Remington Hill, California

California

A man who helped build the ditches here made a million dollars, lost every cent, and died in the poorhouse.

historicalpeopleengineering

John Timmons helped build the ditches that fed the mines on Chalk Bluff Ridge. Water came sixteen miles from Steep Hollow Creek, through a channel dug over three years in the middle of the eighteen fifties. It made him a millionaire. He lost all of it, and he died in the poorhouse. The camp he worked in was named for another man, Caleb Remington. Remington owned mines and mills, dabbled in politics, and ran for county sheriff in eighteen fifty four. He lost that too. He spent most of his life in the neighboring camp of Little York, and died there in eighteen sixty five. The hill itself sat on gold bearing gravel. Miners blasted it apart with water, and by the end they had washed away something like one and three quarter million cubic yards of it. Big nuggets turned up here, and boulders with gold running through them. Today nothing of the town is left.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
John Timmons, one of the builders of the Remington Hill and South Yuba ditches, who became a millionaire, lost it all and died in the poorhouse

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nearby, on the same roads

  • Maybert, California 7.2 mi To get rid of squatters, the Forest Service burned the last cabins of Maybert to the ground.
  • Little York, California 7.2 mi The town's name was decided by a vote of miners, and the New Yorkers beat out the men who wanted to call it St. Louis.
  • Rollins Dam 13 mi The groundbreaking ceremony for Rollins Dam was the demolition of a railroad trestle that had carried three hundred million dollars in gold and silver.
  • Sugar Bowl Ski Resort 24.6 mi Goofy's famous holler started as an Austrian ski champion's yodel on these slopes.
  • Middle Fork American River 28.3 mi Rafters on the Middle Fork shoot through a tunnel that gold miners blasted through solid rock in the eighteen fifties.
  • Donner Memorial State Park 29.7 mi The pedestal under the pioneer statue at Donner is twenty-two feet tall because that was the depth of the snow.