The pipeline was a remarkable achievement in manufacturing and implementation. Fabrication began in March 1873 and was in place with water flowing through it just five months later. The 14.32 miles of wooden flumes, together with the diversion works on Hobart Creek were ready to convey water as soon as the pipe was laid. The first joint was laid on June 11, 1873, the last section on July 25, 1873 – just 6 weeks after ground had been broken for the project (Legislative Commission 1969). Shamberger (1969) wrote, “The laying of seven miles (and 134 feet) of 12 inch pipeline over very rough terrain in just six weeks was obviously a remarkably feat, keeping in mind that the motive power was men and mules.” When completed the system carried 2.2 million gallons of Sierra water to Virginia City and Gold Hill a day.
Arrival of the first stream of water to the towns brought great celebration and jubilee.
The Virginia Evening Chronicle described the occasion in an article dated August 2, 1873, “The pouring into this city and Gold Hill of a large stream of water from the Eastern Summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at 6:45 last evening, marked an epoch in the history of the Comstock, and was the signal for a general jollification and rejoicing of twelve or thirteen thousand people. Bonfires and rockets girdled old Mt. Davidson for hours and cannon continued to roar until a late hour in the night. A stream of 153 inches of water (about 1717 gallons per minute) poured through the flume into Bullion Ravine, between this city and Gold Hill. The water was turned into the pipe on the Sierra at noon yesterday and reached here in six hours and forty-five minutes. It had been estimated that it would take the stream eight hours to reach here, a distance of twenty miles, 134 feet..”Four months later, the Mining and Scientific Press observed, “It was an engineering feat of no small magnitude to carry this enterprise to a successful completion: and in view of the difficulties to be overcome, it will attract the attention of engineers all over the world.” Yet, the Comstock roared on and soon 2.2 million gallons a day was not enough to fill the thirst of the growing operation, emerging mills and a population surge. Nearly two-thirds of the water supply was used on the Comstock alone (Galloway 1947).
A devastating fire that leveled Virginia City on October 26, 1875, taxed the system even more. The need of additional water available for firefighting was apparent as well. In two years, the first pipeline was tapped out, and a second was in the works. The Gold Hill Daily News reported on July 1, 1875, “The supply of water for milling and mining purposes has been gradually lessening for the past two weeks and if the utmost economy is not exercised in its use by our people, may continue to do so until even some of our mills may have to suspend operation. During the past week, the Virginia Consolidated Mill has lost four hours per day, for the want of a sufficient supply. The Water Company, wisely looking forward to such a necessity, has already got the placing of another line across Washoe Valley underway.”
Second Pipeline
Construction of the second pipeline began on May 1, 1875, under the direction of Captain John Overton, and was completed in the same year (Galloway 1947). The National Tubing Company of McKeesport, Pennsylvania manufactured this pipeline. It’s sections were wrought iron, 16 feet in length and one-fourth of an inch in thickness. The seams were lap-welded instead of riveted together and the joints were screwed together. It became the largest pipe ever manufactured in that manner in that day (De Quille 1947).
The pipe was 10 inches in diameter and designed to deliver 2 million gallons per day. The second pipeline closely followed the route of the first but was 1900 feet longer. A second flume from Hobart Creek to the inlet tank 25,005 feet (4.72 miles) long was built parallel to the first flume and a second tank was constructed. From the outlet, a second flume, 21,050 feet (3.98 miles) long was built to Five Mile Reservoir, so named by its distance from Virginia City. The reservoir had a capacity of 5 million gallons. A second flume was constructed from 5-mile reservoir 38,670 feet (7.31 miles) long to Virginia City and Gold Hill. Another reservoir to hold 2.5 million gallons was placed on the dividing ridge between Virginia City and Gold Hill (Shamberger 1969).
VGHWC Superintendent John Bear Overton was heralded as a hero in design and construction of this pipeline. The Territorial Enterprise lauded him in an article on August 17, 1875, “The controlling spirit in the planning and execution of the present work is Superintendent Overton, a man of tireless energy and limitless resources, he devotes himself with a remarkable self-sacrificing spirit and zeal to the interests of the Company: He superintends, personally, the minutest details of the great enterprise: is apparently everywhere at all times, infusing his own indomitable energy into the men employed on the work, and is the especial terror of shirkers.
He does not believe that anything is impossible in combating with the forces of nature. A modest and unassuming gentleman, he enjoys in a high degree the confidence of the Water Company, and had carte blanche to carry out his plans as seem to him most feasible and best. If the San Francisco Water Company people had half of Superintendent Overton’s energy they would, long ere this, have had the water of Lake Bigler (Lake Tahoe) running into their city. Even now, we doubt not. Overton is mediating some plan to steal the waters of the beautiful lake and abduct them to this city.”
The Enterprise was speaking about the planning and conception of a third pipeline. This one would stretch the VGHWC’s veins from Marlette Lake in the Lake Tahoe Basin to thirty miles away in Virginia City. Marlette Lake was named after Seneca Hunt Marlette, 1824-1911, the first Surveyor General of Nevada. Marlette was a native of New York and graduated from Rensselar Institute as a civil engineer. He came to California via Cape Horn in 1849. There he surveyed in San Francisco and owned a mercantile business. He became Surveyor General of California in 1854 but moved to Nevada in 1860 (Farquhar 1966). Originally, the Marlette Basin was a meadow containing a small named Lake Goodwin. Schussler’s report that he observed Marlette as a natural reservoir in 1871 was incorrect. A primitive wood and rock dam was constructed by the brothers Thomas and John Eliot to provide water storage for their Clear Creek Flume in 1863. By 1871, the lake covered 500 to 600 acres. Elliot’s V-flume originated at Marlette Lake through North Canyon, south to Spooner Summit and east down Clear Creek Canyon into Carson City. On January 15, 1868, the brothers officially formed The Summit Fluming Company. Within one year the company had constructed twelve miles of flumes. In 1873, Walter Scott Hobart and Seneca Hunt Marlette open the Excelsior Mill in Little Valley. Two steam-powered saws cut a daily average of 25,000 board feet. It was the Excelsior Mill that cut the first boards and planks used for the VGHWC box flumes. Hobart was a State Senator from Storey County and a VGHWC board member. The Excelsior closed in 1878, however, Hobart and Marlette had new aspirations. That same summer they began building the Sierra Nevada Wood and Lumber Company (SNWLC) mill at Incline on Mill Creek. Operations began one year later, in 1879. Their lumber holdings were so extensive that the California Illustrated Times reported on December 25,1877, “…the number of acres of forest they own may be computed in the tens of thousands.” Hobart actually owned approximately 55,000 acres of timberland in the basin that included Marlette Lake (Lindstrom 2000). With Hobart on the VGHWC board, obtaining water from Marlette was effortless.
The Carson Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company (CTLFC) bought out the Summit Fluming Company operations in 1873 and acquired the Summit V-flume. VGHWC gave rights to CLTFC to appropriate water from Marlette for use in their flumes for a period of 10 years. Both VGHWC and CTLFC shared the expense of rebuilding the dam in 1873 to a 24-foot high dam of dirt fill and stone. Later, VGHWC raised the dam in 1875 to 37 feet and to 213 feet long and 16 feet wide. The lake swelled to about 2 miles long and ¾ miles wide and was said to contain 2 billion gallons of water (Lindstrom 2001).
Galloway
(1947) wrote, “On the western side of the mountains a
small lake, named after Marlette, had previously been made into a reservoir.
Arrangements were made by which the Marlette Dam was raised. The exterior walls
were dry rubble masonry with rough course laid stones. There is an interior
core of earth to provide the necessary impervious element. There are 3825 cubic
yards of masonry and 1365 cubic yards of earth in the dam.”
Third
Pipeline
Again,
the Comstock pleaded for more water and VGHWC began construction on a third
pipeline in 1876 - this one would originate from Marlette Lake. The pipeline
ran essentially along the same route as the other two through the course of the
Washoe Valley. It was also lap-welded but this time the joints
were a converse lock type instead of screws. The walls were three different
thicknesses at three-sixteenths, one quarter and three-eighths, the diameter
remained at 11-1/2 inches and the length was 37,685 feet (7.15 miles). From
Marlette Lake, a flume 14 inches by 30 inches in section and 23,175 feet (4.38
miles) in length, and the pipeline sat ready, but no water would run through it
until a year later. The hold up was excavation of tunnel in which to run the
flume from Marlette Lake to Hobart Creek.
The tunnel, excavated in granite,
was 3994 feet long. Over half of the tunnel was timbered, its size being 7 feet
high, 4-1/2 feet wide at the top and 6 ½ feet wide at the floor.
The tunnel’s center is located 900 vertical
feet below the crest of the Carson Range (Koerbe 1990). The Territorial
Enterprise reported the procedure on August 17, 1875, “Tunneling is carried
on from both end under the direction of John Simpson and Thomas Brown, both
whom rank among the best miners on the coast. Newer drills of the Rand pattern
are used for tunneling purposes. They are driven by compressed air, one engine
doing the work for both ends, besides furnishing air for ventilation purposes.
In order to carry the compressed air
to the west end of the tunnel, the engine being stationed at the east end…a
string of iron pipe had to be laid over the mountain a distance of over a mile.
About 150 feet of tunneling has been completed at each end, and it is thought
that the entire work will be finished by next May (1876).” The connection was
actually made May 13, 1877.
The Marlette Lake flume lead to the west portal of the water company’s tunnel through the ridge that divides the Lake Tahoe drainage fro that of Hobart Creek. From the eastern portal of the tunnel a flume 14,610 feet (2.77 miles) long conveyed the water to a small diversion pond on Hobart Creek (now Hobart Lake). That same year, a new flume was constructed from the inlet of the three pipelines to Hobart Creek, and the original flume from the east portal of the tunnel to Hobart Creek was replaced with a larger flume.
In order to
increase water supply, another flume (the North flume) was constructed that ran
northwesterly from the west portal for a distance of nine miles to North
(Third) Creek. This flume was 43,523 feet (8.25 miles) long (Galloway 1947). In
addition to water from Third Creek, the flume picked up water from First and
Second Creeks, Mill Creek, tunnel Creek, Incline Creek and other small streams
along the way. This flume emptied into the Marlette Lake flume at the tunnel’s
west portal. The Territorial Enterprise stated on July 27, 1887 that to
conserve the water supply and to have a reserve to draw upon, a small storage
reservoir was constructed on Hobart Creek about a half mile above where the
flume from the tunnel emptied into it. The Hobart Reservoir dam was about 350
feet in length and 20 feet high, and the reservoir held about 35 million
gallons, or about 100 acre-feet (Shamberger 1969). Capacity of all three
completed pipelines into 5-mile reservoir was now 10 million gallons per day.
Archaeologists have since discovered
that two Chinese camps were at the West Portal giving indication that either
VGHWC or SNWLC or both used Chinese to tend the tunnel and flumes. The SNWLC V-flume ran above the covered
VGHWC box flume through the tunnel. When Archaeologist Arthur R. Koerbe
surveyed the area on Jan 15, 1990, he found that in fact, two tunnels had been
constructed, with one at a higher elevation than the other. His conclusion was
that the VGHWC “obviously planned to use the upper tunnel, as the flume led
directly to its West Portal and had a proper gradient. Even though the SNWLC
was not incorporated until April 1878 and the lower tunnel was constructed in
1877 it would appear to be possible that superintendent Overton may have
already known in early 1877 of the plans (of SNWLC) to incorporate.
If Mr. Overton did in fact know about the upcoming incorporation
of the SNWLC, in his supervisory position it would appear possible that he
could have arranged for the upper tunnel’s use or construction to be abandoned
and the lower tunnel constructed in its place. In this regard it should be
noted that the lay-of-the-land where the Incline Railroad was located is such
that the lumber unloading elevation was lower than the elevation of the West
Portal of the upper tunnel and as a result the upper tunnel could not have been
used by the (SNWLC) V-flume. The fact remains that the lower tunnel became the
tunnel that was used for both the VGHWC’s domestic water and the SNWLC’s
V-flume for transporting finished lumber and cordwood” (Koerbe 1990:14).
The
VGHWC water system now included three reservoirs, over 21 miles of pressure
pipes, approximately 46 miles of covered box flume and a tunnel. Marlette
Lake’s capacity held 6,154 acre-feet of water, Hobart Reservoir, 100 acre-feet,
and Five mile Reservoir was 15 acre-feet. Total investment was in excess of
$3.5 million (Lindstrom 2001). Water rates in 1880 were 20 cents per 1000
gallons to the mining companies and $4 per month to residents (Galloway 1947).
Throughout
the system VGHWC employed year-round caretakers to tend the flumes and lines.
Houses and stations were built for them at Marlette Lake, West Tunnel Portal,
Hobart Reservoir (Red House), The Tanks, Lakeview, and at Five mile Reservoir.
Red House also included a bunkhouse for workers that cut blocks of ice in the
winter. An icehouse was also built for storage. Square blocks of ice were
shipped from the reservoir to Virginia City via the flume and used in the
cities and mines. Ice-cutting crews were mostly comprised of Washoe Indians and
Chinese.
A telephone
line connected all the VGHWC stations in 1878. The line originated at the (Marlette Lake) dam caretaker’s house along
the west side of the lake and terminated in Virginia City. It was established
for key logistical communication between points within the elaborate water
works network, including Red House, The Tanks, and the west and east portal of
the tunnel. The line was in operation from the 1870s until 1957. The linear
site consists of a line of widely spaced Jeffrey pines and associated telephone
wire, ceramic and/or glass insulators, and occasionally small wooden
boards/pegs attached to tree trunks. Connecting phone lines over a distance of
30 miles was considered a major achievement of its day (Lindstrom 2001).
James M. Leonard became
superintendent of VGHWC in 1906 when Overton retired at age 80. Leonard
continued on until 1959, however, in 1940, he turned a large portion of the
operation over to his son Hobart Leonard, born in 1916. Hobart Leonard became
superintendent and president of VGHWC following his father’s death in 1959.
On April 21, 1933, the VGHWC deeded
all its rights in the entire water system to The Virginia City Water Company
(VCWC). In 1941, the VCWC under the direction of Hobart Leonard removed the
first pipeline (1873) and the third pipeline (1887) in the inverted siphon and
used the pipe to replace the flume line from 5-mile reservoir to Virginia City.
The Hobart Creek Reservoir dam had been partially washed out in a December 1955
flood was repaired in 1956.
Failures of the pipeline became
severe in 1956-57 due its the advanced age. The VCWC had operated at a
financial loss for many years and funds were not available to make necessary
repairs and replacements. The Curtis-Wright Corporation loaned money to VCWC to
replace the flume and pipeline from Virginia City to 5-mile reservoir.
Curtis-Wright was then planning a large missile-testing program in Storey
County under a government contract. The program involved the use of a large and
stable water supply. At that time, the future of VCWC was uncertain, the
equipment deteriorated, and no large financial means to restore it.
Curtis-Wright then stepped in and purchased the entire system in order to
ensure their operation’s success in Storey County.
On August 8, 1957, the Curtis-Wright Corporation purchased from the Virginia City Water Company all water rights, storage facilities at Marlette Lake, Hobart Reservoir, flumes and pipelines up to and including 5-mile reservoir. Two years later, the company raised the dam at Marlette Lake an additional 15 feet, making the height 52 feet. The outlets from the dam consist of two 16-inch diameter pipes having a discharge capability of about 20 cubic feet per second (c.f.s.) each with a full reservoir. This increased the lake storage capacity from 2 to 3.4 billion gallons, or 10,400 acre-feet of water. This capacity was equal to three years of normal water production through precipitation and snowmelt from the area (Legislative Commission 1969).
Curtis-Wright deeded all its rights to their subsidiary, the Marlette Lake Company on December 2, 1957. A new 8-inch pipeline replaced the single remaining box flume from the outlet of the siphon to 5-mile reservoir (Shamberger 1969). The flume line from Marlette Lake Dam to the west portal of the tunnel had long been in disrepair. The company planned to replace this section with a pipeline and repair the tunnel.
In 1959, The State of Nevada contracted 1 million
gallons of water per day and the Carson City Water Company 3 million gallons a
day from the Marlette Lake Company. Marlette Lake had since become the
principal water source for the State building complex at Carson City. The VCWC
also contracted to receive water not to exceed 300,000 gallons per day. By 1963, the federal government contract for
the missile-testing program of Curtis-Wright had failed to materialize and the
company was no longer interested in their water supply program (Shamberger 1969).
On February 8, 1963, H.J. Knell of
the Curtis-Wright Corporation offered to sell the assets of the Marlette Lake
Company to the State of Nevada for $2 million. Edward Kruse, superintendent of
Buildings and Grounds recommended purchase of the water system to Governor
Grant Sawyer. After further negotiations, Marlette Lake Company settled at a
price of $1,650,000.
The Nevada State Legislature
approved an act authorizing the purchase of the Marlette Lake Company. The
agreement was executed on June 12, 1963. The property consisted, in addition to
all water rights held by the company, some 5378 acres of land, including 80
acres at 5-mile reservoir and 3.1 acres at Lakeview saddle where the 1873
VGHWC’s caretaker’s house still stood, road easements, flume and pipe
easements.
Following acquisition by the state,
improvements were made throughout the system.
An 8-inch aluminum pipe from Marlette to
the west portal of the tunnel was laid, and an attempt to open the tunnel,
which had collapsed in 1957, was made.” An attempt was made in 1963 to force
water through the tunnel by filling the easterly end of the tunnel with water
from Marlette Lake. This attempt had considerable merit, as little was known
about the cave-ins along the tunnel, and if they were not too high or were of
sufficiently loose material, water could have been delivered to the west end of
the tunnel at little or no expense. While this did not work, little was lost
except time.
After the attempt to force water
through the tunnel failed, a tunnel contractor was brought in to open the
tunnel. Work was started at the easterly or lower end. It was discovered, after
going into the old tunnel, that the cave-in had reached such a height that it
was too expensive and impractical to try to timber and hold the present tunnel.
A parallel tunnel through the faulted area was then begun but later
abandoned”(Legislative Commission 1969:28).
In a
December 21, 1964 letter, Howard E. Barrett, Dept of Administration Director
stated to the Legislative Commission that “After unsuccessful attempts to run
water into the west portal of the tunnel and to remove the material blocking
the flow of water, the contractor and Buildings and Grounds superintendent
recommended the clearance of the tunnel from the east portal. The east entry
was cleaned and faced. 60 feet of old tunnel was cleaned. A new tunnel of 312
feet was drilled as a by-pass to the old tunnel that was blocked. At the point
where the new tunnel was to enter the old, a soft area was discovered and a
slough off occurred. In order to again by-pass this slough-off and others that
would probably block the old tunnel it is the recommendation of the contractor
that an additional 480 feet of new tunnel be drilled. At this point the work on
the tunnel has ceased, because of funds and weather. A total of $52,373.72 had been expended to open the
tunnel” (Legislative Commission 1969).
With the failure of re-opening the
tunnel, a diesel pumping station was added at Marlette Lake in 1966 to supply
water to Carson City and is still in use during peak periods and drought. The
old wooden flume from the east portal of the tunnel was replaced with a steel
pipeline. Although the tunnel had caved in 1957, about 400 gallons per minute
of water continued to flow from a spring within the tunnel. This water, along
with local snowmelt and runoff is conveyed by pipeline to Hobart Creek. The
wooden flume from the east portal to the Red House was replaced by pipe in 1968
(Legislative Commission 1969).
The flume system was fundamentally altered between 1900 and 1926 when all the boxes were rebuilt. The flume boxes were gradually abandoned or replaced with pipelines between 1941 to about 1974. The first replacement occurred in 1941, when the 1873 and 1887 siphons were scavenged and reused elsewhere (Shamberger 1969:43). The North Flume was abandoned in 1944 due in part from destruction of the diversion works on Third Creek, and the water rights were sold to the Franktown Irrigation Company (Shamberger 1969). Most box flume replacement activity occurred in the 1950s with Curtis-Wright acquiring the system. In 1969, the Tunnel flume was still in operation capturing water flowing from the collapsed tunnel and was not replaced with a pipeline until after 1974. The replacement of the tunnel flume ended the use of box flumes on the Marlette Lake Water System (Moore 1998).
At Red House, the 150 cubic yard of concrete diversion dam broke on Feb 13, 1912 killing two people. It washed out a second time in 1955. The Red House complex was partially stabilized by the Youth Conservation Corps for State Parks in 1978. The tanks at the end of the pipeline were two wooden tanks of about 9000-gallon capacity each. The foundation was originally excavated and the concrete poured by hand. The State replaced the tanks with concrete one after they burnt down in the Little Valley fire of 1981.
Marlette Today
Marlette Lake has been a main source of water to supply Virginia City for 130 years. A caretaker once resided year-round at the lake to tend the dam and flumes. The caretaker’s residence was constructed during the 1880s. Structure foundations were destabilized when the lake was raised by Curtis-Wright in 1959. The lake was also the summer residence of the company superintendent between 1937 and 1957. Hobart Leonard and his family took up summer residence in a cabin (Chimney Beach) on the peninsula on the opposite shore of the lake. A stone chimney marks the site of the summer cabin today (Lindstrom 2001).
Convict work crews accidentally tore down the cabin in 1967, mistaking it for the caretaker’s residence (the intended structure for demolition). The caretaker’s residence was located on the west shore of the lake near the outlet and dam. The last caretaker at the station was Jack “Fergie” Ferguson. He traveled on bicycle to make his inspections, riding on top of the box flume boards. Ferguson had a boathouse at the south end of the lake where he built a 36’ double-masted sailboat by hand. In 1952, a caterpillar with skid brought the boat out of Marlette to Spooner in a little over two hours.
The station complex comprised the caretaker’s main residence, a stable/barn, blacksmith shop, summer and winter outhouses, and a large refuse dump. The flume alignment has since become a popular mountain bike ride, one with historical precedent (Lindstrom 2001:34).
Out of the entire engineering feat of the Virginia Gold Hill Water Company, only Red House and the Lakeview House remain today. The Marlette Lake Water System has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1992. It consists of 1354 acres, 2 buildings and 12 structures. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) also designated the system as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1975. Its conclusion from an impossible idea to a world wonder was best summed up in the 1969 Legislative Commission report, “The plan was bold, its accomplishment remarkable.”
Works
Citied:
De Quille, Dan, 1947, The Big Bonanza
Galloway, John Debo, 1947, Early Engineering works Contributory to
the Comstock, University of Nevada Bulletin No. 5
Koerbe, Arthur R., January 1990, “Nevada IMACS
Report VC&GHWCo No. 3”
Legislative Commission of the Legislative Counsel
Bureau, February 1969, “The Marlette Lake Water System A Report on the
Feasibility and Desirability of Its Retention Bulletin No. 79”
Lindstrom, Susan G., November 2001, “Draft
Archaeological Survey of 2,489 Acres in Lake Tahoe State Park, Nevada Volume I: Report”
- February
2000, “Lake Tahoe Watershed Assessment”
Lord, Eliot, 1883, Comstock Mining and
Miners
Moore,
Mark A., 1998, “Archaeological Investigations at Tunnel Creek Station 26WA5831
Washoe County, Nevada, Appendix I: Marlette Lake Water System Box Flume Study”
Shamberger Hugh
A., 1969, “Historic Mining Camps of Nevada: Water Supply For The Comstock”
Photo Credit: Nevada Division of State Parks Historical Archive