even used “dry” if the slope was steep enough and frequently greased with butter or animal fat which in many locations was cheaper and more available than wagon grease. That said, all the Incline area flumes were fed with stream or lake water. To supply the new sawmill at the foot of the newly built Incline Railway, a narrow gauge railway was built to haul logs from Sand Harbor in the south after the original line to the north along the water to the area near the current Burnt Cedar Beach proved unsuitable. A spur line running a quarter mile inland from the beach was built to intersect with short V-flumes bringing timber down from logging operations on both Third and Incline Creeks in the general area where the route 431 traffic circle is now located. Incline Flume, originally known as The North Flume, was a box flume and was constructed by the water company immediately after the tunnel was opened to provide even more water than the Marlette Flume could supply. It ran from Third Creek just north of the current Mount Rose Highway near the location of the unrelated, and now dry Incline Lake down the mountain pulling water from several streams as it went including First, Second, Mill, Tunnel and Incline Creeks. It crossed present SR431 from north to south where the large parking area exists today just above the lookout. There’s a small parking area on the south side of the highway where the flume continued in a semicircular path following the terrain slowly descending the Incline Creek valley until reaching the Bull Wheel location. That flume and the trail that rests on its path takes about 9 surface miles to cover the 4.5 mile distance as the crow flies and drops approximately 6 feet every mile. The Marlette Lake Flume was constructed by the water company after it purchased the original dam there in 1876. They raised the height of the dam and built a flume that ran down towards their new tunnel which was still under construction. The Marlette Flume was initially planned to intersect the new tunnel as much as 200 feet higher than it eventually did. Is it possible Hobart, et. al. convinced the water company directors that lowering the tunnel level to accommodate a log V-flume as well would be a win-win? History seems to say Yes. Even today there is still evidence on one or both ends of the rock above the as-built tunnel openings that work may have started at a much higher level before being shifted downwards to the final level. By 1894 or so, most of the timber on the west side of the Carson Range had been logged off as it had been 20 years earlier on the east side, and Hobart, Seneca and Overton closed
down the business in Incline and moved operations to an area just north of present day Truckee where they had purchased considerable virgin forest land. The railroad, sawmill and many of the employees moved. The land around Lake Tahoe began to return to nature, albeit largely without trees — it was a virtual moonscape for many years to come. The flumes ceased to operate except from Marlette Lake and through the tunnel which continued to supply water to Virginia City and to the State Capitol in Carson City which, I add in conclusion, it still does to this day albeit with steel piping instead of box flumes.
Richard Miner PAST PRESIDENT, INCLINE VILLAGE & CRYSTAL BAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY COPIES OF MAP ABOVE AND OTHER MAPS FOR PURCHASE: KEITH PATTISON KEITHPAT789@GMAIL.COM.
IVCBA.ORG
|
31
|
LIVE.WORK.PLAY.
