Ghost Town in California Resurfacing

[archaeon]

if any of you Cali folks get a chance to detect this place, it might be a trove!
http://www.ksbw.com/cnn-news/18240409/detail.html

[aa battery]

hmm looks interesting

[ncali_treasurehunter]

JUST LIKE UP HERE WHERE I AM AT IN SHASTA COUNTY. SHASTA LAKE IS DOWN SO LOW THE OLD TOWNS AND MINE SMELTERS ARE COMING OUT OF THE WATER

[aa battery]

wouldn't you know I move from Gilroy, about a 45 minute drive from there and look...

gilroy is a wonderful place

[Curtis]

A Friend told me several years ago that Lake Berressa has a town in it that almost comes out when the water goes down...you can see the roads and buildings that are only a few feet under water! I live in Ohio now but used to swim there back in the late 60's.(Lived in Woodland..Go Wolves!) The logs out close to the dam will eat you up if you swim out to them to climb up on to get a tan (where everyone can see you)...I had scratches all over my arms and belly! haha I had two uncles who helped build the Montecello Dam that backs up Lake Berressa. If lived near there I would GPS the site and try to catch it when the water was way down!

[Tom_in_CA]

Lexington and Alma were hardly "towns" in the sense of the word when we think of "towns". These were just a collection of the homes in the area, with perhaps a cross-roads with a few businesses. Not like a "town" in the sense of laid out block after block of streets, parks, school, banks, etc... At their peak, they had (one source says) "about 200 folks each", but those were not necessarily concurrent (ie.: not a "total of 400 at the same time), as they each had different hey-day time-frames. Even "200" (per town) you have to remember is spread out and includes the colletive population of residents for miles around. I would guess that even today, if you took a slice of the Santa Cruz mountain residential areas (houses that are each far from each other, relatively speaking), you could assemble 200 persons, from a few square miles of what we see now as "residential". I'm sure there was one collective hub with a handful of side-by-side homes to support the hotel, saloons, and other buildings at the namesake cross-roads. If you found that one center where commercial activity, stage stop, etc.. took place, that'd be the place to hit. To just simply wander under the several miles of previous lake bottom, wouldn't put you necessarily on anything historical. Remember that reservoir is 2 miles long!

There was a book written called something like "ghost towns of the Santa Cruz Mountains" (or something to that effect), and they included as "towns" places that were nothing more than a store, a few dozen "residents", and a mail-drop on the store's front porch, etc.... I guess if you get a post office (which anyone could do back in those days by petitioning the post office if you had a collection of a certain amount of neighbors who needed a closer collection spot), and if you had a cross-roads with a namesake, then "presto!" you're a "town"

Back in mission times, locales got the name "village" which were really nothing more than a collection of 7 or 8 neighbors within a mile or so of each other. Same concept with some people's definition of "ghost town". Just because a dot appears on a turn of the century map with a name, doesn't mean "town" in the sense of the way we think of that term today.

Another thing to think about, is that man-made reservoirs are notorious sediment traps. They loose depth over the years d/t sediments that get trapped behind the damn. Of course that would presumably be the deeper portions, closer to the spillways, and perhaps not be an issue further back in the fingers, but something to think of none-the-less. If the "town" is in what has been the bottoms, deeper parts, and closer to the spillways, it's possible that dried up silt will have added who-knows-how-much depth to any targets?

[pegleglooker]

Ok so when are you northern boys ( and girls ) headin up there and scopin it out ? and where are the pixs ??

PLL

[acehunter]

I don't live too far from there, I'll check into it. Thanks. Hopefully it won't be too muddy. Worth a look.

[Ant]

A Friend told me several years ago that Lake Berressa has a town in it that almost comes out when the water goes down...you can see the roads and buildings that are only a few feet under water! I live in Ohio now but used to swim there back in the late 60's.(Lived in Woodland..Go Wolves!) The logs out close to the dam will eat you up if you swim out to them to climb up on to get a tan (where everyone can see you)...I had scratches all over my arms and belly! haha I had two uncles who helped build the Montecello Dam that backs up Lake Berressa. If lived near there I would GPS the site and try to catch it when the water was way down!

Very true, I know about that town too. I hunted that area many times. Well I hunted for deer in that area, over in Pope Valley and Cedar Roughs. All the way up the Knoxville Berryessa Road to Clear Lake, Cache Creek, and Cow Mountain, Indian Valley Reservoir into Mendocino.

HH

[OPUS1]

To far for me but do send pictures if anyone gets out there

[dobbie]

A Friend told me several years ago that Lake Berressa has a town in it that almost comes out when the water goes down...you can see the roads and buildings that are only a few feet under water! I live in Ohio now but used to swim there back in the late 60's.(Lived in Woodland..Go Wolves!) The logs out close to the dam will eat you up if you swim out to them to climb up on to get a tan (where everyone can see you)...I had scratches all over my arms and belly! haha I had two uncles who helped build the Montecello Dam that backs up Lake Berressa. If lived near there I would GPS the site and try to catch it when the water was way down!

You are correct..There is actually an old ranch that sits at the bottom of the lake. My Great Grandfather's family owned it. It is where he and his siblings grew up. They came from Canada and settled there.Then the dam was built and the ranch moved. There are still descendents of the owners of the ranch still living in the surrounding areas today. Myself being one of them. What I would give for a chance to detect there and try to recover some of my families possessions.

[Detectingfreak]

I don't live in california but that would be an awesome place to hunt! Good luck to all the californians who hunt it!

[tapoutking]

I'm waiting for Lake Isabella to dry up.