This book tells the history of Nevada City, California, through the eyes of the men that built it. For its first 100 years, everything in Nevada City revolved around gold. But this is not another book about finding gold. To get gold, you needed water — to pan for it, to wash it in a sluice, to blast away a hillside with an immense water cannon, or to turn the water wheel of a quartz-ore stamp mill. This book instead asks: How did they get the water? It reveals the engineering marvels that brought water to Nevada City’s dry hills from tens of miles away. But what if all the water in every ravine, creek and valley around Nevada City was controlled by just three men? Well, for three decades, every miner, farmer or business could only buy water from the powerful South Yuba Canal Company. What would happen if you got into an argument with them? Or couldn’t afford to pay their water bill? Or even dared to compete with them? The book traces the ingenuity and hard work of the town’s miners and ditch builders, highlighting in detail the history and origins of various local neighborhoods, including Nevada City itself, Hirschman's Pond, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Deer Creek, Scotts Flat, Manzanita Diggings, Gold Flat and various mining camps along Washington Ridge. This vivid portrayal follows the area’s evolution from the chaos of thousands of miners scratching out a living in clusters of muddy tents to a genteel town with hotels, stores, banks, theaters and libraries. What began as a search to uncover a sprawling network of old ditches, turned into a collection of never-before-told stories of the gold miners, the ruthless and greedy ditch company, and the rivals that it crushed. The domineering ditch company later enabled the next generation of monopoly to provide electrical power. The story of PG&E also started in Nevada City. This, in turn, led to the now more forward-looking stewardship of the Nevada Irrigation District. The unique format of this book blends beautiful archival images with more than 35 in-depth biographies of key figures in Nevada City. This 884 page hardcover book includes over 600 photos and illustrations, including 200 historic photographs and 75 hand-crafted maps based on modern lidar technology that reveal the locations of the old mining ditches, flumes, mines and tunnels.

History of the gold mining camp at Nevada City from 1849 to 1859. Map (fold.) at rear endpaper.

Nevada County was the richest and largest gold-producing county of California. From the beginning of the 1849 Gold Rush until the last quartz mine closed in the 1956, gold was the number-one industry in Nevada County. Not everyone came to California for the gold--some came for the rich and plentiful land available and the opportunity for a better life. After the Gold Rush was deemed over by historians, it was the fertile land of California that became known as the state's Second Gold Rush. Of the 10 soil types found around the world, California has all 10. Producing farms and ranches, small and large, made agriculture Nevada County's third-largest industry after gold mining and the lumber. But of the three important industries, only agriculture has survived and is thriving today. Many of the pioneer, multigenerational ranches and farms continue to operate today on the land their owners' ancestors worked. These ranches have a rich history of contributing to the economic community as well as conserving the land for future generations.