The following appeared in the Candelaria, Nevada newspaper about Capt. C.A. Merrill’s undertaking at Eagle Lake. (For those not familiar with Candelaria was a mining town between Hawthorne and Tonopah.
Not only did Merrill plan to tap Eagle Lake for irrigation, but he planned for a major manufacturing city at Belfast. With the tunnel, along flumes, it was the intent to log the timber at Eagle Lake, float it across to the tunnel, where eventually using Willow Creek and a series of flumes, the logs would then be manufactured at Belfast. The enterprise was widely followed by the press in California and Nevada.
True Fissure, March 25, 1882: “The Eagle Lake Tunnel. The tunnel to tap Eagle Lake is being advanced at the of thirty-five feet per week. It will be about a mile and half long, and it is expected that it will be completed next fall. It will furnish water power for running several sawmills and finally will irrigate a great area of now barren sagebrush land in Honey Lake Valley. The tapping of the lake is an experiment that is being watched with great interest everywhere on the coast. Should it prove as successful as is anticipated, it will be followed by a similar tapping of many lakes on both sides of the Sierra for mining, timbering and other purposes.”
Finally, a big thank you to Bill Johnson for sending along this article.