New Melones Lake

Robinson's Ferry is a historical site in Angels Camp, California in Calaveras County. John W. Robinson and Stephen Mead founded a ferry in 1848. The ferry crossed the river, where New Melones Lake is now. The New Melones Lake Bridge now crosses where the ferry was. The ferry was used to move California Gold Rush miners, their cargo and animals across the river. Harvey Wood purchased the ferry in 1856. The fare to cross was 50 cents for each person or animal crossing. The site of Robinson's Ferry a California Historical Landmark No. 276. A marker is on California State Route 49 near the bridge across New Melones Lake. The historical marker was placed there in 1949 by California Centennial Commission, and the base was built Angels Camp Lions Club. The Marker is 5.6 miles south of Angels Camp and 0.3 miles north of New Melones Lake Reservoir.

The Stevenot Bridge carries State Route 49 over New Melones Lake between Calaveras and Tuolumne Counties in the U.S. state of California and was completed in 1976. It is named after Archie Stevenot, who helped found the California Chamber of Commerce.

Melones (Spanish for "Melons") is a former settlement in Calaveras County, California, now submerged beneath a reservoir named New Melones Lake. It lay at an elevation of 955 feet (291 m). Melones was founded on the site of a ferry operated from 1848 by John W. Robinson and Stephen Mead. The town initially took its name from the ferry.

Angels Creek is a 19-mile (31 km)-long tributary of the Stanislaus River in Calaveras County, California in the United States. It flows generally southwest from Forest Meadows, through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, to join the Stanislaus River in New Melones Lake. The creek takes its name from the historic Gold Rush town of Angels Camp. There are two hydroelectric plants on the creek operated by the Utica Water and Power Authority.

Archie Stevenot (September 25, 1882 – August 1, 1968) was a prominent citizen in Calaveras County, California and Supreme Noble Grand Humbug of E Clampus Vitus. Born in Carson Hill, Stevenot helped found the California Chamber of Commerce and his family established the borax industry in the state. He also established the Mother Lode Highway Association in 1919 which was primarily responsible for the creation of State Route 49. As a result, the bridge across the Stanislaus River between Tuolumne and Calaveras counties on SR 49 is named the Archie Stevenot Bridge in his honor, and his birthplace has been declared a California Historical Landmark No. 769 (also found on SR 49).

Carson Hill (also, Carson Flat and Melones and Slumgullion) is a ghost town in Calaveras County, California. It sits at an elevation of 1447 feet (441 m) above sea level and is located at 38°01′42″N 120°30′24″W, about 4 miles (6.4 km) south-southeast of Angels Camp. It was one of the most productive mining camps in the state, with nearly $26 million in gold and quartz found in the area. Carson Hill is registered as California Historical Landmark #274. The town was served by the Sierra Railway's branchline to Angels Camp until 1935.Unlike most of the places with "Carson" in their names in the American West, Carson Hill is not named after explorer Kit Carson, but instead it is named for Sgt. James H. Carson, a member of Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson's Regiment of First New York Volunteers. He happened to be in Monterey when the California Gold Rush started. Carson first made his way to Weber Creek near Placerville and then moved south with the Angel and Murphy brothers (founders of Angels Camp and Murphys, respectively). After splitting up at what is now Angels Camp, Carson's group headed south and panned at a small tributary of the Stanislaus River, which they found incredibly rich in gold. They named this portion Carson Creek. Carson himself decided to move on to other locations, but was unsuccessful. He returned to Carson Creek, but never really cashed in on the success. He died in 1853 of rheumatism, near poverty. The Morgan Mine was one of the richest mines in the area, so much so that the miners didn't even have to dig. They would simply blow up a vein and collect the pieces. The mine was also where one of the largest nuggets in the state was discovered, a 195-pound troy block of gold that was worth $43,000 at the time. One of the Gold Country's more colorful stories is reported to have occurred here (although several other camps lay claim to a similar tale) during the early days of the rush. The tale goes that a man who had lost his life in a mining accident was being buried in the local cemetery. As the services were being held, one of the mourners noticed something glittering in the newly turned earth of the open grave. The ceremony was forgotten as everyone, the minister included, quickly located a claim. The town's former name was transferred to another place several miles away, Melones, California. The name Carson Hill was also used by the post office in the nearby town of Irvine.

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.

Angels Camp, also known as City of Angels and formerly Angel's Camp, Angels, Angels City, Carson's Creek and Clearlake, is the only incorporated city in Calaveras County, California, United States. The population was 3,836 at the 2010 census, up from 3,004 at the 2000 census. It lies at an elevation of 1378 feet (420 m). Mark Twain based his short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" on a story he claimed to have heard at the Angels Hotel in 1865. The event is commemorated with a Jumping Frog Jubilee each May at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds, just east of the city. Because of this, Angels Camp is sometimes referred to as "Frogtown." The city is California Historical Landmark #287.

The Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, was the hotel where the author Mark Twain heard a story that he would later turn into his short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".The hotel was originally a canvas tent erected by C. C. Lake in 1851, and replaced by a one-story wooden structure. It was rebuilt with stone in 1855, and a second story was added in 1857.In front of the building is the "Frog Hop of Fame", where commemorative plaques are embedded in the sidewalk for the winners of the annual Jumping Frog Jubilee frog jumping contest.The building, no longer operated as a hotel, is registered as California Historical Landmark #734. It was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It is currently an apartment complex.

The Sam Choy Brick Store, Angels Camp, California, is the only building remaining from a large Chinese settlement during the California gold rush. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. After it served as a general store, its owner sold it to Angels Camp for use as a jail. The Sam Choy Brick Store is still owned by the city of Angels Camp.

The Calaveras County Bank is a historic bank building located at 1239 Main St. in Angels Camp, California. The two-story Classical Revival building was built in 1900 and designed by architects E. Depierre and Perseo Righetti of San Francisco. The bank's design features an iron boxed cornice with brackets on each end and stone pilasters on both sides. The second floor has three double-hung sash windows, while the first floor has a picture window flanked by two entrances; all three first floor openings are topped with rounded arches. The interior trim of the bank used a variety of different woods, a rarity in contemporary buildings in the area. The bank was the first to be incorporated in Calaveras County, and the building was the first in the county designed specifically to house a bank; until the 1920s, it was also the only bank operating in the county. In 1930, the Calaveras County Bank merged with the Bank of Italy and moved to a new building. The old bank building housed a meat market from 1937 to 1980 and later held a branch of the Central Sierra Bank.The Calaveras County Bank was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1985.

The Utica Mansion is a historic house located at 1103 Bush St. in Angels Camp, California. Built in 1882, the house was originally a two-story stone building designed in the Federal style. Robert Leeper, then owner of the Utica Mine, built the house next to the Utica Mill. Leeper sold the mine to C. D. Lane in 1884; he sold the house to Lane four years later. Lane and two other investors began to buy up mining claims in Angels Camp, and their enterprise soon became profitable. With his investment earnings, Lane began to expand the Utica Mansion. Lane added a two-story addition to the west and north sides of the house and a veranda on the other two sides. He also improved the interior furnishings by adding new wallpaper and fireplaces with English tiles, repainting the woodwork, adding gold moldings to hanging pictures, and installing Axminster carpets. Lane lived in the house until 1895, when he left to pursue an investment in Alaskan mining.The Utica Mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 31, 1984.