The outlet construction camp of the Bly Tunnel, 1922. Courtesy of Lola L. Tanner
This sounds a little far-fetched to me, but the following appeared in Lassen Advocate on May 19, 1922 with the latest update on the construction of Bly Tunnel.
”An interesting circumstance in connection with the tunnel work is the fact that mules are used therein to haul cars used to convey the excavated materials to the incline. These mules were taken down the incline last fall and have remained underground continuously ever since, except a short time ago one of them became slightly indisposed and was brought to the surface for treatment. Upon reaching the surface and encountering the strong light of day, the mule apparently became panic stricken and cavorted around in an unusual manner for some time and finally backed up to the mouth of the incline and descended downward to the tunnel level, holding on to the slats or steps with his front feet. He is now back on the job and will probably stay until the tunnel is completed.”
Initial work on Bly’s Eagle Lake tunnel began on the Willow Creek side, just as Merrill did before him. By the spring of 1922, rumor was circulating that there were problems with the construction of the tunnel. In May, J.F. Blakemore, the superintendent for Grant Smith Co., the tunnel contractor, invited residents to Eagle Lake for a picnic, as work had not started on the lake side. When some of his guests questioned him about the rumors, Blakemore denied it and that everything was going smooth and the tunnel would be completed in time.
A year later with the approaching completion of the tunnel, the story had changed. The initial plans called for the tunnel to tap the lake forty below its surface. That was later renegotiated to eight to nine feet below the surface. In February 1923, Grant Smith encountered solid rock for the last portion of tunnel which put the project behind schedule. In the end, Grant Smith only tapped the lake three feet below the surface of the lake. This was totally unacceptable and did not provide sufficient water flow. The matter would be litigated. The Baxter and Tule Irrigation Districts, owners of the tunnel, would spend the next ten years deepening the tunnel inlet.
In the early 1900s there was a new battle as to who would gain control of Eagle Lake to tap it via a tunnel to irrigate the Honey Lake Valley. To be quite honest, attorneys benefited the most. While sifting through the archives, during a very cold and dry January, I came across a most unusual 1906 report about how the Lassen Willow Creek Water Company and its plans to exploit Eagle Lake. More about that in a future post. However, there was a certain aspect about water diversions that were never made public. If you happened to be named Martin, this story will particularly appeal to you.
In 1905, the Lassen Willow Creek Water Company was formed and unlike their predecessors they viewed Eagle Lake as a reservoir. In the fall of 1906, the company consulted with San Francisco Civil Engineer, Marsden Manson, who was involved with Hetch Hetchy. In Manson’s report of October 29, 1906 he wrote that to permanently increase the flow into Eagle Lake it would be necessary to divert portions of the headwaters of Susan River into Pine Creek. It was his opinion the run off of the Susan River is wasted flowing into Honey Lake. It would cost less than $10,000 to construct the diversion canal. Manson’s report was never made public, the water users of Susan River would never allow it.* Of course, this never materialized and by this time the Lassen Willow Creek Water Company was on the verge of imploding.
Some years have a way for things to come together and that was the case for Spaulding Tract. On May 21, 2005 a dedication ceremony was held for the new $2.5 million Spaulding Marina.
In 2004, the property owners there approved to build a sewer system at an approximate cost of $10 million, which the community’s cost would be $8.8 million. In May 2005 it was announced that the Spaulding Tract Community Service District received a $1.8 million grant from the USDA as a part of rural development. With everything in place that summer they were ready to accept bids for the construction.
A view of Spalding Tract from the Eagle Lake shoreline,June 21, 2020.
An acquaintenance of mine was surprised to learn that famed modern art painter, Jackson Pollock attended school at Janesville. The other day, I was thinking about a well known archaeologist who attended school at Missouri Bend, some three miles from Janesville. There the similarities stop.
In 1926, Harry S. Riddell moved his family to a small farm north and east of Janesville. Riddell, an engineer, was hired by the Baxter Creek & Tule Irrigation Districts to see if he could come up with a solution with the problems surrounding the Bly Tunnel at Eagle Lake. His two sons, only barely a year apart, Harry and Francis attended the Missouri Bend School. The two boys started noticing arrowheads on the school grounds. They were fascinated by this other finds of Native American artifacts. In 1936, the family moved to Sacramento. Both Harry and Francis studied and became archeologists. Harry was the low-key of the two. Before I go any farther, Francis was best to known to his colleagues and friends as Fritz. However, he was always Francis to me.
The old Missouri Bend School, December 2020–Smith Properties
Francis became the first archeologist to be hired by the State of California, first as a curator of the California State Indian Museum. Later, he went to work in the Department of Parks & Recreation. In 1948, he began to participate in archaeological surveys throughout the state, using a standardize form, something unheard at the time.
Francis had a special fondness for the Honey Lake Valley and the Indians there. He was involved with the archaeological excavations of Karlo and Tommy Tucker Cave. Francis did not stop there. He had a passion for Indian Ethnography to better understand his work. As Francis commented, “I could not separate the past from the present.” During the late 1940s and 1950s, Riddell, along with colleague Bill Evans would compile the Ethnographic History of the Honey Lake Maidu and the Honey Lake Paiute. A very valuable document, indeed.
Not only was Riddell was highly regarded in California archaeology, but for his work in Peru. Riddell even invited me to partake in one of his Peruvian expeditions. Alas, I had to decline due to a lack of funds.
Leon Bly sounding Eagle Lake. Courtesy of Wyn Wachhorst
There were all kinds of social groups of days gone by, prior the advent to television and later the internet. The Lakeside Literary Club was a group of women comprised of the Tule District a region that encompassed the lower Susan River before it enters Honey Lake.
At the May 1922 meeting of the Lakeside Literary Club, Mrs. J.T. Barnes and Mrs. Erma Haley presented a lengthy report on the Eagle Lake Irrigation Project that was currently under construction. According, to the two women, Bly’s original plans were rather dramatic. Below is an excerpt:
”While spending a vacation at the summer home of the Gallatins at Eagle Lake, Mr. Leon Bly, an engineer from San Francisco, became interested in the possibilities of making some use of this large body of water. Thirsty land might be found and the ever increasing demand for electric power could be partially applied. He planned to take the water to the Sacramento Valley by means of tunnels connecting with the natural channel of the Feather River.”
The women noted that there were too many obstacles to overcome and Bly turned his sights on the Honey Lake Valley. While Bly’s initial proposal sounds farfetched, as late as the 1960s there were plans to divert Susan River into the Feather River drainage. That would be very simple to do.
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.
Bly tunnel inlet, July 1924. Courtesy of Wyn Wachhorst
In 1934, the California Department of Fish & Game introduced two varieties of fish into Eagle Lake. The first was a spiny ray fish, though exactly which specie it did not identify. They thought they would be successful because of their breeding habits. However, due to the lake’s high alkaline content the fish were almost immediately killed when planted in the lake.
The other experiment was with coho salmon. It was a substantial planting of 250,000 of coho. A problem occurred sometime between the initial planting and the spring of 1935. Unknown parties had removed the fish screen at Bly Tunnel. Instinctively, a large population of the salmon migrated through the tunnel, just as they would like a regular stream to reach the ocean. Fish and Game officials were furious to say they least. They stated there would be no more fish plantings until the problem was fixed.
While the fish screen was reinstalled, Fish and Game were hesitant of future plantings due to the high alkalinety of the water.
Grant Smith’s tunnel works, Eagle Lake, 1922–Courtesy of Lola L. Tanner
Without archives, we would not have records about our past. Some readers might find this a bit mundane. Since we are approaching the end of year, some focus on tidying things in the record department.
In 1996, a colleague of mine and dear friend, Francis, better know as “Fritz” Riddell desired to assemble all collections of the Baxter Creek and Tule Irrigation Districts, i.e., Bly Tunnel and have them deposited with California State Archives. Riddell’s father, Harry, was hired as an engineer in the late 1920s to see if he could find a remedy to the problems of Bly Tunnel. He had all of his father’s records. In my possession were the district records by two of their attorneys, Hardin “Finn” Barry, and J.A. “Gus” Pardee. There was a third piece, the County of Lassen, which the Planning Department had stored boxes of the irrigation districts records. The County was agreeable and mission accomplished.
Drakesbad, 1939
During the early 1990s, I came into possession of the Sifford papers. This material primarily generated by Alex Sifford and his son, Roy. In 1900, Alex Sifford purchased what was known as Drakes Springs, and later transformed into Drakesbad resort located in Lassen Volcanic National Park, that was created sixteen years later. They, too, needed a permanent home. In May 2021, they are now part of the archives of Lassen Volcanic National Park.
Gallatin Beach and Peak, 1916. Courtesy of Wyn Wachhorst
This was part of the headline statement featured in the Lassen Mail of November 20, 1931 when it was reported that the water level of Eagle Lake had reached its lowest level, yet. The newspaper stated from the lake’s highest point had now dropped by twenty-six feet. That over a ten year period the lake had dropped two and half feet each year. The paper blamed the unusually light winter precipitation that was cause of the drop. It went on to state that in normal times the spring run off into the lake varied from two to five feet. Had this occurred, according to their opinion, that was sufficient amount of water to cover from the effects of evaporation and the water drawn from irrigation.
