Lake Shasta History
Northern California was inhabited by several groups of Native American tribes prior to the arrival of European settlers to the region. The Lake Shasta region was home to the Atsugewi and Yana tribes. The Atsugewi Indians (”pine-tree people”) occupied the “rugged lava-strewn valleys north of Mount Lassen”
The Yana Indians extended to the southwest of Mount Lassen, and remained adjacent to the eastern foothills, depending on vegetables and acorns as their main staple food. Nowadays, this tribe is endangered and it is estimated that there are fewer than 2,000 Yana descendants living on the Redding Rancheria.
However, centuries ago the Native American population in the Shasta area was considerable even after the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, concentrating a large number of missions along the coast of California, region that mostly remained uninhabited for the following centuries, until the gold fever hit California in the19th century.
The discovery of gold in the 1840s brought to northern California literally floods of immigrants to the state, most of them gold seekers and miners. The lure of easy money through gold discovery and later gambling fever developed in nearby Lake Tahoe impacted agriculture in the Central Valley in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Farmers began searching for the plan to face the withdraw of workers and the problematic with irrigation and water supply. Then, California designed the Central Valley Project to control the Sacramento River floods, transferring water to the dry lands of the San Joaquin Valley, however, the state found itself unable to finance the project.
In the beginning, the project was not approved for loans and grants under the National Recovery Act, even when Harry W. Bashore reported the relief project to Reclamation, remarking that the Kennett Reservoir, later Shasta Lake, would be the cornerstone for the entire Central Valley Project. Therefore, California applied to the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (FEA) for grants and loans.
The FEA created the Water Project Authority, and a Committee on Rivers and Harbors of the House of Representatives was responsible for the suggestion of the construction of Kennett Dam, citing the national benefits in flood control and navigation on the Sacramento River, recommending involvement by the Federal government for $12 million in cost of such a project.
After a number of investigations and reviewing the plan was approved by the California Joint Federal-State Water Resources Commission, the United States Senate Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, recommended the plan to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
President Roosevelt approved the Central Valley Project on December 2, 1935. In December 1935, the initial exploration of the Kennett Dam site cleared out and re-timbered several of the many exploratory tunnels. Drilling on the area revealed ancient, re-crystallized, volcanic rock, and work crews began experimental washing and grouting.
On March 25, 1936, a cooperative agreement to coordinate the CVP and the California State Water Project was executed by the California Water Project Authority and the United States. Representatives of labor federation councils and labor organizations presented some objections by then based on wage scales.
The State Attorney General ruled on the case counseling future relations between government, contractors, and workers. Finally, Congress re-authorized the project in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1937, announcing the construction of the large concrete dam to solve the problem and provide energy and water management in the region.
Shasta County was immediately flooded with job seekers and workers who previously were enrolled in government irrigation and water projects in Western states. Hundreds of cars, tents, and cramped trailers were accommodated to serve as lodging facilities for the dam’s workers. The original project by William and Gene Hammans was distributed among 3 companies.
After receiving their contracts, those companies constructed buildings and water systems for the camp, that was finished in early 1938. L. R. Kronschnabel, J.J. Humphreys, Charles McConnell and Albert Rouge joined forces to purchase large tracts of land in the surrounding areas, focusing on the idea of subdividing their holdings.
By then, Reclamation Commissioner John C. Page officially renamed Kennett Dam as Shasta Dam, after Mount Shasta, home to the Shasta Indians traditionally living in the Siskyou County, thus a name having historic and geographic significance, while Kennett came from the nearby railroad way station in Sacramento Canyon, situated above the dam site.
After several disruptions, labor disputes, conflicts between constructor companies modification on-site, involving the Southern Pacific transferred its railroad tunnel for river diversion in 1942, World War II caused a labor turnover, when workers left to take more defense industry jobs or join the military the dam was finally completed.
The final concrete on the dam structure was laid on December 22, 1944. and the final concrete in the Shasta’s Vista House Power plant and additional complementary projects throughout the year of 1945, continue its development until the present
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This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Lake Shasta. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.