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Guide to the Tuolumne County Water Company
Records
308-1072
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Title: Tuolumne County Water Company Records,
1853-1909
Date (inclusive):
Collection number: 308-1072
Creator:
Tuolumne County Water
Company
Extent: 10.8 cubic feet (17
boxes)
Repository:
California. Department of Parks and Recreation
Sacramento, CA 95814
Physical location: The collection is located at Columbia
State Historic Park, Columbia, CA
The collection is open for research by appointment only. Appointments
may be made by calling (209)532-0150.
Property rights reside with the California State Parks. Literary rights
are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permission to
reproduce or to publish, please contact California State Parks, Columbia State
Historic Park.
[Item]Tuolumne County Water Company records, Columbia State Historic
Park, California State Parks, Columbia, California.
The bulk of the TCWC records were discovered on Columbia State Historic
Park premises. Apparently, for many years the collection was stored away and
forgotten within the park, until about 1987, when park staff investigated an
old trunk in the museum and discovered it full of TCWC documents. They were
heavily damaged from water, mildew, and insects. The documents were removed,
cleaned, and placed in storage boxes in the Archives building.
Staff later discovered that many of the documents that were in decent
condition had been removed from the original collection, and dispersed
throughout the subject and name files at some point before the trunk was
discovered. For example, if a piece of water company correspondence relating to
miner supplies was sent to Mr. John Doe it might have been filed under Doe or
it might have been filed under General Store. Additional water company records
arrived at the park through individual donations—in particular, the Conlin
Family donation in the 1940s (see Conlin Family Papers).
In 2001 special
funding was provided by California State Parks to reconstitute the collection,
organize it according to archival principles, rehouse the records in acid-free
folders and boxes, and create a finding aid to provide enhanced access to the
collection. Additional materials relating to the Tuolumne County Water Company
may be found at the Tuolumne County Historical Society archives, the Bancroft
Library, and the Huntington Library.
Emigrants who rushed to California after the discovery of gold in 1848
discovered an environment whose climate and geography were sharply different
from home. The California climate, with its periods of wet and dry, drought and
flood emphasized the importance of resource management, espcially water
management. As well as its domestic importance, large quantities of water were
essential to large scale mining operations and the control of water became one
of the biggest and most complex struggles facing the settlers and
argonauts.
The Hildreth party has been given the credit for discovering gold in the
Columbia area around 1850, although there is some evidence that a small
settlement of Mexican miners may predate their arrival. The summer of 1850 was
typically hot and dry; the creeks dried up and most miners moved either down to
the river valleys or up to higher elevations. Winter brought miners back to the
Columbia area following the rains and the return of the seasonal creek. Those
merchants who managed to survive the summer realized that maintaining a market
in the area relied on a steady supply of water, and local miners realized that
a reliable supply of water was needed to make mining feasible year-round.
Together, they established to Tuolumne County Water Company (TCWC) in June of
1851.
The TCWC was created as an employee owned and controlled company.
The founders went to surrounding areas raising investors. By the end of June,
1851, 160 shares of stock had been sold and the route had been surveyed, but
the company was forced to borrow money to finance the construction costs of
sawmills, roads and equipment. Among the financiers who soon gained control of
the company was D.O. Mills, the pioneer banker in Columbia. The TCWC
incorporated in September, 1852, with a new issuance of shares initially valued
at $275.
The availability of water and its price strongly influenced
the fortune of the town. A struggle for control of the water, between owners of
the TCWC and the miners who depended on reasonable rates and abundant supply,
resulted in the formation of the Columbia and Stanislaus River Water Company in
1855. For a brief period competition lowered rates, but the new miner-operated
company soon ran into financial problems and was sold; first to repay debts and
later resold to the same financiers who controlled the TCWC. Disgruntled miners
protested this perceived monopoly, which eventually led to the destruction of
ditches and flumes and personal threats against employees and officers of the
corporation. In 1858 many miners left Columbia after a boycott of the TCWC's
water did not succeed in lowering rates.
In the following decades the water company continued to expand, taking
over ditches, flumes and reservoirs and lakes constructed by other water and
fluming companies in the county, but as gold production declined, so too did
the population, resulting in less demand for water and less income for the
company. By the 1880s many ditches were in disrepair and dams and reservoirs
reflected a lack of maintenance. The demand for electricity resulted in the
company going into the hydroelectric field, but even this could not sustain the
fortunes of the company. By 1903 the remains of the company was being offered
for sale, valued at $500,000 with an impressive list of ditches, flumes, dams,
lakes and reservoirs all over the county.
A History of Tuolumne County California :
compiled from the most authentic records,
San Francisco: B. F.
Alley, 1882.
Buckbee, Edna Bryan,
The Rise and Fall of Columbis: The Saga of
Old Tuolumne,
New York: The Press of the
Pioneers1935.
Cassel, Bonita M.,
Columbia: A History of the "Gem of the
Southern Mines,"
Arroyo Grande, California: Bear Flag Books,
1995.
Davis-King, Shelley, et al,
Contextual History of Tuolumne County
Sonora: County of Tuolumne, 1994.
Eastman, Barbara,
John Wallace and the Tuolumne Water
Company
Sonora: Tuoloumne County Historical Society,
1970.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Tuolumne County Water Company (TCWC) Records consist of
approximately 10.8 cubic feet of materials dating between 1853-1909 and
document all aspects of the TCWC ’s business, with particular emphasis on the
company’s financial records. The water company was a large operation and an
intricate part of the economic and social life of the area for many years and
the documents reflect significant aspects of mining life. Time and wage books
and scrip receipts indicate the miners’ dependence on the company; purchase
invoices and correspondence detail the costs of constructing the massive flumes
and ditches, and shares and stock receipts indicate the relative wealth among
the company founders. Other documents indicate the location of specific mines,
the ethnic constitution of the townspeople, and the operations of other local
businesses. Some correspondence details the problems of the water system itself
and the “water war” which engulfed the area and its people with violence and
mistrust. The bulk of the collection consists of the financial records of the
company, including account books, water receipts for water purchases, and
checks and payroll documents.
Arrangement
The collection has been organized into the
following series:
Series I: Administrative Records, 1856-1908. .8 cu. ft.
Series
II: Legal Records, 1856-1886. .1 cu. ft.
Series III: Operational
Records, 1853-1909. .1 cu. ft.
Series IV: Financial Records, 1853-1907.
9.8 cu. ft.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this
collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Columbia (Calif.)
History.
Columbia and Stanislaus River
Water Co.
Columbia Main Gulch Fluming
Co.
Columbia State Historic Park
(Columbia, Calif.)--Archival resources.
Enterprise Water
Co.
Nil Desporandum Water
Co.
Northern Light Fluming
Co.
Tuolumne Co., Calif.
Tuolumne County Water
Co.
Tuolumne Redemption
Co.
Additional materials relating to the Tuolumne County Water Company may
be found at the Tuolumne County Historical Society archives, the Bancroft
Library, and the Huntington Library.