To u. S. Cities bringing the book scene to our viewers. You can watch more of our visits at cspan. Org citiestour. The gold height of rush, shasta had seven hotels, saloons, bars, bookshops, wholesale businesses, retail businesses. You can see the shell of the businesses across the street, ones that were oftentimes abandoned between the 1870s and 1880s when the countys county seat moved from the courthouse in this building to downtown redding. At shasta state historic park, we share the history of the gold rush with our visitors as well as telling the story is how the area was first settled by an american pioneers. One of whom was pearson redding who came to the area in the 1840s. At the time, he worked for another prominent california thedents, john sutter, in sacramento area, and was with a small group of men early during the gold discovery on the American River. He realized that the terrain, geology, and geography along the American River was similar to the area that he had passed through earlier and had mexicos most Northern Land grant. He came to the early the area early in 1848. Word soon spread throughout the United States and the world. And the world rushed in. Grew. Quickly within the first couple of years of the gold strike in california, millions of dollars worth of gold passed through shasta. Its tuned it out from a minor cityrs tent to become the clean city of the minds, and a cosmopolitan city or town not just for the miners. The way people struck it was developing Businesses Supporting miners throughout the various mining districts. This is the main street. Shasta had the largest collection of buildings north of San Francisco. So people came all over the world to strike it rich in shasta. They came out here. They were working the gold mines, and many of them had professions back home. They were bakers, blacksmiths, and soon saw that was a need for bakers and blacksmiths and that they would make a lot more money doing the jobs they did at home than work in the streams and the minds, looking for gold. It was called mining the miners, and the ones who were successful degrees, opened up blacksmiths shops, and became very important in the community. To the moved down general store, located on the south end of main street. That general store started as a Family Grocery in 1873. That aided everything firstclass Family Grocery would provide at that time. You can get all your mining supplies, shovels, takes picks to ski. ,everything you would have needed at the time. Photos was taken in the 1880s, and when we received the store from the family in the 1960s, we wanted to restore it condition, so80 we used this photo to help us in our restoration process. And if you look around, we could we try to match it down to the last hat. It was the development of technology and transportation that really in the 1870s spelled the end of shasta when townailroad developed the of reading about five miles east of here. The town really became a ghost town around the turn of the last 1900sy when in the early there was maybe only two or three businesses left in shasta. We are driving across shasta dam right now, and we are in the middle of what was Shasta Countys copperbelt. On the lake side of the dam, lies the remnants of the town of. Ennett and the mammoth smelter on the other side of the dam near the foot is the old town of quorum and the courtroom smelter. Thae smelter. Coram copper industry. Toave devoted myself now things that are not told and starting to get things out there. Right now we are standing outside the remnants of the co m am smelter. Coram was the third most significant copper town in Shasta County. The belt extended from testify in a horseshoe shaped up from here all the way around to kenneth, bully hill come the town of ingots. There were various copper mines and soldiers that operated in this area from 1895 to as late as 1923. Copper was discovered in Shasta County in the 1880s. So the history of Copper Mining begins in 1895. It was found that the gold and silver was discovered to find to have copper. A mine was developed. , afterthe span of a year that it became the largest Mining Operation in the state. Smelting on sites began in 1896, and the thing that is remarkable about the war on Iron Mountain of 42 s comprised sulfur. And sulfur has a very bad effect on plant life. So the or at Iron Mountain was so soft first they had to process it before they would sell it. And it was don to done done it was done three process called open air smelting. Ore,would take the hundreds of feet long. It would be on top of cords of wood, and it would be ignited. And it would earn for about two months. A San Francisco reporter who visited catholic compared the air as if having a match struck under your nose all the time. The sulfur than would linger around the town and began to drift out in everwhitening circles around the area, and sacramento newspapers received complaints about its effect on local farms and orchards as early as 1897. It was too late at this point because the smelter and the mine had already become so huge that people were loath to shut it down. And orchardfarmers people filed lawsuits to shut it down and they did not have a lot of luck. The company was very adept at deflecting these suits. Thene point they hired incoming dean of agriculture for the university of california to testify on their behalf. For one days fourth of testimony, he received payment equal to one months salary as dean. You would see this sort of thing all over. What got the government interested in the town of catholic was that much of the wood that they use was gathered off public lands illegally. And finally, they filed an injunction and slowly began the prosecute it. But its not have an effect until 1905 or 1906, and finally company,ain copper which owned the plant, agreed to settle for the amount of 20,000. The smelter is mostly dismantled and relocated to martinez, the mine at Iron Mountain operated until 1962. Another copper town sprung up tt. Th of here known as kenne company was being sued by farmers and you tell. Iny agreed to settle and exchange for permission to operate, they agree to curtail their missions by a certain percentage. Unfortunately, this percentage level was still 3000 times the level lethal to plant life. What killed the copper industry in Shasta County was not a Court Injunction or anything like that. It was the market. After the end of world war i, copper prices limited and it cannot make sense to operate. Tt operated at kenne until 1923, but was dismantled three years later, and Copper Mining and smelter and smelting in Shasta County was done. The mind continued to operate. They were seeking other minerals, such as zinc. Iron Mountain Mine operated until 1963, and we still have gold mines operating in Chester County today. Coram8, activity around resumed as this was the terminus for the Conveyor Belt, but largely coram fell silent after that. Tot trees are starting recover. Other areas of Shasta County are not so lucky. The it is 602 feet tall, 883 feet thick, so it is thicker than it is tall. From here when we look at the dam, we get an idea just have how massive shasta dam is. It is like a 60story building standing in front in desk in front of us. Weighing 16 million tons. The secondding at largest concrete dam in the United States. And until 194538 and forever changed california. Central california runs right here all the way down 450 miles to bakersfield. It is about 50 miles wide and it is a big, flat found. We have had some very wet years dust have somet dry years. The wet years, we get 75 of the states precipitation, so all that rainfall or snowmelt would washington without and cause massive flooding. The native americans that lives here prior to us would live by the river and then they would go to Higher Ground and those flood seasons. As the floodwaters were deceived would receive, it would vacate good soil, and after decade, you got a thick layers of good soil and fairly flat, because the water receipt, it tends to level out, and you have this valley with wonderful soil. We have a great climate in california. Reliableng part was a water source, and that is where shasta dam came into place. We send it down, goes into these weals, and gets stored, and are supplemented by these dams that are along the western slope of the sierras and down south along the rivers. That water has turned california to join agricultural takeout megaplace. Is one of the largest Agricultural Producers in the world. This is what comes from the general treasury, appropriated funds, so we are funded by the federal government. It is a federal facility. Power with holy water, so we sell contracts to agriculture, districts and things like that. We have obligations to them. We have obligations for power that we try to beat as well. As those things are sold, that money goes back to the treasury, and we go back to the treasury and say we need this much money to operate shasta dam, so we get some of that back. We generate more money than we need to operate shasta. Topography, they are looking for a big basin, something that would hold a lot of water. A natural valley is important. You want to look at where the water is flowing, and we are situated at shasta where we get 75 of the states precipitation to the north of us. By building it here, theyre providing fund control for reading, the largest city. It still is. And then down the river, all the way to the bay area. So you want to look for an area where the water is, that natural basin. At shasta they found three sites that would be potentially good sites for a dam, and this one was selected as the best cause of the size of the basin and because of its proximity north of reading. So it would provide that control for running as well. This is the lobby to the power plant. In the early days of construction and when the dam was finished, this was open to the public. You would be able to come in here and use this as a Central Place to start visiting shasta dam. Close down. It was we were not allowed to bring the public into this area. Back in 2008, we were able to get open back up to the public for that for the full tour. Retain all the vermont marble that was placed in here. The furniture you see is early 1950s furniture, and we kept it because it is kind of cool to see this stuff and bring you back into the day when the dam was first operational to the public and things like that. It takes you back into the early 1950s kind of place. Like to do ise explain and talk about the construction of shasta dam. Shasta dam was built as in 1938 to 1945, so it was a era project, an opportunity to put people back to work. As they brought them out to Start Building the dam, there were 4700 jobs. A lot of folks coming out here desperate, needing a job, and came out here in hopes of getting one of those jobs. Halfway through the construction, we got involved in what became world war ii, and everything change. We went from being a depressionera coming to being a wartime economy, and everything took a flip. It was about building a water Storage Facility before, during the war it became about power. And result as result of the war, they would need electricity. Anything that produce power was the. This is part of the war effort, so it was given top priority, which meant the guys who worked were deferred from stress. They want to stay here, help their country by building this damp and making sure the power plant operational. When he came here to Start Building, one of the things they had to do with was the railroad. The Southern Pacific Railroad ran right along the western the sacramento through the power plant and continued on. So job one when they came after was to move the train appeared a gulp a tunnel that was 1800 feet long. He started at both ends and work their way toward the middle. Gps,in 1939, there was no there were not think i cap that they could use, so you have two different elevations and they are building a time like this. And they met in a squat about the size of the dinner plate. The photo we have has them shaking hands from one into the other when they broke two. The engineering on that was amazing. What that did was and allowed the train to be detoured around the jobsite. Temporarily because they recognized all of this was going to become shasta lake at one time. They needed to temporarily do toward the train while they started excavation work. As they started blasting, the train was just running right through it. Imagine being a passenger on a train. You would be driving through one of the biggest construction sites in the country at that time. Before they were ready to Start Building the dam, they had the 1940 flood. Flood of 1940 actually downtown redding was completely underwater. Wherehoto graph was taken a couple buildings stand in reading today, but back then it was a wild river. You could imagine all that flooding caused problems at the jobsite. Temporary 1942 july, five short months, they got that all cleaned up and were ready to Start Building the dam itself. The way the process work is they brought gravel and sand in from reading on a Conveyor Belt that had to be built. All that material was brought here to the dam site as long as cement and water from the river. Together at a batch plant at the base of the dam, and that was delivered in eightyard buckets. You get an idea of the size. These buckets were on cables. Elivering contrite concrete as it was delivered, a gentleman with pickup a big compactor and his job was to pack that concrete down, make sure there were no air bubbles. As you look at the concrete, it is a stiff, dry mix. If you end up with a big air pocket, that would end up collapsing in on itself as you put your weight on its appeared this job was incredibly important. Imagine doing that all day long. They would make big bucks. 90 cents an hour. Summer sun, rain, to not matter. Concrete, once it started, it did not stop for 4 1 2 more years, 24 7. They were getting ready to start this the way section. They had built a new permanent home for the train and the use that same tunnel that they had used for the train as a diversion tunnel to move the water through that tunnel so they could dry out this area for the spillway. Block on top of block on top of block. Once they got to hear, they placed the four lower valves. Those valves allowed the richer to take that its natural course, and now they could flood out that tunnel. You might think, why would they do that . They wanted to get the lake full. The superintendent in charge of construction, same guy who built hoover dam, felt the most prudent thing was to filling the lake as they were building it. He knew his stuff. Welllt like that dam was with standing that air. As they were building up the spillway, the water was chasing them. They were able to store up enough water by 1944 to generate power for the first time, which was a year before the dam was completed. As this generator is spinning, it is producing 142 megawatts. That one generator is capable of taking care of 135,000 homes. They will run as needed to deliver the water. Releaseld we need to this much water, they will average that out through a to deliver water when there are expected power demands. A bunch ofelease water in the hot summer afternoon. As a byproduct, but they do try to we have a fully functioning machine shop. This is original, americanmade 1940s equipment used to fixes the parts of the generate that might need repaired. Mightthe generator that repaired. Ory can actually manufacture cool different pieces here as they need to. This is a giant lath so they cane fool a shaft if they need to. Can tool a shaft if they need to. Built, 9dam was Million People living in california. Today we are pushing 40 million. A lot more people, same amount of water. When you adding Global Warming to that of possibly heavier control, we have to deal with possibly less water in different places. All theseill have people that need water to live. I think all those things are going to make facilities like this more report. And how we manage them and manage the supply of water, even more important. It is important for us to remember that agriculture is one of the backbones of california. Even up here in Northern California, where it is mountainous and where the tree does not lend itself to big ag, it lends itself to pockets of agriculture were at a community that is close to agriculture and a community that is close to the land. Welcome to the exploration hall. Shasta county is a temporary exhibition. I have been living in reading for 20 years, and i have known that reading is an agricultural area. Shasta county is an agricultural country. Great photos of agricultural scenes and items, and we thought it is time to do a big exhibition that celebrates the history and practices of agriculture in our area and let people know what is going on. Right now we are standing on this area has been occupied by ofpeoples for thousands years. Before european settlers got populationnative lived in tune with the land and they did not cultivate crops the way we think of growing crops. They didnt cultivate the Natural Environment to their benefits, so they grew best materials on purpose and trim trees back to make sticks for baskets. But their population was the right size for the area. They knew how to exploit the area. This spot was an amazing salmon fishery. Beforeved very well white people got here in 1844, and before that people had been driving cattle through here, but they had not