By 1875, Capt. C.A. Merrill began work in earnest to tap Eagle Lake for irrigation in the Honey Lake Valley. He first formed the Lassen County Land & Flume Company, but within four years that endeavor failed.
In 1881, he went into partnership with Peter N. Marker, a Nevada State Senator. In June 1881, work on the tunnel began on the Willow Creek side, only a short distance from the headwaters of Willow Creek. The length of the tunnel was 7,725 feet and it was their belief when completed could provide 780 million gallons of water every twenty-four hours! By the summer of 1883 the tunnel had extended to 1,200 feet, still some 6,000 feet short of completion. By the end of the year work was suspended due to a disagreement between Merrill and Marker. Things were so bad, they ended up suing each other and thus the project tabled. Others, too, came along to revive it, and this tunnel enterprise was finally abandoned with Leon Bly’s tunnel proposal, located over a mile away from Merrill’s.
To learn more about Merrill and other attempts to tap the lake and the lake history, you might want to get a copy of Eagle Lake , as it will soon be out of print, with less than 6 copies in stock.
