Water has always been and continues to be of major importance in the development of Calaveras County. Water was essential to the recovery of gold, and since foothill rivers are seasonal and unpredictable, it wasn’t long before entrepreneurs constructed dams to store water, and ditches and flumes to transport it between drainages. Often transitory in nature, many of these ditch systems were abandoned as the placers played out, while others were improved end extended for hydraulic and hard rock mining.
The largest and most important systems, however, continue to be used to the present day. After the demise of mining, the ditches were converted to agricultural and domestic use, and later to the production of hydroelectric power. The two largest in the county, the Union Water Company, now the Angels-Utica system, and the Mokelumne Hill Canal and Mining Company, now operated by Calaveras County Water District, continue to serve communities on either side of the county.
Beginning in the late 1890s, entrepreneurs began developing hydroelectric projects on the county’s rivers. Included among these were the Electra Powerhouse on the Mokelumne River, the Murphys and Angels powerhouses on Angels Creek, and Camp Nine on the Stanislaus River.
In the 1920s, the East Bay Municipal Utility District began a long-term process of damming the Mokelumne River to provide fresh water for its users. Pardee Dam was completed in 1929, and Camanche Reservoir filled in 1962. The Hogan Dam and Reservoir was dedicated in 1931; the New Hogan Dam dedicated in 1964. On the south side of the county, in the 1890s, the Utica Mining Company enlarged the Union Reservoir, and constructed the Utica Reservoir, as well as reservoirs at Spicer Meadow, Alpine Lake, and others all the way to Angels Camp. The first Melones Reservoir was constructed in 1926, and a new dam completed in 1979, impounding the waters of the Stanislaus River in the New Melones Reservoir. Tulloch Reservoir, completed in 1957, provides water and power to Oakdale and Knights Ferry. Considered “liquid gold,” modern reservoirs bank this wealth not only for Calaveras citizens, but also for populations farther west.
