History of Tahoe National Forest: 1840-1940 A Cultural Resources Overview History

National Register forms held at the State Historic Preservation Office in Sacramento indicate that there are approximately twenty historic sites listed, one determined eligible, and three pending in Nevada, Placer, and Sierra counties. Of these the vast majority are located in the most densely populated settlements of the region — Auburn, Roseville, Nevada City, Grass Valley, Lake Tahoe, and the Truckee vicinity. Only eight of the twenty-four sites are located within the administrative boundaries of the Tahoe National Forest: two are related to transportation, two to mining, three to water development, and one to recreational history.

It has been difficult to make meaningful judgments about the Tahoe National Forest's cultural resources' significance in American history largely because of the problems related to defining just what constitutes a historic property. Most of the land under Forest Service jurisdiction has always been in the public domain. Few impressive architectural structures in private ownership have been constructed on the Forest, the size of existing settlements seem insignificant in modern times, and the 160 acre farming and ranching homestead sites are commonplace, as are the mining and logging sites of the region. Nevertheless, humble buildings that are an integral part of the Sierra landscape are important markers of basic cultural processes. Many of the historic properties remain that evoke a sense of the mountain agricultural, logging, and mining frontier heritage:

Buildings: farmhouse, ranches, ditch tender's cabins, wayside inns, general stores and saloons, fire lookout towers, cabins, bunkhouses, cookhouse, and CCC campsites.

Districts: mining towns, mountain resort complexes, railroad communities, logging towns.

Structures: bridges, ditches and canals, dams, mines, flumes, logging railroads, mills, tramways, chutes, snowsheds, and other engineering achievements.

Objects: industrial machinery for the mining, logging, farming, ice industry; boats, trains, Basque tree carvings.

Sites: early mining camps and town sites, sites associated with emigrant travel, sawmill and logging camp sites, ranching camp sites.

While perhaps few of the properties or sites associated with these historical activities would currently be determined eligible for listing on the National Register, it is important to keep in mind the Register is very incomplete and evaluation criteria has undergone subtle changes. Fresh scholarly research constantly sheds new light on categories and properties which were earlier thought to be insignficant and there will always be properties which future surveys will "discover" as significant. In recent years the focus of historical inquiry has shifted clearly to increasing concerns over the lives of ordinary people. A similar broadening of the social perspectives of preservationists can redirect concerns and attentions more and more to the dwellings and structures of everyday life. Industrial archeology has become an increasingly popular concern among scholars. Folk architecture, farm and community layouts and planning are features of the cultural landscape that increasingly engage cultural geographers, architectural historians, and historic preservationists.

Evaluations of historical resources for National Register eligibility regularly takes place on the National Forest without attempts at formal listing. This occurs when a potentially eligible property or site might be adversely affected by a federal project such as a timber sale highway or access road construction, water developments, or recreational site development. In such cases, the geographical extent of the cultural resources survey is defined and limited by the project boundaries. This approach to resources management poses some special problems. Sometimes vast geographical areas must be covered in a limited amount of time. Protection of resources lying outside the project boundaries suffer from lack of any sense of urgency to do something about managing the historic resource, even though its existence is acknowledged.

This situation compounds one of the most difficult and important aspects of defining the significance of historical properties — the problem of establishing site boundaries. Sometimes many components must be evaluated to properly establish a property's significance. Consider, for example, an early mining settlement. The mine itself probably does not give significance to the area, but must be evaluated in association with mining structures, milling and transportation improvements, water developments, worker's habitations and outbuildings, and other physical aspects of the mining settlement. Clearly, all of these properties have a provable historic association to the mining site and considered as a whole, have a much greater significance in terms of yielding information about the historical patterns and processes of local and regional development.

In the case of hydraulic mining and its associated water developments, the resource base may be scattered so widely that they do not constitute an identifiable whole that could be included in a historic district. Other existing historic resources on the National Forest have similar qualities — consider, for instance, logging operations and emigrant trail or road related properties.

There are two seldom-used provisions for managing and preserving such resources under National Register guidelines. Multiple Resource Nominations (MRN) allow associated properties not constituting a district, to be evaluated individually and included for evaluation and listing under one nomination cover. This approach can expedite the conduct of surveys of large areas, avoids duplication of effort, and can help strengthen nominations by establishing the relationship among all the properties being evaluated for listing. This format may prove extremely helpful in establishing a historical context for evaluating properties of local and regional significance (Interim Guidelines, How to Complete National Register Multiple Resource Nominations, n.d.).

A second format, the Thematic Resource Nomination (TRN), has special potential for application to resources existing within the Tahoe National Forest. Under the TRN criteria, the existing resources must be clearly defined by geography and specific theme. Successful TRN nominations include such properties as: Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Los Angeles, resort hotel complexes in Maine, or the Santa Fe Trail in Kansas. Portions of the Oregon Trail possessing historical integrity have also been preserved over an area covering several states by the application of this Nomination format (Interim Guidelines, How to Complete National Register Thematic Resource Nominations, n.d.).

The difference between a MRN and a TRN is that the latter results from studying a particular category or class of historic resources rather than all the resources within a given geographic boundary. The TRN must consist of a finite group of resources related to each other in a distinguishable way. It focuses on a historical theme, rather than a particular resource and provides an organizing principle to identify all eligible properties spread throughout a broad area. The area chosen is dictated by choice of theme and there appears to be no prohibition in terms of identifying an administrative unit as an appropriate geographic base. Thus, under this format, it may be possible to nominate "hydraulic mining dams in the Tahoe National Forest" or "Emigrant Trail sites in the Tahoe National Forest" to the National Register.

There are also some specific sites that might be considered for nomination to the National Register that are now known to exist on the Forest. Bowman Dam, originally an early hydraulic mining dam, was in the 1920s, adapted for use by irrigationists and hydroelectric power interests; it merits further study as a significant historic site. The ditch tenders' cabins described in Tahoe National Forest Archeological Site Forms are significant in their association with early hydraulic mining systems. Apparently an old cabin as well as a more modern two-story structure exists on one site (TNF Archeological Site Form 05-17-55-81). The Buckeye Hill hydraulic diggings (T16N/R10E MOM) is the site where Antoine Chabot first tested his pioneering hydraulicking device. The Henness Pass Road or associated artifacts and sites would seem to merit careful consideration as an important trans-Sierra supply route. Apparently some of the buildings associated with the stage stop and resort at Webber Lake are still standing (TNF Archeological Site Form 05-17-56-12). "The Flats" area of San Juan Ridge has special significance not only for the number of mining towns and camps that once dotted the area, but also because of its location as the great channel through which all of the great hydraulic mining ditches of the San Juan Ridge ran. Here companies switched water from one ditch to another to distribute water where needed. Of course, deserted mining towns that have some of their historic integrity deserve special attention as suggested in several places above. The Banner Mountain fire lookout, the first in the California Region, has special significance to regional forestry history.

Difficult problems in effective historic preservation efforts and cultural resources management on the Forest must address complex and multifaceted issues. Studies such as those outlined in Chapter VII.1 must be conducted on an on-going basis, perhaps in cooperation with interested local citizens or historical organizations. There is a great need to make documentation broader, more systematic, and more retrievable.

Archeological Site Forms on file in the Forest demonstrate clearly that a great percentage of the cultural sites found on the forest have been remains from the historical period. In most cases, the forms only describe resources at the site, no effort has been made to adequately consider their potential significance in the context of national, state, or local historical themes or processes. To our knowledge, no professional historian has ever been employed in the Tahoe National Forest's cultural resources unit. Perhaps the best method to improve overall management practices related to protecting the historical resources would be simply to fill the next available vacancy with a historian trained in California history and with experience in cultural resource studies. Such an addition would bring insights of the historical profession to the day-to-day decisions that affect the resource base, assure that historic preservation values are considered in the planning stages of projects, and improve record collection and management practices.