Note: While I am getting around better, I still have a long way to go. Some might have noticed that the published October Preview has deviated from what was intended. My apologies, but scanning images to accompany topics, has presented a challenge, due to my ongoing recovery from a broken hip. Please have patience sooner or later the intended topic will appear.
It is only fitting that a week ago, I attended the Eagle Lake Interagency Board meeting and yesterday’s Lassen County Planning Commission meeting. Since so much focus has been with drought levels of Eagle Lake, and groundwater basins, I thought let’s take a look at the other extreme.
Ten years before Eagle Lake reached its historic high level of 1917 of 5125.2, the region witnessed a notorious wet cycle. March 1907 was rather dramatic with over 12 inches of precipitation—sometimes in the form and rain, and other times as snow. In January 1911, witnessed the first of two “big snows” wherein Susanville received 8 feet; Standish five feet, Wendel 8 feet. This wet cycle was enough for B.F. Gibson of Litchfield to propose a canal from Honey Lake to Pyramid Lake as way to rid the area of excess water. That summer Malvena Gallatin started the process of a summer home site on the south shore of Eagle Lake, but the strip of land that became known as Gallatin Beach was under water. In 1913, she finally found a suitable high spot and the Gallatin House became a reality.
But the snows continued. On Christmas Eve 1913, three and a half feet of snow fell in Susanville. It was followed by warm rains in January causing tremendous flooding. Then another storm, dropped eight feet of snow, and of course greater quantities in the mountains.
On January 2, 1916, it snowed for three continuous weeks, with fourteen feet of snow at Westwood and over twenty feet of snow at Westwood Junction, located near McCoy Flat Reservoir. Thus, it is easy to see that kind of moisture over a ten-year period, with the ground saturated; Eagle Lake reached its historic high-level mark. Both Malvena Gallatin and Jim Fritter another shoreline owner were eager to accommodate Leon Bly and his tunnel project to alleviate the high waters. Little did anyone know, the spigot was literally turned off and the region embarked on a twenty-year drought. (Paid subscribers received my paper on Historic Weather Patterns, which I presented to the Eagle Lake Interagency Board earlier this year.)