Truckee River

“ The Truckee River rises on the borders of El Dorado and Placer Counties, and is the outlet of Lake Tahoe, discharging its waters into Pyramid Lake in Nevada. This mountain stream is justly celebrated for the wild charm of its scenery. There is a village bearing the same name, in Nevada County, well-known to travelers through being on the regular route to Tahoe. At this place winter sports, tobogganing, skiing, skating, etc., are provided for San Franciscans, who need to travel but a few hours to exchange their clime of eternal spring for the deep snows of the Sierras. ”

“ In response to the claim of California, the people of Nevada, in which it appears they are backed up by the U.S. Reclamation Service, contend that Nature has already determined whither the overflow waters of Lake Tahoe shall go. That, while they do not wish in the slightest to restrict the proper use of the waters of the Truckee River by the dwellers upon that river, they insist that no one else is entitled to their use, and that every drop of superfluous water, legally and morally, belongs to them, to be used as they deem proper. ”

“ Those who are lovers of the sport so lauded by good old Isaak Walton, will find an abundance of trout in the small brooks putting down from the mountains. The lake has an outlet at the east end which forms a stream of considerable size, called Little Truckee River. ”

“ None of the grades were long, but one or two are steep, exceeding twenty per cent.54 The railroad, a flimsy, narrow-gauge affair, closely parallels the river and wagon road, but it is kept running the year round and keeps the scanty winter population about Tahoe in touch with the world.
Truckee is a typical wild western village with rather more than its share of saloons. These are well patronized, for there is a large working population in and about the town. It is a railroad division; a saw mill near by employs eight hundred men and a large paper pulp factory nearly as many. ”

“ We are now regularly settled on the Bear River, and have, as yet, seen no signs of human life round about us. The reports, therefore, which we heard at Weber's Creek, of the gold-finders having penetrated into this valley, would appear to have been without foundation. We have observed a fresh-made trail, which the old trapper seems to consider passes in the direction of the Truckee Lake; and we have noticed the remains of several camp-fires at different parts of the valley. ”

“ Luke and I reached the Truckee at nine o'clock in the forenoon, just ahead of the vanguard of cattle, and about three miles in advance of the foremost wagon.
We tried to regulate the cattle's consumption of water, but did not prevent their drinking all they could hold. Ten men, on ten mules, could not have [Pg 167] stopped one cow from plunging into that river, once she got sight of it, and remaining as long as she desired. We could not even prevent the mules we rode from rushing into it—that cold, rippling Truckee. ”

“ Each succeeding man would follow in the tracks of the leader. The latter soon became tired, fell to the rear, and the second man took the head of the file. When he became fatigued by breaking the trail he would fall back and so on each one in his turn.
At sunset of the 16th day we crossed the Truckee Lake on the ice and came to the spot where we had been told we should find the emigrants. We looked all around but no living thing except ourselves was in sight and we thought that all must have perished. We raised a loud halloo and then we saw a woman emerge from a hole in the snow. ”

“ To us, the long-time sun-dried, thirsty emigrants; covered from head to foot with dust from the Black Hills, overlaid with alkali powder from the Humboldt, veneered with ashes of the desert; all ingrained by weeks of dermatic absorption, rubbed in by the wear of travel, polished by the friction of the wind—to us said the Truckee, flowing a hundred feet wide, transparent, deep, cool; rattling and singing and splashing over the rocks ”

“ Having crossed this mountain, we again came, at five miles, to Truckies River, which we crossed and traveled down on the South side—passed across a barren plain, ten miles in width, and at fifteen miles, came to the Burnt Mountains. These are a succession of several high, perfectly barren, and very rocky ridges. The distance across, is about thirty-five miles, and the way was very tedious and toilsome. We found the Indians on Truckies River, generally, very wild, entirely naked, and miserably poor. They live in floating houses, constructed of long, coarse grass, on rafts of dry willow brush. ”

“ The place was named Truckee, and began to build up in 1865, with the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad at that point. It is a brisk and thriving place, and, besides its lumber and ice industries, has a good trade with an extensive farming and grazing region. It is wonderful that so large a town exists as is now seen, in view of the fact that since 1868 it has seven times 129 been swept by terrible fires, and by two or three of these it was, in different years, almost wiped out of existence. ”

“ Truckee is not only a pretty village, nestling on the snowy bosom of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but it is the center of a lake region, wherein abound some of the most remarkable bodies of water to be found on the globe. Fourteen miles towards the south is California’s favorite resort, Lake Tahoe, a really marvelous sheet of crystalline water that, from the mountain peaks which enclose it, looks like a colossal beryl that through some disturbment has been rolled out of the sky and found lodgment in the great lap of the Sierras. ”

“ While on the drive, men work fourteen hours a day, up to their waists in water filled with floating ice.
On the Ossawinamakee, as has been stated, three dams had been erected to simplify the process of driving. When the logs were in right distribution, the gates were raised, and the proper head of water floated them down.
Now the river being navigable, Thorpe was possessed of certain rights on it. Technically he was entitled to a normal head of water, whenever he needed it; or a special head, according to agreement with the parties owning the dam. ”

“ Lake Tahoe has upward of a hundred feeders, among which may be named Glenbrook, the Upper Truckee, Fallen Leaf Creek, Eagle Creek, Meek's Creek, General Creek, McKinney Creek, Madden Creek, Blackwood Creek, and Ward Creek, all of these being constant streams, pouring many thousands of inches of water daily into the Lake even at the lowest flow, and in the snow-melting and rainy seasons sending down their floods in great abundance.
To many it is a singular fact that Lake Tahoe never freezes over in winter. ”

“ The route we come there is two a day and a night's travel each without water or grass. The first is from big sandy to green river green woods cut-off. The second is from the sink of Mary's river to Truckey's river.
Between Mary's river and Truckey's is boiling springs. There is rocks blown out half as big as a house. These springs is not like other springs. The water does not run from them unless there is a blow-uo. It is boiling like a pot. There is a number of wam and hot springs on the road. ”

“ The Tugalo is one of the most beautiful streams I ever beheld. Its banks are finely diversified with mountain scenery, generally in the distance; while the bottoms are in the highest state of cultivation—indeed, some of the finest plantations, and best built mansions in all the southern country, are on this river. At times, the water, which is always clear, runs smooth and deep, for some distance, when suddenly it is broken by shoals, miles and miles in length ”

“ Indians have been hauling rock all winter for the dam. The canal, when completed, will be ten or fifteen miles long and will irrigate about 5,000 acres of the Milk river valley lands south of the river. These lands will grow excellent crops of grain and hay.
“A new enterprise that will be commenced this summer (1899) is a big reservoir on Warm Springs creek in the Little Rockies. This reservoir will cover 160 acres of land and will have an average depth of eighteen feet. It is designed to furnish a supply of water for irrigating purposes in the southern part of the reservation. ”

“ Darker grew the blue gloom, the dew fell heavily, aromatic odors floated on the air, and still the lofty peaks glowed with living light, till in one second it died off from them, leaving them with the ashy paleness of a dead face. It was dark and cold under the mountain shadows, the frosty chill of the high altitude wrapped me round, the solitude was overwhelming, and I reluctantly turned my horse's head towards Truckee, often looking back to the ashy summits in their unearthly fascination. ”

“ To the foremen Thorpe assigned their tasks, calling them to him one by one, as a general calls his aids.
“Moloney,” said he to the big Irishman, “take your crew and break that jam. Then scatter your men down to within a mile of the pond at Dam Two, and see that the river runs clear. You can tent for a day or so at West Bend or some other point about half way down; and after that you had better camp at the dam. Just as soon as you get logs enough in the pond, start to sluicing them through the dam. You won't need more than four men there, if you keep a good head. ”

“ Unfitted to some extent for the purposes of commerce by the sand-bar at its mouth, see how this river was devoted from the first to the service of manufactures. Issuing from the iron region of Franconia, and flowing through still uncut forests, by inexhaustible ledges of granite, with Squam, and Winnipiseogee, and Newfound, and Massabesic Lakes for its mill-ponds, it falls over a succession of natural dams, where it has been offering its privileges in vain for ages, until at last the Yankee race came to improve them. ”

“ At one's feet, apparently, lies the placid surface of Donner Lake, its pure blue giving one a premonitory foretaste of the richer blues that await him at Tahoe, while beyond are the mountains that overlook the Great Basin of Nevada.
Summit to Truckee, 11 Miles. Rapidly the road descends, well engineered and easy to negotiate to any responsible driver, and before one is aware he is bowling along on the level Donner Boulevard, which is as perfect a piece of country road as can be found anywhere on earth. ”

“ It is not improbable that, when the creeks shall have been worked out by the present methods of sluicing, quite as much additional wealth will be accumulated from the debris by hydraulic operations. The great richness of the country lies in the "benches,"—creek flats and hillsides,—and to operate them successfully great ditches are being constructed. For instance, on Ophir Creek the Wild Goose Company now has under [Pg 241] way a ditch, paralleling the creek, twelve miles long and twelve feet wide, which eventually will extend twelve miles further, to the mouth of the stream. ”

“ Small mountain game is plentiful near the lake. Bear may be found by those anxious to see them by taking a tramp in the chaparral thickets of the higher peaks. There is a good hotel at the lake, yet it is a great place of resort for campers. Where the greatest depth of water is only 80 feet, no one is afraid of drowning. The lake has an outlet, which is one of the affluents of the Little Truckee. ”

“ On his arrival at Glenbrook, the tourist that came via Truckee will find stages in waiting to carry him to Carson City, where he will take the Virginia and Truckee Railroad to the Central Pacific at Reno. ”

“ Because of this spreading habit of the stream, the few villages along the way are planted on the higher land at the base of the bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket-plateau 245 which the river, as in ages past it has worn its bed to lower levels, has left high and dry above present overflows. Some of these towns, in their fear of floods, are situated two or three miles back from the water highway; others, where the channel chances to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abutting the river, which is crossed at such points by either a ferry or a toll-bridge. ”

“ From Summit a large V flume was constructed down Clear Creek Canyon into Carson City, and into this flume a constant stream of water was poured from the reservoirs which carried upon its bosom another stream of boards, timber, studding, joists and sheathing, the two streams emptying simultaneously just outside of Carson City at a point on the Virginia & Truckee railway, where the lumber was loaded and thence shipped to its place of consumption. ”

“ Here the affluents of the Novarro River are drawn together like threads of lace; and the first trout stream leaps and eddies in the deep defiles on its way to the ocean. There is no use of fumbling in an outside pocket for fish-hooks. The stream has a fishy look; but that band of rancheria Indians, who have gone into summer camp on a sand-bar, will settle the trout question for the next ten miles. They pop their heads out of a round hole in one of the wigwams like prairie dogs, and seem to stand on their hind legs, with the others pendent, as if just going to bark. ”

“ Our first camp on Tchitagama was at the sunrise end of the lake, in a bay paved with small round stones, laid close together and beaten firmly down by the waves. There, and along the shores below, at the mouth of a little river that foamed in over a ledge of granite, and in the shadow of cliffs of limestone and feldspar, we trolled and took many fish: pike of enormous size, fresh-water sharks, devourers of nobler game, fit only to kill and throw away; huge old trout of six or seven pounds, with broad tails and hooked jaws, fine fighters and poor food ”