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129-530: Originally constructed to replace a river-level crossing of the American River that would have been flooded by the reservoir that would have been created by the unbuilt Auburn Dam , the deck of the steel cantilever bridge stands 730 feet (220 m) above the river. It was fabricated in 1971 by Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan, built by Willamette Western Contractors, and opened in 1973. The four-lane bridge spans

258-495: A cascading failure of Folsom and Nimbus Dams downstream within an hour, unleashing millions of acre-feet of water which would cause far greater damage downstream than any natural flood. Most of the greater Sacramento area would be inundated; Nimbus Dam would be overtopped by 70 feet (21 m) of water and the California State Capitol would be under 40 feet (12 m) of water. An earlier study in 1975 predicted that

387-403: A 690-foot (210 m) earthfill dam holding back 2,500,000 acre-feet (3,100,000  dam ) of water was proposed. The pre-construction design was finalized in 1967, for a concrete thin-arch gravity structure over 680 feet (210 m) high. This dam would be 4,200 feet (1,300 m) long, 196 feet (60 m) thick at the base, and equipped with five 150 megawatt generators at its base for

516-485: A Federal Disaster Area. Rampaging streams and rivers incurred some $ 7.5 million in damages within the county. The rating for Sacramento's levees, supposedly designed to prevent a 125-year flood, was dropped to a 78-year flood in studies conducted after the 1986 event, which suggested that such weather occurred more frequently than previously believed. The floods tore out levees along the Sacramento and Feather Rivers through

645-464: A businessman who went on to great success was Levi Strauss , who first began selling denim overalls in San Francisco in 1853. Other businessmen reaped great rewards in retail, shipping, entertainment, lodging, or transportation. Boardinghouses, food preparation, sewing, and laundry were highly profitable businesses often run by women (married, single, or widowed) who realized men would pay well for

774-524: A failure of Folsom Dam alone would result in over 250,000 deaths. If Auburn were to fail at full capacity, the resulting flood would be over three times larger, and cause even greater damage, inundating land for miles on either side of the American and Sacramento rivers. Filling the Auburn Reservoir would result in a two-pronged, 40-mile (64 km) lake which would inundate numerous canyons and rapids of

903-476: A few years, there was an important but lesser-known surge of prospectors into far Northern California, specifically into present-day Siskiyou , Shasta and Trinity Counties . Discovery of gold nuggets at the site of present-day Yreka in 1851 brought thousands of gold-seekers up the Siskiyou Trail and throughout California's northern counties. Settlements of the gold rush era, such as Portuguese Flat on

1032-611: A gold rush in the region. The Mexican–American War ended on May 30 with the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo , which formally transferred California to the United States. Having sworn all concerned at the mill to secrecy, in February 1848, Sutter sent Charles Bennett to Monterey to meet with Colonel Mason, the chief U.S. official in California, to secure the mineral rights of

1161-531: A gorge downstream of the confluence of the North and Middle Forks of the American River and upstream of Folsom Lake , it would have regulated water flow and provided flood control in the American River basin as part of Reclamation's immense Central Valley Project . The dam was first proposed in the 1950s; construction work commenced in 1968, involving the diversion of the North Fork American River through

1290-548: A half-century ago for a site in the American River canyon near the Gold Rush town of Auburn, the dam has withstood attacks by U.S. presidents, member of Congress, state and federal agencies, environmentalists, tax watchdogs, scientists, engineers and even nature itself—the political equivalent of being shot, stabbed, drowned, poisoned, electrocuted and set on fire. — Renewed Flood Sensitivity Reactivates Auburn Dam – California Planning and Development Report, August 8, 2006 Although

1419-469: A large sea; underwater volcanoes deposited lava and minerals (including gold) onto the sea floor. By tectonic forces these minerals and rocks came to the surface of the Sierra Nevada, and eroded . Water carried the exposed gold downstream and deposited it in quiet gravel beds along the sides of old rivers and streams. The forty-niners first focused their efforts on these deposits of gold. Because

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1548-488: A method that involved digging a shaft 6 to 13 meters (20 to 43 ft) deep into placer deposits along a stream. Tunnels were then dug in all directions to reach the richest veins of pay dirt . In the most complex placer mining, groups of prospectors would divert the water from an entire river into a sluice alongside the river and then dig for gold in the newly exposed river bottom. Modern estimates are that as much as 12 million ounces (370  t ) of gold were removed in

1677-454: A possession of the United States, but it was not a formal " territory " and did not become a state until September 9, 1850. California existed in the unusual condition of a region under military control. There was no civil legislature, executive or judicial body for the entire region. Local residents operated under a confusing and changing mixture of Mexican rules, American principles, and personal dictates. Lax enforcement of federal laws, such as

1806-410: A previously claimed site. Disputes were often handled personally and violently, and were sometimes addressed by groups of prospectors acting as arbitrators . This often led to heightened ethnic tensions. In some areas the influx of many prospectors could lead to a reduction of the existing claim size by simple pressure. Approximately four hundred million years ago, California lay at the bottom of

1935-415: A prospector, but that claim was valid only as long as it was being actively worked. Miners worked at a claim only long enough to determine its potential. If a claim was deemed as low-value—as most were—miners would abandon the site in search of a better one. In the case where a claim was abandoned or not worked upon, other miners would "claim-jump" the land. "Claim-jumping" meant that a miner began work on

2064-476: A quake, the project had to be drastically redesigned. Over the next few years, while all construction was stayed, Reclamation conducted evaluations of the seismic potential of the dam site, even though these delays caused the cost of the project to rise with every passing year. The studies concluded that a major fault system underlay the vicinity of the Auburn Dam site, with many folds of metamorphic rock formed by

2193-413: A service done by a woman. Brothels also brought in large profits, especially when combined with saloons and gaming houses. By 1855, the economic climate had changed dramatically. Gold could be retrieved profitably from the goldfields only by medium to large groups of workers, either in partnerships or as employees. By the mid-1850s, it was the owners of these gold-mining companies who made the money. Also,

2322-593: A small amount of water through another tunnel under Auburn to meet local needs. However, some groups continue to support construction of the dam, which they state would provide important water regulation and flood protection. Starting in the 1850s during the California Gold Rush , the city of Sacramento rapidly grew around the confluence of the Sacramento River and its tributary the American River , near

2451-615: A small gold nugget in the roots among the bulbs. He looked further and found more gold. Lopez took the gold to authorities who confirmed its worth. Lopez and others began to search for other streambeds with gold deposits in the area. They found several in the northeastern section of the forest, within present-day Ventura County . In November, some of the gold was sent to the U.S. Mint , although otherwise attracted little notice. In 1843, Lopez found gold in San Feliciano Canyon near his first discovery. Mexican miners from Sonora worked

2580-504: A small number (probably fewer than 500) traveled overland from the United States that year. Some of these "forty-eighters", as the earliest gold-seekers were sometimes called, were able to collect large amounts of easily accessible gold—in some cases, thousands of dollars worth each day. Even ordinary prospectors averaged daily gold finds worth 10 to 15 times the daily wage of a laborer on the East Coast. A person could work for six months in

2709-531: A state . At the beginning of the gold rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of "staking claims" was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, such as panning . Although mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service. By 1869, railroads were built from California to

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2838-411: A steep, narrow and winding grade into the canyon on either side of the river, as comparisons to maps showing the old road alignment will attest. The contracts for various projects pertaining to the relocation of the roadway were given to O.K. Mittry and Sons, Hensel Phelps Construction Company, and Willamette-Western Corporation, the latter for the construction of the actual bridge. The Foresthill Bridge ,

2967-413: A tiny settlement before the rush began. When residents learned about the discovery, it at first became a ghost town of abandoned ships and businesses, but then boomed as merchants and new people arrived. The population of San Francisco increased quickly from about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 full-time residents by 1850. Miners lived in tents, wood shanties, or deck cabins removed from abandoned ships. There

3096-430: A total generating capacity of 700 megawatts. Two concrete-lined flip bucket spillways would abut both sides of the dam. With the initial plans set and the project authorized, construction work for the dam started in late 1968. Official groundbreaking of the Auburn Dam started on October 19, 1968, with preparatory excavations and test shafts drilled into the sides of the North Fork American River gorge. The contract for

3225-437: A tunnel and the construction of a massive earthen cofferdam . Following a nearby earthquake and the discovery of an unrelated seismic fault that underlay the dam site, work on the project was halted for fears that the dam's design would not allow it to survive a major quake on the same fault zone. Although the dam was redesigned and a new proposal submitted by 1980, spiraling costs and limited economic justification put an end to

3354-509: Is acknowledged as severely depleted. Since its inception, hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into the Auburn Dam project, but no further work has been done since the 1980s. However, the Bureau of Reclamation continues to list the Auburn as a considered alternative for the future of its Auburn-Folsom South Unit project. As of now, massive evidence of the dam's construction still remain in

3483-416: Is that some US$ 80 million worth of California gold (equivalent to US$ 2.6 billion today) was sent to France by French prospectors and merchants. A majority of the gold went back to New York City brokerage houses. As the gold rush progressed, local banks and gold dealers issued "banknotes" or "drafts"—locally accepted paper currency—in exchange for gold, and private mints created private gold coins . With

3612-709: The Accessory Transit Company . Many gold-seekers took the overland route across the continental United States, particularly along the California Trail . Each of these routes had its own deadly hazards, from shipwreck to typhoid fever and cholera . In the early years of the rush, much of the population growth in the San Francisco area was due to steamship travel from New York City through overland portages in Nicaragua and Panama and then back up by steamship to San Francisco. While traveling, many steamships from

3741-554: The Auburn State Recreation Area , which includes the former dam site. The reservoir would inundate most of the Auburn recreation area, although some new recreational opportunities such as boating, water-skiing and deep water fishing would be created as a result of the new lake. Many trails, including those used by the Tevis Cup and Western States Endurance Run , would be submerged. The Auburn Reservoir would also result in

3870-567: The Folsom Dam at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the American River to provide flood control for the Sacramento metropolitan area. However, the Folsom Dam, with a capacity of just 1 million acre feet (1.2 km ) compared to the annual American River flow of 2.7 million acre feet (3.3 km ), proved inadequate. A flood in 1955 filled the Folsom Reservoir to capacity, before

3999-606: The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 , encouraged the arrival of free blacks and escaped slaves. While the treaty ending the Mexican–American War obliged the United States to honor Mexican land grants, almost all the goldfields were outside those grants. Instead, the goldfields were primarily on " public land ", meaning land formally owned by the United States government. However, there were no legal rules yet in place, and no practical enforcement mechanisms. The benefit to

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4128-468: The Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, Doolittle drew public attention to the flood vulnerability of the Sacramento region. He also used the flood-protection "incompetence" of the Folsom Dam to his advantage, saying that "without an Auburn Dam we could soon be in the unenviable position of suffering from both severe drought and severe flooding in the very same year." He led all 18 Republican members of

4257-730: The Isthmus of Panama and the steamships of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company . Australians and New Zealanders picked up the news from ships carrying Hawaiian newspapers, and thousands, infected with "gold fever", boarded ships for California. Forty-niners came from Latin America, particularly from the Mexican mining districts near Sonora and Chile. Gold-seekers and merchants from Asia, primarily from China, began arriving in 1849, at first in modest numbers to Gum San (" Gold Mountain "),

4386-573: The Sacramento River , sprang into existence and then faded. The Gold Rush town of Weaverville on the Trinity River today retains the oldest continuously used Taoist temple in California, a legacy of Chinese miners who came. While there are not many Gold Rush era ghost towns still in existence, the remains of the once-bustling town of Shasta have been preserved in a California State Historic Park in Northern California. By 1850, most of

4515-535: The San Francisco Bay in 1849, only 700 were women (including those who were poor, wealthy, entrepreneurs, prostitutes, single, and married). They were of various ethnicities including Anglo-American, African-American, Hispanic , Native , European, Chinese, and Jewish. The reasons they came varied: some came with their husbands, refusing to be left behind to fend for themselves, some came because their husbands sent for them, and others came (singles and widows) for

4644-586: The San Joaquin Valley . Annual deficits of water in the state are projected to rise from 1,600,000 acre-feet (2,000,000  dam ) in 1998 to an estimated 2,900,000 acre-feet (3,600,000  dam ) by 2025. The state has proposed three or four solutions to the shortfall. One, the Peripheral Canal, would facilitate water flow from the water-rich north to the dry south, but has never been built due to environmental concerns. The raising of Shasta Dam on

4773-479: The United States House of Representatives from California in a protest in 2008, trying to convince Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to revoke the water-rights decision that California had made against Reclamation. Doolittle is sometimes known as the Auburn Dam's "chief sponsor". In response to public outcry, most pro-Auburn Dam groups now recommend the construction of a dry dam , or one that purely supports

4902-413: The fourth highest bridge in the United States , was completed in 1973. In 1975, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake shook the Sierra Nevada near Oroville Dam , about 50 miles (80 km) north of the Auburn Dam construction site. This quake concerned geologists and engineers working on the project so much that the Auburn Dam construction was halted while the site was resurveyed and investigations conducted into

5031-425: The tailrace of a lumber mill he was building for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter —known as Sutter's Mill , near Coloma on the American River . Marshall brought what he found to Sutter, and the two privately tested the metal. After the tests showed that it was gold, Sutter expressed dismay, wanting to keep the news quiet because he feared what would happen to his plans for an agricultural empire if there were

5160-403: The "first world-class gold rush," there was no easy way to get to California; forty-niners faced hardship and often death on the way. At first, most Argonauts , as they were also known, traveled by sea. From the East Coast, a sailing voyage around the tip of South America would take four to five months, and cover approximately 18,000 nautical miles (21,000 mi; 33,000 km). An alternative

5289-407: The American River. Area Congressman John Doolittle was one of the largest proponents of the Auburn Dam, and he appropriated several million dollars for funds to conduct feasibility studies for the dam. About $ 3 million went into the main feasibility report, and the remaining $ 1 million was used for a study concerning the relocation of California State Route 49 , which runs through the site. After

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5418-442: The Auburn Dam is now mostly considered history, there are still proponents and groups devoted to restarting the long-inactive project. Advocates argue that the construction of Auburn would be the only solution for providing much-needed flood protection to the Sacramento area; that millions of dollars have already been spent making preparations; that it would provide an abundant supply of reliable water and hydroelectricity; and also that

5547-422: The Auburn Dam proposal evolved, the project transformed from a primary flood-control structure to a multipurpose high dam that would serve various other purposes including long-term water storage, hydroelectricity generation, and recreation. One of the first ideas, publicized in the late 1950s, called for a 515-foot (157 m) embankment dam impounding 1,000,000 acre-feet (1,200,000  dam ) of water. In 1963,

5676-427: The Auburn would store very little water compared to its structural size. Lake Mead , the reservoir behind Hoover, stores about 28,500,000 acre-feet (35,200,000  dam ). The proposed Auburn Reservoir, with a mere 8% of that capacity, would require the construction of a dam as tall as Hoover and over three times as wide. As early as 1980, the cost of building the Auburn Dam was estimated at $ 1 billion. As of 2007,

5805-534: The Auburn-Folsom South Unit Project. The Auburn Dam would also be at risk for failure from an earthquake, due to the risk of the reservoir inducing a quake on one of the many fault lines that crosses the area, known as the Bear Mountain fault zone. Surface displacement of the ground might range from a few inches/centimeters to 3 feet (0.91 m) in each direction, depending on the magnitude of

5934-421: The California foreign miners tax passed in 1851, targeted mainly Latino miners and kept them from making as much money as whites, who did not have any taxes imposed on them. In California most late arrivals made little or wound up losing money. Similarly, many unlucky merchants set up in settlements that disappeared, or which succumbed to one of the calamitous fires that swept the towns that sprang up. By contrast,

6063-817: The Freeport Project came online in 2011 to redivert water supplies for East Bay Municipal Utility District and Sacramento County Water Agency from the Sacramento River instead of from the canal via the lower American River, thereby reducing the need for additional supplies from Auburn Dam to the American River. Anticipated diversions from the Folsom South Canal had previously been reduced when the Sacramento Municipal Utility District decommissioned its Rancho Seco nuclear facility in 1989 and no longer required large quantities of cooling water from

6192-536: The Methodist church deemed it necessary to send missionaries there to preach the gospel, as churches in that part of the state were not to be found. The first missionary to arrive was William Taylor who arrived in San Francisco in September 1849. For many months he preached in the streets to hundreds of people without salary, and ultimately after saving often generous donations from successful miners, he built and established

6321-620: The Modocs . The first people to rush to the goldfields, beginning in the spring of 1848, were the residents of California themselves—primarily agriculturally oriented Americans and Europeans living in Northern California , along with Native Californians and some Californios (Spanish-speaking Californians; at the time, commonly referred to in English as simply 'Californians'). These first miners tended to be families in which everyone helped in

6450-618: The Native American population's decline from disease, starvation, and the California genocide . The effects of the gold rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for gold rush immigration). Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon , the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America in late 1848. Of

6579-490: The North Fork American River canyon, specifically the excavations for the abutments and spillway, with the consequences of increased erosion. In recent decades, California has been struck with a series of severe droughts. In order to facilitate continued deliveries of water to the thirsty southern half of the state, the Central Valley and State Water Projects have been forced to cut water supplies for agriculture in much of

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6708-664: The North Fork of the American River in Placer County between the city of Auburn and the town of Foresthill in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Pedestrians can walk the length of the bridge in both directions. There was anti-Auburn Dam graffiti, showing protest of the planned dam, on the bridge's underside. A seismic retrofit project began in January 2011 and was completed in 2015, with an estimated cost of $ 74.4 million. The original bridge cost less than $ 13 million. The bridge can be seen in

6837-454: The North and Middle Forks of the American River. In 1981, the American River was acknowledged as the most popular recreational river in California. Over one million people visit the canyons of the North and Middle Forks of the American River each year to engage in various recreational activities, including kayaking, rafting, hiking, hunting, biking, horseback riding, gold mining, off-roading, and rock climbing. About 900,000 of these visitors go to

6966-483: The Sacramento Valley, and the city of Sacramento was spared by a close margin. Folsom Lake filled to dangerously high levels with runoff from the North, Middle and South Forks of the American River. The flood rapidly filled the pool behind the Auburn cofferdam to capacity, as the diversion tunnel could not handle all the water pouring into the reservoir. At about 6:00 A.M. on February 18, the rising water overtopped

7095-639: The Sacramento area by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency. Sugar Pine Reservoir , an auxiliary component of the Auburn-Folsom South Project upstream in the watershed, was transferred in title by the Bureau of Reclamation to Foresthill Public Utility District in 2003. As a result of a court decision in 1990 (Hodge Decision), the uses of Reclamation's Folsom South Canal changed further when

7224-494: The Sacramento or New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus , or the building of Sites Reservoir , has also been proposed. Lastly, the Auburn Dam has also been revived in light of this. According to supporters, it would cause the least environmental destruction of the multitude of choices, and would give the most reliable water yield, regardless of its skyrocketing costs. In part as an alternative to Auburn Dam project, flood control for

7353-547: The adventure and economic opportunities. On the trail many people died from accidents, cholera , fever, and myriad other causes, and many women became widows before even setting eyes on California. While in California, women became widows quite frequently due to mining accidents , disease, or mining disputes of their husbands. Life in the goldfields offered opportunities for women to break from their traditional work. Because of many thousands of people flooding into California at Sacramento and San Francisco and surrounding areas,

7482-473: The approximately 300,000 people who came to California during the gold rush, about half arrived by sea and half came overland on the California Trail and the California Road ; forty-niners often faced substantial hardships on the trip. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the gold rush attracted thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, and China. Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout

7611-566: The beginning of the 2002 film XXX in which Vin Diesel 's character Xander Cage is seen driving a stolen red Chevrolet Corvette off it, then jumping from the car mid-flight and parachuting to his accomplices at the bottom of the American River Canyon. It also appears in a montage sequence toward the end of the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth , and has been utilized in multiple exercise equipment advertisements. Due to its height,

7740-566: The bridge is a noteworthy suicide site. As of February 2024, there have been 102 suicides since the bridge's construction. As part of the bridge's 2011–2015 renovations, a 6 + 1 ⁄ 2 -foot-tall (2.0 m) pedestrian barrier was installed to prevent further attempts. The Bridge Fire, which burned under the Foresthill Bridge, started on September 5 and burned for a total of 9 days. 411 acres (166 ha) were burned, with CAL-FIRE reporting one injury. Auburn Dam Auburn Dam

7869-579: The building of the San Francisco Mint in 1854, gold bullion was turned into official United States gold coins for circulation. The gold was also later sent by California banks to U.S. national banks in exchange for national paper currency to be used in the booming California economy . The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new people in California within a few years, compared to a population of some 15,000 Europeans and Californios beforehand, had many dramatic effects. A 2017 study attributes

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7998-581: The canal. A pumping station to supply water to the Placer County Water Agency was built in 2006 on the Middle Fork American River, supplying 100 cubic feet per second (2.8 m /s) to a northwest-running pipeline, eliminating the need for Auburn Dam for this supply. The capacity of the station is eventually expected to be upgraded to 225 cubic feet per second (6.4 m /s). By 2006, the Bureau of Reclamation itself began to restore

8127-515: The clear intent to distinguish their higher class power over those that could not afford those accommodations. Supply ships arrived in San Francisco with goods to supply the needs of the growing population. When hundreds of ships were abandoned after their crews deserted to go into the goldfields, many ships were converted to warehouses, stores, taverns, hotels, and one into a jail. As the city expanded and new places were needed on which to build, many ships were destroyed and used as landfill. Within

8256-474: The cofferdam near the right abutment, creating a waterfall that quickly eroded into the structure. Although the cofferdam was designed with a soft earthen plug to fail in a controlled manner if any such event were to occur, the structure eroded quicker than expected. The outflow reached 100,000 cubic feet per second (2,800 m /s) by noon; several hours later the maximum discharge was reached at 250,000 cubic feet per second (7,100 m /s), completely inundating

8385-412: The construction of a dam as large as Auburn. The amount of water supply that Auburn Dam would make available was also in question, because while the American River floods in some years, in other years it barely discharges enough water to fill existing reservoirs. This cast doubts that Auburn could deliver enough water to justify its cost, or the completion of Folsom South Canal , the other major feature of

8514-425: The construction of other recreational amenities in the Auburn site. This act was seen as the final step of decommissioning the Auburn project and shelving it forever. https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/civil_works/CommonFeatures/ARCF_GRR_Final_EIS-EIR_Jan2016.pdf California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold

8643-430: The construction site and destroying almost half of the cofferdam. When the 265-foot (81 m) high cofferdam collapsed, its backed-up water surged downstream into already-spilling Folsom Lake less than a mile downstream, deposited the dam debris and raised the lake level suddenly. Folsom Dam outflow reached 134,000 cubic feet per second (3,800 m /s), which exceeded the design capacity of levees through Sacramento, but

8772-405: The contact of the foothill rocks and the granite batholith of the Sierra Nevada. Reclamation predicted that the Auburn Reservoir could induce an earthquake of up to a 6.5, while the U.S. Geological Survey projected a higher magnitude of 7.0. Nevertheless, Reclamation redesigned the Auburn Dam based on their 6.5 figure, even though a 7.0 would be three times stronger. The design for the Auburn Dam

8901-535: The cost to build the dam would be about $ 10 billion. Other projects to improve safety margins and spillway capacity of Folsom Dam, and to increase the capacity of levees in the Sacramento area, were projected to cost significantly less while also providing similar levels of flood protection. Also, the United States National Research Council believes that existing stream-flow records, which only date back about 150 years, are insuffient to justify

9030-595: The dam could be built, the Auburn-Foresthill Road – which crosses the river just upstream of the dam site – had to be relocated. Even before the project was authorized, contracts were let for the construction of a high bridge to carry the road over the proposed reservoir, as well as preliminary excavations at the dam site. The eventual design of Auburn Dam called for the creation of a reservoir with 2,300,000 acre-feet (2.8 km ) of capacity, more than twice that of Folsom Lake. The extra storage would greatly reduce

9159-438: The dam site, which then had been untouched for more than a decade. The river diversion tunnel was sealed but not filled in, and the remnants of the construction site in the riverbed as well as the remains of the cofferdam excavated from the canyon. After the riverbed was leveled and graded, an artificial riverbed with manmade Class III rapids was constructed to channel the river through the site. The restoration project also included

9288-482: The dam was even completed; it has also filled many times since. However, increased water uses and diversions, requirements for 200-year flood control, and joint system operations have increased seasonal flood capacity in Folsom Lake. The demand for irrigation water in the Sacramento area and other parts of the Central Valley were also growing. In 1854, a diversion dam was constructed on the North Fork American River at

9417-480: The destruction of thousands of acres of riverine habitat, and the inundation of historic and archaeological sites. In the end, the Auburn Dam project, once referred to as "the dam that wouldn't die" and "with more lives than an alley cat", was defeated by the intervention of environmentalists, conservationists, and cost-conscious economists. Although four bills to revive the dam project were introduced in Congress over

9546-417: The diversion tunnel through the mountainside on river left, 33 feet (10 m) in diameter, 2,400 feet (730 m) long, and equipped to handle a flow of 74,000 cubic feet per second (2,100 m /s) (a roughly 35-year flood) was let to Walsh Western for about $ 5.1 million in 1968. The actual construction of the tunnel itself did not begin until mid-1971, and it was completed in late November 1972. One worker

9675-634: The dominant activity held throughout the steamships was gambling, which was ironic because segregation between wealth gaps was prominent throughout the ships. Everything was segregated between the rich vs. the poor. There were different levels of travel one could pay for to get to California. The cheaper steamships tended to have longer routes. In contrast, the more expensive would get passengers to California quicker. There were clear social and economic distinctions between those who traveled together, being that those who spent more money would receive accommodations that others were not allowed. They would do this with

9804-447: The earthquake. Although a new concrete-gravity design by Reclamation was modeled to survive a magnitude 6.5 earthquake, it performed poorly under the 7.0 that the USGS had originally estimated. A Bureau of Reclamation study released in 1980 projected that a failure of Auburn Dam would result in a giant wave reaching Folsom Lake within five minutes; depending on reservoir levels, it would cause

9933-567: The easily accessible gold had been collected, and attention turned to extracting gold from more difficult locations. Faced with gold increasingly difficult to retrieve, Americans began to drive out foreigners to get at the most accessible gold that remained. The new California State Legislature passed a foreign miners tax of twenty dollars per month ($ 730 per month as of 2024), and American prospectors began organized attacks on foreign miners, particularly Latin Americans and Chinese . In addition,

10062-402: The eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, increasing the proportion of gold companies to individual miners. Gold worth tens of billions of today's US dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, though many who participated in the California gold rush earned little more than they had started with. Gold

10191-419: The eastern seaboard required the passengers to bring kits, which were typically full of personal belongings such as clothes, guidebooks, tools, etc. In addition to personal belongings, Argonauts were required to bring barrels full of beef, biscuits, butter, pork, rice, and salt. While on the steamships, travelers could talk to each other, smoke, fish, and other activities depending on the ship they traveled. Still,

10320-404: The effort. Women and children of all ethnicities were often found panning next to the men. Some enterprising families set up boarding houses to accommodate the influx of men; in such cases, the women often brought in steady income while their husbands searched for gold. Word of the gold rush spread slowly at first. The earliest gold-seekers were people who lived near California or people who heard

10449-431: The first Methodist church in California, and California's first professional hospital. When the Gold Rush began, the California goldfields were peculiarly lawless places. When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill, California was still technically part of Mexico, under American military occupation as the result of the Mexican–American War. With the signing of the treaty ending the war on February 2, 1848, California became

10578-437: The first five years of the Gold Rush. In the next stage, by 1853, hydraulic mining was used on ancient gold-bearing gravel beds on hillsides and bluffs in the goldfields. In a modern style of hydraulic mining first developed in California, and later used around the world, a high-pressure hose directed a powerful stream or jet of water at gold-bearing gravel beds. The loosened gravel and gold would then pass over sluices, with

10707-506: The first supply stores in Sacramento, Coloma, and other spots in the goldfields. Just as the rush began, he purchased all the prospecting supplies available in San Francisco and resold them at a substantial profit. Some gold-seekers made a significant amount of money. On average, half the gold-seekers made a modest profit, after taking all expenses into account; economic historians have suggested that white miners were more successful than black, Indian, or Chinese miners. However, taxes such as

10836-587: The flood risk to Sacramento. The dam was to be the principal feature of the Auburn-Folsom South Unit of the Central Valley Project, with the purpose to "provide new and supplemental water for irrigation, municipal and industrial use, and to replenish severely depleted ground water in the Folsom South region". Congress authorized the project in 1965; the targeted completion date was 1973. As

10965-487: The floods of the 1980s, public opinion began to turn against the Auburn Dam because of the massive estimated cost to finish the project, which was then already rising into the billions of dollars, and the fairly small amount of water it would capture relative to that cost. The best dam sites require a relatively small dam that can store massive amounts of water, and most of those sites in the U.S. have already been utilized. A comparison with Hoover Dam , for example, reveals that

11094-400: The forty-niners was that the gold was simply "free for the taking" at first. In the goldfields at the beginning, there was no private property, no licensing fees, and no taxes . The miners informally adapted Mexican mining law that had existed in California. For example, the rules attempted to balance the rights of early arrivers at a site with later arrivers; a " claim " could be "staked" by

11223-454: The gold in the California gravel beds was so richly concentrated, early forty-niners were able to retrieve loose gold flakes and nuggets with their hands, or simply " pan " for gold in rivers and streams. Panning cannot take place on a large scale, and industrious miners and groups of miners graduated to placer mining , using " cradles " and "rockers" or "long-toms" to process larger volumes of gravel. Miners would also engage in "coyoteing",

11352-559: The gold settling to the bottom where it was collected. By the mid-1880s, it is estimated that 11 million troy ounces (340 t) of gold (worth approximately US$ 15 billion at December 2010 prices) had been recovered by hydraulic mining. A byproduct of these extraction methods was that large amounts of gravel, silt , heavy metals , and other pollutants went into streams and rivers. Court rulings (1882 Gold Run and 1884 "Sawyer Act" ) and 1893 federal legislation limited hydraulic mining in California. As of 1999 many areas still bear

11481-440: The gold-bearing quartz. Once the gold-bearing rocks were brought to the surface, the rocks were crushed and the gold separated, either using separation in water, using its density difference from quartz sand, or by washing the sand over copper plates coated with mercury (with which gold forms an amalgam ). Loss of mercury in the amalgamation process was a source of environmental contamination . Eventually, hard-rock mining became

11610-423: The goldfields and find the equivalent of six years' wages back home. Some hoped to get rich quick and return home, and others wished to start businesses in California. By the beginning of 1849, word of the gold rush had spread around the world, and an overwhelming number of gold-seekers and merchants began to arrive from virtually every continent. The largest group of forty-niners in 1849 were Americans, arriving by

11739-702: The hills near Genoa , Italy were among the first to settle permanently in the Sierra Nevada foothills ; they brought with them traditional agricultural skills, developed to survive cold winters. A modest number of miners of African ancestry (probably less than 4,000) had come from the Southern States , the Caribbean and Brazil. A number of immigrants were from China. Several hundred Chinese arrived in California in 1849 and 1850, and in 1852 more than 20,000 landed in San Francisco. Their distinctive dress and appearance

11868-634: The huge numbers of newcomers were driving Native Americans out of their traditional hunting, fishing and food-gathering areas. To protect their homes and livelihood, some Native Americans responded by attacking the miners. This provoked counter-attacks on native villages. The Native Americans, out-gunned, were often slaughtered. Those who escaped massacres were many times unable to survive without access to their food-gathering areas, and they starved to death. Novelist and poet Joaquin Miller vividly captured one such attack in his semi-autobiographical work, Life Amongst

11997-402: The land where the mill stood. Bennett was not to tell anyone of the discovery of gold, but when he stopped at Benicia , he heard talk about the discovery of coal near Mount Diablo, and he blurted out the discovery of gold. He continued to San Francisco, where again, he could not keep the secret. At Monterey, Mason declined to make any judgement of title to lands and mineral rights, and Bennett for

12126-505: The late 1890s, dredging technology (also invented in California) had become economical, and it is estimated that more than 20 million troy ounces (620 t) were recovered by dredging. Both during the gold rush and in the decades that followed, gold-seekers also engaged in "hard-rock" mining, extracting the gold directly from the rock that contained it (typically quartz ), usually by digging and blasting to follow and remove veins of

12255-404: The latter design because it would have greater mass, allowing it to better withstand earthquakes. In early February 1986 ten inches (254 mm) of rain fell on the Sacramento region in 11 days, melting the Sierra Nevada snowpack and causing a huge flood to pour down the American River. The 1986 floods were some of the most severe recorded in the 20th century; Placer County was quickly designated

12384-401: The levees were not overtopped and severe flooding in the city was averted by a close margin. The flood events made it clear that the American River flood control system was inadequate for the flood potential of the watershed. This spurred renewed interest in the Auburn Dam, since a permanent dam would have helped store extra floodwater and also prevented the failure of the cofferdam. Following

12513-402: The local environment. Much of the original groundwork at the Auburn Dam site still exists, and up to 2007, the North Fork American River still flowed through the diversion tunnel that had been constructed in preparation for the dam. Reclamation and Placer County Water Agency completed a pump station project that year which blocked the tunnel, returned the river to its original channel, and diverted

12642-410: The local environment. The dam would be built to protect against a 500-year flood. Also, with the construction of a "dry" Auburn Dam, Folsom Lake could be kept at a higher level throughout the year because of reduced flood-control pressure, therefore facilitating recreational access to the reservoir. Finally, regulations in flow could help groundwater recharge efforts; the lower Sacramento Valley aquifer

12771-580: The lower American River is being improved through the US$ 1 billion Joint Federal Project (a collaboration of the US Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers) at Folsom Dam which adds a new lower spillway and strengthens the eight dikes that serve as part of the dam. Additional work proposed includes a possible raise of Folsom Dam several feet to improve its flood control and storage capacity. Key levees downstream have also been improved for flood control in

12900-458: The middle of the Central Valley of California. The city's increasing population necessitated the construction of an extensive system of levees on the two rivers to prevent flooding. These early flood control works were insufficient; in 1862, the city was inundated so completely that the state government was temporarily moved to San Francisco . In 1955, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built

13029-542: The name given to California in Chinese. The first immigrants from Europe, reeling from the effects of the Revolutions of 1848 and with a longer distance to travel, began arriving in late 1849, mostly from France, with some Germans , Italians , and Britons . It is estimated that approximately 90,000 people arrived in California in 1849—about half by land and half by sea. Of these, perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 were Americans, and

13158-497: The news from ships on the fastest sailing routes from California. The first large group of Americans to arrive were several thousand Oregonians who came down the Siskiyou Trail. Next came people from the Sandwich Islands , and several thousand Latin Americans, including people from Mexico, from Peru and from as far away as Chile, both by ship and overland. By the end of 1848, some 6,000 Argonauts had come to California. Only

13287-512: The next twenty years, all were turned down. Representative Norman D. Shumway introduced the Auburn Dam Revival Act of 1987, which was rejected because of the phenomenally high costs. A flood control bill in 1988 involving the Auburn Dam was also defeated. In 1992 and 1996, plans for restarting the Auburn project appeared in various water projects bills. However, even though the project was now leaning towards purely flood control instead of

13416-439: The original expensive multipurpose that environmental groups had opposed, both were denied. As the years dragged on, the cost of the project grew, and it officially ended with the revoking of USBR water rights to the site by the state on November 11, 2008. Auburn Dam is the public works equivalent of a Hollywood zombie, rivaling any Tinseltown creation in its ability to withstand repeated attempts to kill it. First proposed nearly

13545-418: The origins of the earthquake. It was discovered that the quake might have been caused by reservoir-induced seismicity , i.e. the weight of the water from Lake Oroville , whose dam had been completed in 1968, was pressing down on the fault zone enough to cause geologic stress, during which the fault might slip and cause an earthquake. As the concrete thin-arch design of the Auburn Dam could be vulnerable to such

13674-575: The placer deposits until 1846. Minor finds of gold in California were also made by Mission Indians prior to 1848. The friars instructed them to keep its location secret to avoid a gold rush . In January 1847, nine months into the Mexican–American War , the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed, leading to the resolution of the military conflict in Alta California (Upper California). On January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall found shiny metal in

13803-467: The population and economy of California had become large and diverse enough that money could be made in a wide variety of conventional businesses. Once extracted, the gold itself took many paths. First, much of the gold was used locally to purchase food, supplies and lodging for the miners . It also went towards entertainment, which consisted of anything from a traveling theater to alcohol, gambling, and prostitutes. These transactions often took place using

13932-455: The project until severe flooding in 1986 briefly renewed interest in Auburn's flood control potential. The California State Water Resources Control Board denied water rights for the dam project in 2008 due to lack of construction progress. Although new proposals surfaced from time to time after the 1980s, the dam was never built for a number of reasons, including limited water storage capacity, geologic hazards, and potential harm to recreation and

14061-434: The purpose of flood control. Such a dam would stand empty most of the year, but during a flood the excess flow would pool temporarily behind the dam instead of flowing straight through, and therefore the dam could still provide flood control while leaving the American River canyons dry for most of the year (hence "dry"). Water would be impounded for only a few days or weeks each year instead of all year long, minimizing damage on

14190-555: The recently recovered gold, carefully weighed out. These merchants and vendors, in turn, used the gold to purchase supplies from ship captains or packers bringing goods to California. The gold then left California aboard ships or mules to go to the makers of the goods from around the world. A second path was the Argonauts themselves who, having personally acquired a sufficient amount, sent the gold home, or returned home taking with them their hard-earned "diggings". For example, one estimate

14319-466: The record-long economic expansion of the United States in the recession-free period of 1841–1856 primarily to "a boom in transportation-goods investment following the discovery of gold in California." The gold rush propelled California from a sleepy, little-known backwater to a center of the global imagination and the destination of hundreds of thousands of people. The new immigrants often showed remarkable inventiveness and civic mindedness. For example, in

14448-491: The recreational areas lost under the reservoir could be rebuilt around it. A major supporter of the revival of the dam was the Sacramento County Taxpayer's League which reported in 2011 that two-thirds of Sacramento citizens support construction of the Auburn. The League also argued that the dam would only cost $ 2.6 billion instead of $ 6–10 billion, and that it is the cheapest alternative to provide flood control for

14577-448: The region – would be inundated by the proposed reservoir. In preparation for the reservoir's filling, it was rerouted over a three-span, 2,428-foot (740 m)-long truss bridge rising 730 feet (220 m) above the river. Even though Auburn Dam would never be completed, the bridge was still required because the pool behind the cofferdam would flood the original river crossing. It also improved safety and reduced travel time by eliminating

14706-475: The rest were from other countries. By 1855, it is estimated at least 300,000 gold-seekers, merchants, and other immigrants had arrived in California from around the world. The largest group continued to be Americans, but there were tens of thousands each of Mexicans, Chinese, Britons, Australians, French, and Latin Americans, together with many smaller groups of miners, such as African Americans, Filipinos , Basques and Turks . People from small villages in

14835-510: The scars of hydraulic mining, since the resulting exposed earth and downstream gravel deposits do not support plant life. After the gold rush had concluded, gold recovery operations continued. The final stage to recover loose gold was to prospect for gold that had slowly washed down into the flat river bottoms and sandbars of California's Central Valley and other gold-bearing areas of California (such as Scott Valley in Siskiyou County). By

14964-515: The single largest source of gold produced in the Gold Country . The total production of gold in California from then until now is estimated at 118 million troy ounces (3,700 t). Recent scholarship confirms that merchants made far more money than miners during the gold rush. The wealthiest man in California during the early years of the rush was Samuel Brannan , a tireless self-promoter, shopkeeper and newspaper publisher. Brannan opened

15093-510: The site of Auburn Dam, to divert water into ditches that supplied downstream farms. Irrigation with dam and canal systems was favored because the seasonal nature of the American River caused floods in some years and droughts in others. A large dam at the Auburn site was thus considered for both flood control and water supply. In the 1950s, the Bureau of Reclamation created the first plans for a high dam at Auburn. Several designs, ranging from earth-fill to concrete gravity dams, were considered. Before

15222-441: The state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a small settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California. In 1849, a state constitution was written . The new constitution was adopted by referendum vote; the future state's interim first governor and legislature were chosen. In September 1850, California became

15351-600: The tens of thousands overland across the continent and along various sailing routes (the name "forty-niner" was derived from the year 1849). Many from the East Coast negotiated a crossing of the Appalachian Mountains , taking to riverboats in Pennsylvania , poling the keelboats to Missouri River wagon train assembly ports, and then traveling in a wagon train along the California Trail . Many others came by way of

15480-473: The third time revealed the gold discovery. By March 1848, rumors of the discovery were confirmed by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan . Brannan hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies, and he walked through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald

15609-584: Was a proposed concrete arch dam on the North Fork of the American River east of the town of Auburn, California , in the United States , on the border of Placer and El Dorado Counties. Slated to be completed in the 1970s by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation , it would have been the tallest concrete dam in California and one of the tallest in the United States, at a height of 680 feet (210 m) and storing 2,300,000 acre-feet (2.8 km ) of water. Straddling

15738-463: Was changed to a concrete thick-arch gravity dam, to provide better protection against a possible earthquake induced by its own reservoir. Through the rest of the 1970s, other possible designs were looked at but never implemented, while preliminary work on the construction site resumed. On April 29, 1979, the foundations for the Auburn Dam were completed. However, debates continued over whether to build an arched or straight-axis gravity dam. Some favored

15867-457: Was discovered in California as early as March 9, 1842, at Rancho San Francisco , in the mountains north of present-day Los Angeles. Californian native Francisco Lopez was searching for stray horses and stopped on the bank of a small creek (in today's Placerita Canyon ), about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of present-day Newhall , and about 35 miles (56 km) northwest of Los Angeles. While the horses grazed, Lopez dug up some wild onions and found

15996-557: Was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California . The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood in the Compromise of 1850 . The gold rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated

16125-467: Was highly recognizable in the goldfields. Chinese miners suffered enormously, enduring violent racism from white miners who aimed their frustrations at foreigners. Further animosity toward the Chinese led to legislation such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Foreign Miners Tax. There were also women in the gold rush . However, their numbers were small. Of the 40,000 people who arrived by ship to

16254-404: Was killed during the excavation of the tunnel. In 1975, the earthen cofferdam for the Auburn project, 265 feet (81 m) high, was completed, diverting the river into the tunnel. The diversion tunnel bypassed a roughly 1-mile (1.6 km) section of the riverbed to allow construction of the main dam. Upstream of the dam site, Auburn-Foresthill Road – one of the only all-weather thoroughfares of

16383-410: Was no churches or religious services in the rapidly growing city, which prompted missionaries like William Taylor to meet the need, where he held services in the street, using a barrel head as his pulpit. Crowds would gather to listen to his sermons, and before long he received enough generous donations from successful gold miners and built San Francisco's first church. In what has been referred to as

16512-605: Was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold. On December 5, 1848, US President James K. Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in an address to Congress . As a result, individuals seeking to benefit from the gold rush—later called the "forty-niners"—began moving to the Gold Country of California or "Mother Lode" from other countries and from other parts of the United States. As Sutter had feared, his business plans were ruined after his workers left in search of gold, and squatters took over his land and stole his crops and cattle. San Francisco had been

16641-545: Was to sail to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama , take canoes and mules for a week through the jungle, and then on the Pacific side, wait for a ship sailing for San Francisco. There was also a route across Mexico starting at Veracruz . The companies providing such transportation created vast wealth among their owners and included the U.S. Mail Steamship Company , the federally subsidized Pacific Mail Steamship Company , and

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