THE DUTCH HILL DITCH
In the early 1870s a gold mining operation on a slope well above the settlement at Seneca undertook an audacious plan to import large quantities of water, sufficient to allow hydraulic mining and processing at the "dry" site. Surveyors determined that the only feasible water source was located a long distance away, basically in the shadow of Mt. Lassen. And thus began a major effort to bring water along a route that included tunnels, hand-dug ditches and locally fabricated metal pipe. The 33 mile route, shown below, was completed in 1874 in one construction season. It provided water to the Dutch Hill Mine complex for about a decade before the practice of hydraulic mining was ended by legislation and court action.
A century and a half later, the project is all but forgotten. Few records exist and virtually everyone with first hand knowledge of it are now gone. But faint traces of the ditch can still be found if you know where to look. In an effort to preserve what information exists, an informal briefing package and illustrated paper on the subject were prepared by the author and donated to the Chester Museum.
(Below: A well-preserved section of the Dutch Hill Ditch above Butt Lake.)
