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| Dawn on Lower Sardine Lake |
Recently my wife Carol and I spent a few days at Sardine Lake, just below the Sierra Buttes, near the North Yuba. It's a gorgeous place! The area north of the Sierra Buttes and south of Mohawk Valley contains something like 50 lakes and ponds. Between Upper Salmon Lake and Gold Lake a ridge divides the watersheds of theMiddle Fork of the Feather River and the North Yuba. The Nisenan, Maidu, Washo, and the unnamed people who preceded them, visited this area for thousands of years.
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| Lower Sardine Lake, circa 1890s. Photographer unknown |
By 1850 miners were searching for gold in the region. They came to this remote place based on the delusions of a man named Stoddard who traveled to Marysville, Nevada City and other places displaying a few nuggets that he claimed came from a mountain lake with quantities of gold on its shore. While at the lake he was driven off by Indians and was trying to get together a party to join him in finding the lake again. About 25 men joined his group while another 500 to 1,000 gullible gold seekers followed behind. Sierra and Plumas County historians, Farris & Smith (1882), called it "A perfect stampede". The gold seekers never did locate the bountiful lake, but while there they prospected and found lode gold near the Sierra Buttes and placer gold at Rich Bar on the Middle Fork of the Feather among other discoveries.
The beauty of the Sierra Buttes and Lakes Basin region did not go unnoticed. In 1858 the Coleman House at Gold Lake ran this advertisement in the Sierra Democrat: “The house is supplied with the conveniences of a first-class hotel, and in addition, there is every facility for rowing and sailing on the Lake, hunting on shore, fishing, bathing, and every other character of diversion to be expected in a resort of this character.”
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| Bassetts Station, 1910. Note the Bear hide on the right front fender. Courtesy of the Sierra County Historical Society Museum at the Kentucky Mine |
In the early 1860s William G. Hancock opened a way-station where Howard Creek enters the North Yuba, near the present-day intersection of Highway 49 and the Gold Lake Highway. Chris Tegerman bought it in 1865 and it became the Howard Ranch. When the Yuba Gap Wagon Road opened in 1870, Jacob and Mary Bassett bought the ranch and renamed it Bassett's Station. The Bassets built a large log structure and two barns, one for horses and another for oxen. They also maintained a blacksmithing shop, a sawmill and a boarding house for sawmill workers and miners. There was even access to a telegraph. In 1900 breakfast and lunch cost 50 cents and supper $1. You could spend the night and have hay for your horse for $1. Nearby a sawmill operated from the mid 1880s to the early 1900s.
The late nineteenth century brought a surge of interest among Californians in natural environments for relaxation and recreation. Outdoor camping and mountain climbing were important aspects of this movement and had a special appeal to city people. There was even a form of medical treatment known as the "wilderness cure." Early in the twentieth century, appreciation of the outdoors had become a national cult and perhaps nowhere held more appeal than did California.
The North Yuba became a popular area for summer resorts, especially those in the vicinity of Goodyear's Bar, Downieville, Sierra City and Gold Lake. Among the local resorts were the Diamond L Ranch at Lusk Meadows which opened in 1908, offering fishing, hunting and excursions on horseback with 13 cabins available to visitors. The McGee Resort opened on Upper Salmon Lake in 1910. When the three Christian brothers took over in the 1930s they built 40 cabins and platform tents and renamed it the Salmon Lake Resort. Packer Lake, a favorite camp spot for pack trains, became the Packer Lake Resort in 1926. When the Browning family acquired Sardine Lake in 1935 they built a structure in 1941 and by 1946 they offered six rental cabins and called it the Sardine Lake Resort.
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| McGee's Resort at Salmon Lake, 1925 Photographer unknown |
After the Depression the Tahoe National Forest began hiring professional landscape architects to design campground facilities. A major attraction in this area is the Sierra Buttes Fire Lookout, first built in 1915-16 and replaced in 1964. The lookout is 8,587' in elevation and is definitely worth the climb. Aircraft have replaced lookout towers, in part, because their radius of effective fire detection doesn't usually exceed 15 miles.
In 1886 the Hayes-Steelman Road connected Bassett's and Gold Lake and it was realigned and reconstructed in 1913. In the 1960s the Forest Service constructed a good road to Gold Lake and in 1972 extended it to Mohawk Valley in Plumas County.
A trail over Yuba Pass opened in 1852, expressman Sam Langton, and others still used it in 1863. Before the opening of the Yuba Gap Wagon Road in 1870, Sierra County produced about 2,000 bales of hay. When freight wagons started using the new road over the summit production immediately increased to 11,000 bales. Most of the hay, essential to feed oxen, horses and mules, came from Sierra Valley.
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| The Harris & Freeman Stage between Blairsden and Sierra City. Courtesy of the Sierra County Historical Society Museum at the Kentucky Mine |
Stagecoaches, weighing about 2,500 pounds, carried nine to twelve passengers inside and up to a dozen more on its flat roof. Reinsmen were often called “jehus” after the biblical charioteer, described thusly: "for he driveth furiously". On steep uphill grades passengers were expected to get out and walk and men were expected to push.
The economy of nearby Sierra City depended entirely on hardrock, or lode mines. Ore was usually mined underground and then transported to the surface, where it was crushed and processed for its gold content. Sierra City enjoyed prosperity between 1870 and 1914. Its most successful mine, the Sierra Buttes Mine,discovered in 1850, sold in 1870 for $1 million to London-based investors. They made significant improvements in its operations, by 1882 the mine's three mills had 96 stamps in operation. In 1888 the mine employed 209 men at an average wage of $50 per month with board. The Sierra Buttes Mines produced between $17 and $20 million in gold.
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| Part of the tram at the Young America Mine on Lower Sardine Lake. Photographer unknown |
YOUNG AMERICA MINE
Oliver Sunderhaus and Philip Deidesheimer located a mining claim on the north slope of Lower Sardine Lake in October of 1883. In 1885 they opened the Number 1 Tunnel and took close to 100 pounds of the rich ore to Downieville. The Mountain Messenger enthused, “It is a fine a lot as can be found anywhere. The Young America has every appearance of being a bonanza”. Within a few months a wagon road from the Gold Lake Road, a ten-stamp mill and a boarding house were completed. Next a 3,200 foot cable tramway was constructed to deliver ore to the mill. By 1886 there were 40 stamps dropping at the Young America Mine where a December clean-up of 25 day's work yielded $25,563.
The holdings of the Young America Consolidated contained four lakes. The uppermost is Young America Lake which functioned as a reservoir for snowmelt. Upper Sardine Lake provided water for the operation of the Young American mill and hoists located on the north shore of Lower Sardine Lake. Below Lower Sardine was a wetland where the tailings were impounded – today it is a recreational area known as Sand Pond. The gross proceeds of the mine and mill for the year ending August 15, 1886 amounted to $294,000.
The Mountain Messengerof January 12, 1889 posted an article describing a lively event at the mine. Three carriage loads of revelers and one of Sierra City's two brass bands were invited to the Young America Mine where "Lower Salmon Lake was brilliantly illuminated with bonfires and skating was indulged in until after midnight, the skaters keeping time to the sweet and enlivening music of the "Spanish Band". This sounds like a wonderful time and I'm sorry I missed it, but reading about it made me remember a time in the early 1980s, when I was cross-country skiing with my late wife Susan on Lower Sardine Lake. It was a beautiful day in March so we decided to soak up all the sun we could by skiing naked. It was exhilarating and Susan looked mighty fine gliding around in such a gorgeous setting. After about 30 minutes or so we realized that we could get burnt in seldom seen places so we dressed and skied on, laughing all the way.
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| One of Sierra City's brass bands. Photographer unknown |
Several offers to purchase the mine were made in 1889 – the owners were asking a million dollars. In the same year a representative from the State Mineralogist visited the mine. He reported that 120 men were employed; 72 of them worked in the mine earning an average of $2.50 a day while the six men in the mill made $3 a day and the 42 men who worked outside as timbermen, teamsters, breakmen, blacksmiths, etc. were paid $2.25 a day. A six foot Pelton Wheel powered the 40-stamp mill and a three foot wheel ran the air compressor.
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| Workers from the Young America Mine pose on a flume. The Lakes are Upper and Lower Sardine. Photographer unknown
The average monthly clean-up of the Young America from September of 1885 through 1890 averaged about $20,000, but began to decline at the end of that period. Production of high grade ore in the latter part of 1891-1892 decreased significantly and the mine owners found themselves in financial trouble. In April of 1892, instead of a dividend, an assessment was levied on the stock held by the owners. There was very little work done in 1892-3. In all the Young America produced over $1.5 million, making it one of the richest mines in this area. According to the 13th Report of the State Mineralogist (1896) the Young America was no longer operating but was recently sold and a cyanide plant was erected to process the tailings.
Today the water of Lower Salmon Lake is clear and the mine's 40 stamp mill is no longer pounding and clanging away. If you were visiting here 130 years ago you would have encountered an industrial setting with an entirely different atmosphere.
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