Calaveras Heritage Council

Water has always been and continues to be of major importance in the development of Calaveras County.

Sometime in the 1850s or early 1860s, the Mt. Brow Ditch was constructed to bring water from Littlejohns Creek to near Knights Ferry.

One of the earliest ditches to be constructed in the Flowers Ranch area was “Truett’s” or the “Buckskin Ditch,” which took water from Littlejohns and Clover creeks (north of present State Ro

Significant remnants of those early placer mining years are the Truett’s, or Buckskin, Ditch and the Mt.

Flowers Ranch, encompassing more than 3,000 acres southwest of Copperopolis in Calaveras County, was pieced together from more than 24 separate land patents, mostly granted during the 1870s and 1880s.

Water for placer mining was first brought into Angels Camp in 1853 by the Union Water Company.