia Company to actual sett'ers for the small consideration of twenty-five dollars in cash, and upon the condition that they should be enclosed and improvel.
" The village was originally styled Summit City, which name it retained until its incorporation, by Act of the Legislature in the spring of 1866. (The Act was approved March 24, 1866, incorporating the people of Summit City under the style of the Town of Mendow Lake, The limits were :- Commenceing at n point one mile dae north from the center of the junction of Second und B streets; running thence one mile east; thence two miles south; theuer two miles west; thence two miles north; thence one mile cast to the place of beginning; making quite a respectable city as far as size was concerned. The Acts incorporating the City of Nevada and Amendments thereto were nude applicable to the town of Meadow Lake). When the full of 1865 closed, the village had made: considerable advances in population and improvement. Not less than one hundred and tifty houses had been erected, and others were in tho course of construction. Stores were established, driving a brisk trade with the settlers and visitors to the town; hotels, three in number, were crowded to excess, and drinking soloous, with their burs and gambling tables, reaped a rich harvest, From June until October it is probable that more than three thousand people visited the district, and each bring- ing with him some money for investment, created a season of flattering but transient prosperity for the place. * *
" Very little Inbor, beyond what was necessary to hold a claim for twelve months, under the liberal mining laws of the county, was done on any ledge in the district during the year. The task of development was deferred to a later period. Before the tirst storms of November, the crowd of adventurers scattered over the hills and valleys of Excelsior had departed for a more genial elime. A few remained in Summit City, deter- mined to watch through the winter over their newly acquired elnims, to guard them against trespassers, and be prepared for the tide of fortune that was expected to set in, with a golden current, on the return of spring. About two hundred persons, among whom were a few families, sojournol through the winter in the little village.
" The season was one of severity and almost unprecedented duration. The first fall of snow occurred on the 24th of Sep- tember. Early in October it disappeared, and for the remainder of the month the weather was comparatively mild and pleasant. In November, violent winds from the southwest swept over the district, bringing with them dense masses of clouds, sure pre- cursors of snow and wintry storms. The signs, so familiar and well understood by the experienced dwellers in these mountain regions, did not fail ou this occasion. The storms continued almost without cessation through the month of November. By
the first of December the country was coverel with snow to the depth of five feet. From New Year's Day until March, 1866, the weather was, as is usually the case in this section, free from storms, the skies elear, and the atmosphere, never intensely cold, was frequently so moderate that fires were not requisite for corafort, except in the night time. The Excelsior climate in the winter time is far more moderated than the weather on the eastern slope of the Sierra, within a distance of less than one hundred miles. In the month of March, the southwest winds which hal prevailed in November, again appeared, accompanied by their invariable attendants, sHow and sleet. Spring, as it is seen in other portions of California. is unknown in these high altitudes. The transition from winter to summer is almost immediate. As the perio.l for the inevitable change draws near, it would seem that the storm king, throned in the frozen recesses of the mountains, becoming conscious that his tempestuous reign must soon dissolve under the genial sunshine of summer, exerts all his remaining strength and makes n last determined effort to retain his dominion over nature.
" 'T'hic months of March, April and May, 1866, will long be remembered in the mountains for their unprecedented severity. All marks of the narrow trails which traverse the summit were obliterated by the drifting snows, and even the highways, in many places, were rendered dithcult of passage. As an illustra- tion of the character of the season, it may be mentioned that from the twentieth of May until the first day of June, there was alinost constantly a snow storm in and around Meadow Lake. The first summer month opene I with a strange aspect in this mountainous region. Instead of fragrant flowers, mur- muring streams, the hum of bees, and carol of birds, so familiar to the denizen of the plains on the approach of the suminer months, here were seen mountains capped with snow, streams held fast with frozen chains, icicles pendant from the branches of the giant pines, whose lofty heads towered grandly among the clouds of the Sierra. Still, traveling was not interrupted to any serious extent. The tide of emigration set in toward Excelsior about the first of May, and continued without abate- ment through the month of June. During these months it inay be safely estimated that no less than four thousand people visited the new district. It appearel for a time that the ex- citing scenes which had been witnessed in Virginia City a few years previously, were destined to be repeated in Meadow Lake. In the town all was excitement and activity. The bar rooms of the public houses, three in all, and the saloons were crowded to overflowing with the strangers who had been attracted to the village. Every sleeping place and corner were in demand, and from twenty-five to thirty per- sons were often crowded together at night in a room aptly styled a corral. There was nothing talked of but feet,
helyes, stocks and town lots The latter were held at figures that seemed to a cool observer, not merely extravagant, but absurdly high. For a lot sixty by eighty feet, on any of the principal streots, from $1,500 to $2,500 were asked, and actually, in some instances, paid. Rents were advanced in the same proportion. A small tenement on ( street, with a frontage of eighteen feet and a depth of twenty-four fort, rented for $200 per month. The possessor of a few corner lots considered himself a millionaire, and talked of his thou- sands of dollars with more nonchalance than he would have exhibited, at some former period of his life, in discussing the details of a bargain which involved as many dimes. There was but little building undertaken until the latter purt of June. Although there were four saw mills in the district, which had been constantly in operation since spring, yet owing to the inclemency of the weather nund the almost in- passible state of the roads leading from them to the town, lumber was scarce, nun held at high prices, ranging from $50 to $75 per thousand feet. The only supplies of the much needed article came from Sierra Valley, a distance of some fifteen miles. As soon as materials could be obtained, building commeneed ou an extensive scale, and during the months of July and August from four to tive boundred frame houses were erected. Some of these tenements were really handsome and substantial edifices and remain as useful and ornamental structures, giving to the town an upprarnice decidedly more aristocratic and city like than is usually seen in a mountain village.
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