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Van Norden and the Dam, and Summit Valley Ice

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Van Norden and the Dam, and Summit Valley Ice May, 2013 issue #57 History Preserved Pt III Van Norden and the Dam, and Summit Valley Ice This month we return to the theme of History Preserved with the acquisition of Summit Valley by the Truckee Donner Land Trust. We first tackled the Native American presence in the valley in our February issue and then the geological history in our March issue. Here we take a look at the Van Norden Dam and the Summit Valley Ice Co. Still to come in future issues about Summit Valley: the sheep industry, the Dutch Flat Donner Lake Wagon Rd., the Emigrant Trail and the proposed memorial trail, pictures of Summit Valley, and Norm Sayler’s reminiscences. For decades I drove by Van Norden, or Summit Valley, on Old Highway 40 in ignorance. I did not know what riches the valley held, but then it was all private property and access was restricted. Last summer we had a good feeling that fund raising would be successful and began the discovery of Summit Valley. It is biologically the richest part of the Donner Summit area because it has so many different habitats. But The Heirloom is only an historical newsletter so we will not cover anything about the 500 plant species, more than 100 bird species, the amphibians, the mammals, or the hundred plus butterfly species. We’ll stick just to the history. Donner Summit is the richest historical area in California and maybe the entire Western United States. There has been a parade of history across the pass. Native Americans used the pass to travel and used Summit Valley as a summer home and a meeting place for trade. The first wagon train to reach California with wagons came through the pass and through Summit Valley, led by 80 year old Caleb Greenwood. Many more emigrants followed including the various rescue attempts to save the Donner Party. The first transcontinental railroad, the first transcontinental highway, the first transcontinental telephone line, and the first transcontinental air route all went across the pass and through the valley (the air route had beacons and a weather station overlooking the valley). The first crossing of the Sierra in a motorized vehicle, besides trains, was through Summit Valley. Then there are all the stories that go with those events and much more. ©Donner Summit Historical Society May, 2013 issue 57 page 1 Now that we have access, Summit Valley is not just a pretty spot along Old Highway 40. It is so much more. Here I encourage The First Dam in Summit you to pick up our new brochure, “Summit Valley,” available at fine businesses on Donner Summit and available for your Valley perusal on our website on the “brochure” page. "Arrived at the summit of the Sierra Nevada on the line of the railroad, there are many delightful Van Norden Dam This month we cover Van Norden Dam and separately, the pedestrian and horseback excursions to be made Summit Valley Ice Co. Driving by Van Norden over the years in various directions, and the finest points are I’d idly wondered who Van Norden was and why the name was fortunately the least hackneyed. At Summit Valley stuck on the valley. Was he a railroad pioneer? Did he run a (which is associated with the relief of the tragically local hotel? fated Donner emigrants, and is only three miles The story of the find starts with the State of California showing from Donner pass) there is an odious saw-mill, up one day and demanding that what is left of Van Norden Dam which has thinned out the forests; an ugly group of be notched to reduce the volume of the lake behind it. Someone whitewashed houses; a ruined creek, whose water had called the Office of Emergency Services in Nevada City and are like a tan-vat; a big sandy dam across the said the remnants were out of compliance. The OES notified valley, reared in a vain attempt to make an ice- the Division of Dam Safety in Sacramento and so the Land Trust, with an offer on the table to buy the valley and the rest of pond; a multitude of dead, blanched trees, a great, the 3,000 acres of Royal Gorge property, acquired a headache. staring, repellent blank. And yet this valley is not unlovely. It’s upper end, still a green meadow The order from the State set research wheels in motion: into the leads to the base of peaks 10,000 or 12,000 feet files at the Division of Dam Safety, onto the internet, and into high, whose light-gray summits of granite, or volcanic breccia, weather into castellated forms, rise in sharp contrast to the green woods margining the level meadow. A little apart from the noisy station, the woods are beautiful, as we have described them, and the bowlder-strewn [sic] earth reminds one of the pasture dotted with sheep." "Summering in the Sierra" pg 175 Benjamin Avery of Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine February, 1874 written by Rudolph Warner Van Norden in 1903. He said the demand for water by miners required canals and dams to obscure sources like the 1905 History of the New California and be built because the Sierra streams and rivers “became mere a 1903 issue of the Journal of Electricity, Power and Gas. There rivulets – but pitiful contrast to the swollen and turbulent was a little serendipity too. torrents which course through the grand canyons and meadow- like valleys for the remainder of the year.” The various P G & E had owned Summit Valley until 1999 and had used canals and reservoirs were owned by separate companies. For the dam to keep water in the valley. Towards the end of each example, the South Yuba Canal Co. constructed their South season the water would be let out to even out the flow to the Yuba Canal in 1865 to provide more water for the Bear River Drum Forebay Power Plant which is down the Yuba River. As Canal and for the mines in Grass Valley and Nevada City. The the water receded the grasses in the meadow grew and nurtured South Yuba is the river that gets its start just above Summit the sheep that came to Summit Valley each season. That’s a Valley, in Sugar Bowl, next to Bill Klein’s Schuss run, just future story. below Mt. Judah and just below the Pacific Crest Trail. P G & E documents said the dam was built in 1916 but the One of those early companies, the South Yuba Canal Company, California Department of Water Resources said the dam was “gradually extended its field of operation by occasionally built in 1900. Those sources sounded authoritative although absorbing a less prudent rival. For fifty-two years this process contradictory. How does one decide? of gradual absorption and expansion has brought under the main head of the South Yuba Water Company the larger part Further research turned up more sources including an article of the individual enterprises of Nevada and Placer Counties.” page 2 ©Donner Summit Historical Society May, 2013 issue 57 This accumulation of water facilities was used to supply the mining but then the State of California banned hydraulic mining in 1886. Just at that time the California fruit industry was developing and provided a “ray of hope [for] the now despairing company.” More orchards were planted and more irrigation canals were needed. There was demand for the product of the South Yuba Canal Company. It was during this phase that Rudolph Van Norden said the Van Norden Dam was built, in 1890, and not 1900 or 1916. Since it was his dam at the time of his 1903 article, that seemed like pretty good evidence. Then electricity arrived and there was a new use and demand for canals and water. The South Yuba Canal Co. formed a new company in 1905, the Central California Electric Co., to supply electricity and the first powerhouse was installed at Newcastle. In 1896 electricity reached Sacramento. By the time of the 1903 Above: Lake Van Norden 1903 from Journal of article the South Yuba Canal Co. had 450 miles of canals, flumes Electricity, Power and Gas pg 60 January 1903. The and pipelines, had 20 reservoirs, and had 150 square miles in its picture on page two of two gentlemen enjoying Van watershed supplying 200,000,000,000 gallons annually. Norden comes from the same journal. There it seemed we had the definitive answer to when the Van Norden Dam was built, 1890. After all, who would have known better than the son of the guy in charge of the company? Case closed. Just at that point in our investigations, Art Clark (Then and Now’s) was busy discovering spots on the 1915 State survey maps (see our March Above: Lake Van Norden in the mid-1920's issue) and we came across the picture of Soda Springs circa 1870 approximately where the old campground used to or so. A piece of that photograph, by Alfred A. Hart, is on page be. That may be T.C. Wohlbruck's automobile on the one of this issue. We were excited to find that picture and the shoreline. See The Heirloom Oct and Nov 2012 others (also in the March issue) that showed Soda Springs in the latter part of the 19th Century. They were the first we’d seen of old Soda Springs. Then we looked closely at the picture on page 1. There was clearly a dam – much earlier than 1890 - right at the end of the thoughtfully placed arrow.
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