Tulloch Dam

Lake Tulloch, located in Copperopolis, California, is one of the few lakes in California that has private shoreline houses. At roughly 504 feet (154 m) in elevation the lake covers 1,260 acres (510 ha). Lake Tulloch provides water needs to downstream users and hydroelectricity to users throughout the state.

Black Creek is a tributary of the Stanislaus River in Calaveras County, California, flowing about 13 miles (21 km) in a southerly direction through the Sierra Nevada foothills. Originating near Carmen Peak, it joins the Stanislaus River in Tulloch Lake, near Copperopolis.

The Byrne's Ferry bridge was a historic cantilevered covered bridge across the Stanislaus River between Calaveras County and Tuolumne County, California. Originally built during the California Gold Rush, the bridge was located on the O'Byrne's Ferry road between Chinese Camp and Copperopolis. Until the mid-20th century, it was one of the last remaining covered bridges in the state; the bridge was destroyed in 1957 (after an unsuccessful attempt to move it) to make way for the construction of Tulloch Dam.

Sierra Conservation Center (SCC) is a 420-acre (170 ha) state prison located in Tuolumne County, California, near the unincorporated community of Jamestown. Programs offered to prisoners include education, firefighting training, and sewing. As of July 31, 2022, SCC was incarcerating people at 65.9% of its design capacity, with 2,528 occupants.

Knights Ferry is an unincorporated historic community in Stanislaus County, California, United States. Nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, it is about 30 miles (48 km) east of Modesto on the Stanislaus River. The Willms' Ranch near the town, was one of many filming locations for the television series Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie.Knights Ferry is home to the Knights Ferry Bridge, the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi River at 330 feet (100 m) in length. It is also home to a K-8 elementary school and a museum about the history of the town and also about local wildlife. The town's ruins include a mill and a jail.

The Abraham Schell House is a historic two-story house located in Knights Ferry, California. It was first built out of sandstone in 1856 for Abraham and Catherine Schell, owners of the Rancho del Río Estanislao.

The Copperopolis Armory is a Civil War armory located at 695 Main St. in Copperopolis, California. The brick Greek Revival building was constructed in 1864 to house the Union Guard of Copperopolis, the town's regiment of the Union Army. Copperopolis largely owed its existence to the war; the town grew due to a boom in local copper mining in 1860, which stemmed from the Union Army's need for copper ammunition. The armory served a variety of purposes for the Union Guard; at the building, new soldiers were enlisted, training was conducted, and arms and supplies were stored. Military balls, victory celebrations, and the local funeral ceremonies for Abraham Lincoln also took place in the armory. The armory also held an 1837 bronze cannon, which was used for ceremonial purposes and arms training; the cannon remains in the building and is one of the few American bronze cannons from the era in California. After the war, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows bought the building, which they converted to a social hall. In 1940, the armory became a community center.The armory was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1997.

Reed's Store is a historic building located at 679 Main St. in Copperopolis, California. William K. Reed, a miner and one of the first discoverers of copper in Copperopolis, built the store in 1861 to serve the growing mining town. The two-story brick store was designed in the Neoclassical style, a common design for commercial establishments at the time. Reed's Store was the most successful store in Copperopolis until 1867, when a fire and the declining copper industry greatly diminished the town's population. Various lessees rented the store until mine owner Charles Ames bought it in 1890; Ames sold the store to merchant Charles Fontana by 1900. In 1906, the store became the property of the Union Copper Mining Company, which made the building its headquarters. The company, later renamed the Calaveras Copper Mining Company, occupied the building throughout the town's 1909–1929 copper boom. The store is now one of four buildings remaining from the 1860s in Calaveras; it is adjacent to two others, the Copperopolis Armory and the Honigsberger Store.Reed's Store was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 2, 1992.

The Honigsberger Store is a historic building located at 665 Main St. in Copperopolis, California. Businessman L. Honigsberger built the store in 1865, replacing the original store he built in 1861. The brick building was designed in the Neoclassical style. The store served Copperopolis during its first copper boom in the 1860s; however, an 1867 fire and declining copper production caused Copperopolis to lose most of its population and severely diminished the store's business. In 1905, the Honigsberger family sold the store to the Union Copper Mining Company, which became the Calaveras Copper Mining Company four years later. The company used the store as a warehouse during another copper boom in Copperopolis from 1909 to 1929. The store is one of only four extant buildings from Copperopolis' first copper boom in the 1860s.The Honigsberger Store was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 2, 1992.

New Melones Dam is an earth and rock filled embankment dam on the Stanislaus River, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Jamestown, California, United States, on the border of Calaveras County and Tuolumne County. The water impounded by the 625-foot-tall (191 m) dam forms New Melones Lake, California's fourth-largest reservoir, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada east of the San Joaquin Valley. The dam serves mainly for irrigation water supply, and also provides hydropower generation, flood control, and recreation benefits. The dam was authorized in 1944 as a unit of the federal Central Valley Project, a system designed to provide irrigation water to the fertile agricultural region of the Central Valley. It would be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and transferred to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) upon completion. In 1966, work began to clear the foundations for a high dam that would replace an earlier, much smaller structure built by two irrigation districts. Construction of the main embankment began in 1976, and was topped out in late 1978. The filling of New Melones Lake began in 1978, and the dam's hydroelectric station produced its first power in mid-1979. New Melones was the focus of a long environmental battle during the 1970s and early 1980s; critics protested the flooding of a long scenic stretch of the Stanislaus River, which flowed over whitewater rapids through the deepest limestone canyon in the western United States. The protestors employed a variety of methods, some extreme, to prevent the filling of New Melones Lake until 1983, when record-setting floods filled the reservoir and nearly breached the dam's emergency spillway. The fight over New Melones galvanized the river conservation movement in California and influenced major water policy changes on the state and federal levels; since its completion, no other dams of its size or importance have been built in the United States.The New Melones project has continued to generate controversy, due to the water yield from the project being lower than expected, and the use of New Melones water to meet federal environmental standards at the expense of farming. The reservoir is considered "over-allocated"; in an average year, it is unable to meet all the demands placed on it. The debate over water rights continues today, with environmentalists seeking to further increase fishery flows, and the Stanislaus irrigation districts asserting their senior rights to the river.

Copperopolis Congregational Church (also known as Copperopolis Community Center) is a historic church building at 411 Main Street in Copperopolis, California. The church was built in 1866 and designed in the Gothic Revival style; it is the only Gothic Revival building remaining in Copperopolis and one of two in Calaveras County. The brick church features a Gothic arch entrance and windows, a gable roof, and a bell tower. The church held Congregational services until it was leased to the Presbyterian Church; it became a Congregational church again in 1874 and remained so until 1895. In 1903, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows bought the church and converted it to a lodge hall. The Odd Fellows owned the church until 1939, when it became a community center.The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1997.

Copperopolis is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Calaveras County, California, United States. The population was 3,671 at the 2010 census, up from 2,363 at the 2000 census. The town is located along State Route 4 and is registered as California Historical Landmark #296.